$2900 for a pit bull pup?!?!?

BTW, Did you see "Sinjin"?? Red and white? thats the #1 amstaff in the country now, he lives an hour away from me. He's an OKIE!!!

 

I'm currently watching a female pup grow and praying for her bite to stay perfect (a baby tooth that won't let go can cause problems with bite and that can ruin a dog's chances in a show ring in nothing flat...) along with her size...she's smaller and still young so I'm praying she's just like her mom and sister in slow growing... She's not TOOO small but still on the smaller side... As a 3 month old pup she did beat her bigger sibling in the puppy bitch show so I have hope that judges can overlook size to some extent... she's put together great with a good head and bone and all that... But...it's a crap shoot and she's out of two international champions... Rare breeds are harder because judges often know nothing about them...but I watched my friend get a puppy Standard Poodle...train him and have nothing but high hopes for him...even the trainer insisted he could go all the way (or close to it) a baby tooth ruined his bite and one testicle didn't drop...the latter could have been prevented in a more researched breeding... Luckily the dog was co-owned so she didn't suffer a huge loss as she could have been out $1200 without a dog to show for it (no pun intended)...

I haven't seen the champion Staff yet...I'll have to take a look though... I'm not a fan of Am Staff's though...if I were interrested in an AKC breed I'd get into the Bull terrier or the Staffy Bull... CUTIES!

 

Thanks Max and Sara:
I think I have a few pics of the dog you are speaking of Max. If you e-mail me, I will send it. (I don't know how to post pics here)
When I was there though, I could be wrong but I thought the number one dog in the American Staffordshire terrier breed was a brindle and white dog named AJ?
Again, I took off for the back room and never did see the rest of the show but I have pics of both dogs. The red and white dog I was able to pet and play with. He was a beautiful dog.

 

Is this him??

 

I don't think its a stupid questions, I agree with whats been posted. First don't buy from a byb, try to avoid them you will often see them with "show quality litter" "Champion Bloodlines" "perfect Conformation Pups" usually you'll end up with a dog thats not really show quality. The trained eye can see for yourself that the parents do not have good conformation and neither will the pups, but the general public doesn't know any better and this would include someone who might be looking for that first show dog without knowing the difference in breeders. Most bybs are too concerned with money then anything else, and others aren't concerned with money but are still breeding just to breed and make cute pups, they don't participate in shows and a lot breed their dogs much to young before health problems could show and faults could show up to even know what their prospect will turn out like. Like the akward stage mentioned before, a dog might turn out to be very good looking after it has grown and matured but in the same sense it might look good now and turn out poorly later.

The main thing is to buy a pup from proven parents, not just a dog the owner says has good conformation or that has one a ribbon, but a titled dog or one with major points and several of their dogs being show quality, this usually means they have a good eye for proper conformation. You'll see a lot of bybs with "show quality CH bloodlines" that don't show and can't see their own dogs faults because they don't know them or they are kennel blind, they wouldn't know where to start with determining quality.
Secondly is that they wait until the dog is fully mature (2 years) before breeding, some dogs will seem to grow even a lit bit more after this with some filling out, not too noticable at all and doesn't change the structure of the dog, its simple grown into its complete and full form. But at 2 years old most things aren't changing from there.
The pups will be determined to the best of the breeders knowledge of what they should turn out to be but doesn't mean they will. If a pup is born with an obvious major fault it'd be a pet dog, if the pup looks like it has a good structure and conformation it will be a show quality pup at the time and hopefully all will go well.
A good idea is to talk to study the standard yourself to be able to tell at least somewhat if the breeders are being honest in saying the pup should likely be show quality. Talk to several breeders, including those many years in showing and you could easily find a pup from them or they would be able to help you find a good pup from another breeder.

This is something that I can never understand, but there are a lot of breeders like this.

Breeding unproven puppies to make more puppies. Doesn't make sense at all, but then again most bybs don't. Maybe they don't understand or realize but a lot don't care.

 

Thanks True_Pits and everyone else!
Great advice!
Yes, Max, IT IS HIM!
My e-mail address is: MyPetTherapyDogs@yahoo.com. I have some other pics of him at the Westminster show. I was able to pet and play with him and speak in great length to his handler (Who was very very nice) If I have the correct business card, he came from a kennel in Duarte, CA (I don't know where he actually lives) He is a beautiful dog. Super sweet too. I was amazed by him. I had never been to a dog show like The Westminster in my life. Obviously, I don't know much about breeding and I was just amazed at how beautiful he was!

 

Actually Max, I just compared the two pics, No, its not the same dog.
Very much alike but not the same dog.
Sue

 

Just to illustrate the trials and tribulations of breeding show quality dogs; I bred a litter of miniature dachshunds years ago, 4 femals, 1 male. I really wanted to keep a female, but at 12 weeks (the earliest age I'll let a puppy go), the male looked like the best show prospect, so I sold the girls.

Well, Ted grew up to be absolutely gorgeous. Proper head, solid straight legs, level top line, and he gaited beautifully. He also weighed in at 12 pounds, which made him oversize.

Two of the girl puppies that were sold as possible show prospects grew up to be very nice. Both obtained several points and after a struggle, we finished one's championship.

Little Cookie Monster, who was sold as a pet, grew up to be a 'flyer'. I was lucky enough to get a look at her when she was 6 months, and advised her owners NOT to have her spayed just yet. Let's just run her along for a while and see what happens.

Well, what happened was, Cookie just took off. She was so gorgeous she made my teeth hurt to look at her. She finished her championship in very short order, and did respectably well in the groups. I was so mad that I'd sold her.

Soooooo...how does a breeder know when they have show quality pups? Sometimes they don't! It can be very difficult to predict how a little puppy is going to mature. Especially when something as small as a missing tooth or a quarter inch difference in the length of a nose can make or break a show dogs chances.

That's how I got my current dachshund; the breeder had run him on as a show prospect, and at 16 months, it became apparent that his nose is about 1/4 inch too short. So now he's my obedience prospect.

 

The one thing not mentioned yet may be the most important. Be sure that any breeder does health testing on their dogs, at the very least, hips (OFA or PennHIP), elbow (OFA), and heart (should be dopplered, not just listened to, as not every defect can be heard). BOTH breeds are riddled with health problems right now, though performance breeders say it is uncommon in their lines, so did show breeders until they actually started to test and saw the results. These are tough, resilient dogs, and their natural muscle tone helps to hold the pieces together, even when they're not structurally sound, so it is important to see what's going on inside and not judge on appearance alone. According to OFA (and many breeders will only send in dogs they think will clear, the numbers could be even higher), Staffs and APBTs rank 21 and 26 most commonly hip dysplastic breeds, respectively. 25% of Staffs have been found dysplastic, and 21% of APBTs, this is one out of every four or five dogs with bad hips! In addition, Staffs are ranked tenth in breeds with elbow dysplasia, with 17% affected. There haven't been enough APBTs tested, but given that they all come from the same stock, if the genes are in one, they're in the other, it's just a matter of whether it's shown up yet or not, and when it will. Finally, Staffs are the ranked as the #1 breed to be affected by heart defects, around 8% of dogs tested are either borderline or affected. APBTs only recently appeared on the list, and they are ranked number seven.

Dogs can have all these defects without showing outward signs, so anyone telling you they don't need to test because their stock is known to be healthy or because their dogs act normal is someone to RUN away from. Affected dogs can pop up even in lines known for long healthy lines (or the dogs may not ever show symptoms of their underlying health problems), so that's not always indicative of no problems being present. I won't lie and say that health testing will guarantee a healthy dog free of defects, because if the right genes line up, an affected dog can crop up from tested and cleared stock, but it stacks the odds in your favor to get a dog from stock proven to be non-affected. You can research lines which have health tested right on the OFA site (go to "search OFA records" on the left side, then only enter breed and whatever clearances you want to see, and a list of all tested dogs in the breed will pop up, it can also be used to double check whether certain individual dogs have been cleared, as some breeders are not ethical and will lie), and most breeders are proud to list their dogs' health clearances on their sites, so it's not too hard to find health cleared lines.

 

Well said goob, an invaluable, and often passed over criteria for evaluating breeding stock.

 

Generalities abound but whatever problems are in a given breed your breeder should know about and test for them and breed AWAY from them at all costs...