If you are using a male as a "stud" for breeding make sure to get his DNA profile done ASAP to protect yourself - A horror story

I'm sure most of you have heard me say that I don't like using intact animals as males in the breeding program when we have the technology to have a male DNA profiled and tested. But we got burned by a breeder who wouldn't agree to work with us on a stud contract and required to stud their dog to our female... <br><br> This breeder is a good friend of ours and a breeder we work with frequently. They have provided us with some amazing dogs and we provide them with the labradoodle puppies that they use to breed their next generations with. Because we work together, we were comfortable with the dogs that were being produced and have a great relationship. So... when we decided we wanted to use one of their males we didn't think it would be a huge issue... And they are right that this dog was used with about 20 other females and wasn't a problem... but... Most of those females were with breeders we have worked with for years... A couple of new breeders they just did a verbal contract and the stud fee was paid... <br><br> Long story short... we ended up losing two litters to paternity issues... due to two separate females being bred to two different males. We paid the stud fee at full price with the understanding that this dog was a proven sire and a DNA profile was going to be completed. We did everything on our end correct to the letter. We had a heat cycle... confirmed she was a good breeder - she was 15 months old and 55 pounds. We waited until day 7 to start progesterone testing and she was right where we wanted her to be so we sent her to the stud for the length of time agreed upon in the contract (5 days). We were supposed to get 5-7 breedings but they didn't have a trained staff and they only ended up getting 3 breedings. We were paid back 2/5's of the stud fee for the lack of breedings and then our female was sent back to us. We confirmed her pregnancy and waited until the pups were almost 7 weeks old before sending them for DNA testing. When the results came back it said that the pups were not sired by the male that she was sent to. The breeder said that there must have been an issue at our end and a male from our house got her while she was in heat. That the only males on their property were the two males they own... our male and the one we sent her to. We were like, "nope... our only two males are fixed - we only have intact females and fixed males" and they said that we were lying and must have done something wrong. They were very nasty and accused us of raising money on a litter that we claimed was by their stud but was not. The only thing we could think of to do was to DNA profile all of our females to prove that we weren't trying to scam them... which would have been pointless because all of our intact females are sold with breeding contracts... we would have never gotten away with raising a litter by a dog that wasn't ours... so we would just end up with a DNA profiled female and still no proof that our other female was actually bred to the correct dog.<br><br> I started asking around and saw a post on a labradoodle page about a breeder in a similar situation and another breeder chimed in to say that they had also had an issue with this breeder... They had also sent a female to be bred to the same dog and it also came back with a sire that wasn't the dog she was sent to. Now we had another breeder with a similar issue and both of us saying that we didn't have any intact males on our property. We both agreed that we would no longer use them unless they DNA profiled their male and we had a contract that we agreed to.<br><br> This breeder was a huge pain in the butt and made us wait for her to get around to sending in his DNA... After almost 4 months we got the DNA profile for the male and finally felt good moving forward with the breeding. We send the female and they confirm she is in heat and we explain that we need to wait until day 5 to start progesterone testing so that we can confirm she ovulates. They said that was fine but the next day they called back and said that we could pick her up in two days. We were like, "why? She's only been there for a day and we know she isn't even ovulating yet." They said that they had already bred her twice and she just needed a couple more times to be good. We were like, "what? No! We can't have her bred until we know she is ovulating!" They said that they have done hundreds of breedings and didn't need to do any of that. That I was just being paranoid and didn't need to worry about it. They said that she would be fine and if I didn't want to pick her up I could just pay for the extra days. We were stuck. We didn't have a contract that protected us and the breeder wasn't willing to work with us at all so we accepted that the breeding wasn't done right and hoped for the best. <br><br> We got her back and confirmed pregnancy again and waited until the pups were almost 7 weeks old. We sent them all in for DNA testing and again the sire didn't match the DNA of the dog she was sent to. We were so frustrated and felt like we lost a lot of time, money and resources. We were also very sad for the female who had to suffer through a failed breeding and then have to be bred again to the wrong dog - she was 2 years old and 65 pounds at this point. We have talked to several other breeders since then who have had similar issues and no one wants to work with them... so we are guessing they have their own intact male that they are using to "accidentally" breed other females with. They have been banned from several labradoodle groups for this behavior and no one wants to work with them. We learned a huge lesson from this and it was very expensive and time consuming. <br><br> The reason I bring this up is because last night we got a call from the breeder who also had their female "accidentally" bred by the wrong dog. They said that they just had a litter of pups that are almost 4 weeks old and the DNA testing showed that the sire was the wrong dog. So they have been using this male for 2 years and he has never been tested and they have had several breedings with him. They lost a huge amount of money and resources and are not happy. They have cut ties with the breeder and are going to start over. <br><br> Moral of the story... make sure you know the dog you are sending your female to is DNA profiled before a breeding so that you don't end up in a situation like this.