Pembroke Corgi Puppy By Balletcor, our story.

We bred our first puppy in a litter with our first girl “Button” and a UK Champion. As the phrase says “puppy”. We got one and she was a fluff and the comment from the sires owner was “He’s never done that before” Followed by, “you will be lucky to get one decent puppy out of a litter of eight.

We have come a long way since then and all our Pembrokes are DNA tested so when we breed a litter we know if all the pups will be DM and vWD clear or if we use a carrier clear combination for one condition we know we will have to test the pups so as we know what they are before they go off to their new home.

The secret for us is to know where the diseases / conditions are. We can test for the ones now known by the corgi community but its what’s in the gene pool especially if people have line bred their litters so we know have to know what hidden dangers lurk especially where people have been trying to get glamour coats for showing or breed to get that head and of course by doing so close line breeding has deliberately occurred. So knowing what we would like to achieve and how we might be able to get and create pups that are All healthy and not likely to be At Risk of a known condition is now the easy part. What we don’t know is what is in the package of and how the two sides will create.

Unlike humans with 46 chromosomes (23 pairs) and each cell contains two separate copies of each gene (alleles), a cat has 38 chromosomes (19 pairs) and a dog has 78 chromosomes (39 pairs). To see more please more in our reading section on inheritance or go to this link https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/genetics-basics-modes-of-inheritance

To go back to knowing we have been keeping a record of all our breeding and that that can be gleaned from knowledgeable sources and that is in our breedmate program and after working with a breeder in Tasmania we can now go back to the 1920’s. All this said there is a problem on tracing genetics and that lies firmly at the door of the Kennel Club who for years have devised the usage of what we call pet names and its own KEN names and its in the Ken names you can find up to and over 30,000 dogs of all breeds with the same Kennel Name such as Kenynten registered in One Year. This has hidden all the breeding lines and what you might be looking for as you don’t know where the dog was bred. The Pedigree name would tell you that. The only way to look at it is to interrogate the Kennel Club website and trace the breeding back and hopefully find where the dog has come from / bred from. So if you are a breeder who is looking for conditions in dogs genetics the Kennel Club has hidden the routes to ever finding the history of this animal.

A story of breeding.

Daily Assements

From birth each puppy is weighed twice a day and these weights are fed into a spreadsheet and we know if we have a problem with a puppy.

Daily weighing

We use accurate scales showing weights of each pup in the smallest part of a gram.

Feeding from day one

It is most important that all the newborn pups receive colostrum from their mother in the first 24 hours of birth. Here you can see day old pups with mum after a night of self whelping.

Visit to the vet

At four weeks the pups have their first visit to the vet to get their microchip number and DNA samples taken. Pictures shows April 2019. Three weeks later they have their first vaccination for the D.H.P. standard regulatory dog vaccinations Distemper, Hepatitis and Parvovirus.

Same puppies 48 days later.

Here you can see the same pups at seven weeks still wanting a drink of mums milk although at this time they are on puppy kibble and turkey.

Working with friends

To better what we do we have to work with friends who do the same kind of breeding as we do, that is test, not line if we can help and keep pedigree records of our corgis. The picture shows a visit in January 2023 to The Netherlands where I took a pup over and brought one back.