CHAPTER VI 



DOG BKEEDING 



If your puppy is a bitch, she will come into her 

 first season along about the ninth, or even eighth, 

 month. It is well to pass this season and the next 

 one, six months later, without breeding her, for 

 her body is nowhere near fully developed and good 

 stock is not produced from immature cells. But 

 at a year and a half you can make up your mind 

 not to deny her, and the problem of what dog to 

 breed to at once comes up. Plain arithmetic 

 would say that half of each parent will be repre- 

 sented in the pups, one-quarter of each of the 

 grandparents, and so on. But, precisely as in hu- 

 man kind, the resulting pups of the union follow 

 no such law, but are quite as likely to throw back 

 to grandparents or even great-grandparents in 

 individual traits and markings as to take after 

 father or mother. One thing is certain, however : 

 the family traits on both sides will be reproduced 

 in all the puppies, so that if your bitch errs in 

 having too short a muzzle or too long a back, mate 



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