Breeding Seppalas

THERE ARE A LOT OF BOOKS on dog breeding out there, so why would we need a section of this website to deal with breeding? If some of you think that you would like to help preserve the true Leonhard Seppala sleddog with us, then certainly we need this section because there's a hair-raising amount of misinformation in some (if not almost all) of those books, stuff that will quickly land you in trouble if you try to apply it to breeding Seppala Siberian Sleddogs. Perhaps you need a good book on canine reproduction (Canine Reproduction: A Breeder's Guide, by Phyllis A. Holst, MS, DVM - 1985, Alpine Publications, Loveland, CO, is better than most) to help with the physical side of things,but all those books by show breeders and people like Dr. Malcolm Willis, the on "breeding for success" or "breeding to win" are best left strictly alone. Their advice applies to Siberian Huskies and similar show dogs but would be disastrous for Seppalas (also for the show dogs)! Browse around this section of the website and find out why. Then there are the books for racers, like Joe Runyan's Winning Strategies for Long Distance Mushers, that advise you to "think of yourself as a farmer" and reconcile yourself to breeding ten litters a year and killing three-quarters or more of the "washouts" as you claw your way to his version of "success"! (Shudder.) Yes, we need our own take on breeding Seppala Siberian Sleddogs, so here it is. There aren't a lot of nice pictures in this section, I'm afraid, because this is supposed to be educational! But it's written in a chatty breeder-to-breeder style and should be easy to assimilate. And there is information in these pages that you might not find easily anywhere else.

THERE ARE LINKS BETWEEN TOPICS here and there in the text. Take the topics in order or skip around, it won't matter. If you hit something unfamiliar, it is probably explained elsewhere; look for a link. The following topic links open in a new tab or window.

 

 

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