“No good stud dogs out there.”
How often have we all heard that — and/or said it?!
It is time to stop. It is both rude and inaccurate.
What we really mean is that there are no PERFECT stud dogs out there.
We should be glad about that because I suspect the owner of a perfect stud dog might well only make him available to perfect bitches, and that leaves all of us out in the cold (and the perfect stud dog rather lonely).
It has been a year and a day since Terri Zimmerman left us. Her death has impacted so many of us in so many ways. One very tangible thing that Terri’s death did for me was to make me a stud dog owner — that reality landed on me with a thud when I saw this picture on her daughter’s Facebook page this morning.
Yes indeed, as the breeder of her dog, I inherited Zed’s frozen semen. I am now officially the sole owner of a stud dog — albeit a frozen one.
Huh.
I didn’t see any of that coming. Not her death. Not the mantle of “Stud Dog Owner.”
Zed was like your dogs and the rest of my dogs — imperfect. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a good stud dog. Watch what you say about my/Terri’s dog — Zed has friends in high places, you know!
Breeding dogs is not about finding perfection in the parents — it is about dreaming of perfection in the whelping box. The hope is for Synergy — that combination of two things when it is magical and makes something more — like 1 + 1 = 10 and not just 2.
There are plenty of good stud dogs out there — ones that will let us dream our dreams of Perfection. Maybe it is not Zed for your girl or your dog for Sparkle — but each boy will run in the field of dreams for someone.
My Take Home Message:
Let’s not be dissing stud dogs (and insulting their owners) because the ingredients for our dreams aren’t easy or obvious. Creating life should be hard and it should require a lot of thought.
The only dreams that are easy to achieve are the ones that happen in our sleep. Ponder that one, if you would.