How to choose a stud dog

There is no shortage of handsome dogs at stud. The job is separating the dog that looks right from the dog whose register, health results, temperament and terms actually fit your bitch and your plans. Work through this in order — it is arranged so the questions that disqualify a dog fastest come first.

1. Start with the register, not the dog

Before fees, before photographs: is he on the Royal Kennel Club Breed Register? A Royal Kennel Club number on its own is not enough. The Activity Register issues genuine Royal Kennel Club numbers to any dog, crossbreeds included, and it is not a pedigree record. Ask which register, and ask to see the certificate — the Royal Kennel Club publishes no registration numbers anywhere, so the certificate is the only evidence of the number there is.

Every stud dog on Breed Right has already cleared this hurdle. Elsewhere, ask. The full explanation is in Breed Register or Activity Register?

2. Read the breed’s test panel before you read his results

Health testing is breed-specific, and the gap between breeds is enormous. On Royal Kennel Club records, a Labrador Retriever’s DNA panel runs to seven conditions (CNM, EIC, HNPK, MCD, prcd-PRA, SD2 and STGD); a Border Terrier’s lists one (SLEM). A dog with a fat folder of certificates for the wrong conditions has told you nothing.

So look up what matters for your breed first, then ask the stud owner for certificates covering that panel. Each breed page on Breed Right lists the tests we have published for that breed, and says where the panel came from.

3. Read the numbers the way the schemes do

Three numbers get quoted constantly and misread almost as often.

• Hips. Under the BVA/KC scheme each hip is scored separately from 0 to 53, and the two are added for a total from 0 to 106. Lower is better, the minimum age for scoring is one year, and the comparison that means anything is against the dog’s own breed rather than against another breed.
• Elbows. Graded 0 to 3, and — this is the part people miss — the higher of the two elbows becomes the dog’s grade. A dog with a 0 and a 2 is a grade 2 dog.
• DNA. Results are recorded as Clear, Carrier, Affected or Hereditary Clear. Hereditary Clear is inferred from the parents, not tested — the Royal Kennel Club recommends retesting breeding dogs every two generations. See Hereditary Clear explained.

Hip and elbow scores explained and health testing explained walk through each in full.

4. Treat missing records carefully — in both directions

The Royal Kennel Club states on its own records that they may not include all the health screening a dog’s owners have had done. So a dog with nothing showing publicly is not necessarily an untested dog — plenty of results are done privately or abroad and never appear.

The reverse is just as true: “he’s fully health tested” in an advert is a sentence, not a certificate. The certificate, in the dog’s registered name, settles it either way.

5. Ask about the pairing, not just the dog

A stud can be an excellent dog and a poor match for your bitch. The coefficient of inbreeding that matters is the one for the planned litter, not the one printed against either parent. Ask what the pairing would produce and how that compares with the breed average — the Royal Kennel Club publishes both a dog’s own figure and the breed average on its public records.

Read what a coefficient of inbreeding actually tells you before you take a number at face value — particularly the part about how many generations the calculation had to work with.

6. Meet the dog

No certificate covers temperament, and temperament is what your puppy buyers will live with. See him. Ask what he is like in the house, around other dogs, around strangers. If he is proven, ask to speak to someone who has a puppy by him — an owner two years in will tell you things no advert will.

Ask the practical questions too: is he proven, how many litters, does the owner offer natural mating only or also chilled or frozen semen, will he travel or must the bitch come to him. Every one of those is on a Breed Right listing where the owner has given it — but confirm it in conversation rather than assuming.

7. Get the terms in writing, before the mating

Almost every stud dispute traces back to the same mistake: two reasonable people who each assumed the “usual” arrangement, and had different usuals in mind. There is no standard contract. Conventions exist; nothing is standard unless it is written down.

Put all of this on one dated agreement, signed by both of you, before the mating — the stud contract template has it ready to print:

• The fee, and when it is payable — at the mating, on confirmation of pregnancy, or on live puppies. All three arrangements are in common use and none of them goes without saying.
• What happens if there are no puppies. Many stud owners offer a free return mating. Many is not all, and “free return” needs defining: to the same bitch? Within what period?
• Pick of the litter, if it is mentioned at all. Which pick — first choice of the whole litter, or of one sex? Chosen when, and going home at what age? What happens if there is only one puppy? Is the pick instead of the fee or as well as it? An undefined pick of litter is the most reliable way there is to fall out with someone you like.
• The paperwork. Agree that the stud owner will do their part in registering the litter, and when. Take copies of his registration certificate and health certificates at the time of the mating rather than chasing them with puppies on the ground.

This is general information about arrangements that are common in UK dog breeding, not legal advice. For anything beyond a routine agreement, take proper advice.

The questions, on one screen

Take this list to the visit.

And then check the paperwork against the dog

One last habit worth having: read the certificate and the dog at the same time. Registered name, date of birth, sex and breed should all agree with what you have been told and with what you are looking at. That single comparison is the whole of what a verification check is — and it is available to you, for free, standing in someone’s kitchen.