WHY USE FROZEN SEMEN?
•More pups per litter
•Ability to breed when a dog is not available or deceased
•Ability to breed to foreign sire without transporting a dog or a female
•No risk of infections transmitted when mating naturally
•Less stress for the sire
•Ability to breed to any female and male when natural mating is not possible
•Ability to export semen worldwide
What is so different about frozen semen?
The big question asked by any breeder going for a surgical implant is “What will I benefit from letting my bitch undergo a surgery?”
This works for both ends: breeder’s end and stud keeper’s or stud owner’s end. Clearly long term storage is the biggest benefit. From carbon decay studies, it appears that dog semen may be stored in liquid nitrogen for virtually thousands of years without loss of viability after thawing.
The ability to breed to a stud when he is not available. If a stud is heavily booked for breeding, or out on the show or in training, breeding is not recommended. Frozen semen will ensure his breeding potential for future generations, even in the event of a catastrophic disease, unexpected sterility, or death. Frozen semen allows you an alternate breeding option, making your stud accessible at all times.
It is possible to increase the marketability of a dog in areas of the country where he will never travel by shipping frozen semen there instead. For example, we have already exported semen of one particular dog, frozen in our lab to three different countries. There is a market for him in one of the countries but a shrewd breeder secured a monopoly for himself.
The ability to breed several bitches on the same day in different places.
Frozen semen breedings eliminate the need to transport bitches to the stud dog. Thus diminishing transportation risks to the bitch, boarding costs, and stress on the bitch which could alter her ability to conceive.
Frozen semen breedings ensure that a stud will not contract an infection from the bitch. Brucella canis, herpes virus, mycoplasma, and other bacterial infections could be devastating to a breeding operation: the stud dog can get an infection that might result in sterility in the future and he will be out for at least a month straight after it. A female can contract a herpes virus from a dog (dogs usually show no signs of this infection) but it might jeopardise her chances to retain the pregnancy (the females with an active herpes vyrus tend to conceive but then to reabsorb the pups after 6 weeks).
The ability to perform long distance or international breeding is another added benefit of frozen semen.