Post-litter evaluation template

This template takes a litter from placement to conclusion in three passes — at eight weeks, at about a year, and at about five years — and ends with the one field that makes the whole exercise worth doing.

Litter identification

• Kennel name or affix, litter identifier, breed
• Dam: registered name, date of birth, registration number
• Sire: registered name, date of birth, registration number, owner
• Date of mating, date of whelping
• Number born, number born alive, number weaned, number placed
• Coefficient of inbreeding for the litter, and the breed average used for comparison — see Coefficient of inbreeding in dogs
• Dates this template was completed: eight-week pass, one-year pass, five-year pass, later passes

Next to the litter’s coefficient of inbreeding, note how many generations the calculation used. A figure based on three recorded generations, which is common for imported dogs, will look lower than one based on ten, and the two are not comparable.

What was planned

• The goals this mating was intended to serve, copied word for word from the plan rather than restated
• What you expected the combination to improve
• What you expected it to risk
• What you decided in advance would make you judge it a mistake
• Breeding system used: outcross, linebreeding, repeat mating, sister combination, other
• Health results and screening grades held by each parent at the time of the mating

The litter at eight weeks

• Variation within the litter: in size, type, coat, temperament
• Traits that appeared in more than one puppy, and in how many
• Traits present in neither parent
• Health events during rearing: illness, losses, veterinary treatment, with dates
• Puppy assessments carried out, with dates and who did them
• Which puppy was retained, and the single reason it was retained
• Where each puppy was placed, in brief: performance home, show home, companion home, working home

Each offspring over time

One block per offspring, revisited at each pass.

• Registered name, call name, sex, home
• Still in contact: yes, no, last contact date
• Health: screening results and grades with dates, each marked preliminary or final, diagnoses with age at onset, reproductive history
• Age at death and cause of death, where known
• Temperament and behavior as described by the owner, and as you have observed it
• Conformation assessments, show critiques, breed surveys
• Working or performance results, and what the dog does in ordinary life
• Used in breeding: yes or no, and how many offspring
• Data missing for this dog, named explicitly

Mark each health field as preliminary or final. Many schemes only issue final hip and elbow results at 12 or 24 months, depending on the country and register (the OFA in the US certifies hips and elbows from 24 months), so a year-one result may change. Record “not examined” as its own entry, never as a blank and never as “normal.” Breeding values become biased when only the good results are submitted, and a template that hides the gaps repeats that bias in your own records.

The combination

• What the combination produced that neither parent showed alone
• How consistent the litter was, judged against other litters you have bred
• Whether the breeding system did what you expected of it
• Verdict: repeat as it stands, repeat with a variation, make the sister combination as a test, do not repeat
• Reason for that verdict, in one or two sentences
• How much of the verdict rests on this single litter, stated honestly

The dam and the sire as producers

One block for each parent.

• Total offspring to date, number of litters, number of different partners
• Traits that have appeared consistently across partners
• Traits that appeared with one partner only
• Health findings in the offspring, with the number examined as well as the number affected
• Estimated breeding values where the breed has them, with the confidence attached to each figure
• Current judgment as a producer, and the size of the material that judgment rests on
• Decision: continue, continue with restrictions, retire from breeding
• If this dog is widely used, its share of recent registrations in the breed

What this changes in the breeding goals

• Goals that this litter showed were achieved
• Goals that this litter showed were not achieved, and whether the goal or the method appears to be at fault
• Goals that turned out to be the wrong goals
• Priorities that need to change rank, and what will yield when they conflict
• New criteria to apply to every future mate as a result of this litter
• Date this was carried across into the goals document, and the version number it became

Using it well

The template is built for repeated visits because the useful entries arrive late. At eight weeks you are recording observation, and observation at eight weeks has limited predictive value; at five years you are recording what the dogs became, which carries the most weight in the breeding decision, although screening results at one to two years already count. Breed-level practice assumes the same sequence — the Finnish Kennel Club’s breeding strategy (2013–2016) notes that the accuracy of a dog’s breeding value improves when as many of its offspring as possible have been examined before its next litter — so a template filled in once, early, answers the easy question and misses the one that matters.

Record the offspring you have no information about as explicitly as the ones you do. Homes that stop answering are not a random sample, and a template showing four blanks out of nine is a more honest document than one showing five completed blocks and no mention of the rest. The same applies to the number examined alongside the number affected: two affected dogs out of four examined and two out of thirty are different findings, and only the denominator distinguishes them.

Keep the conclusions modest in proportion to the material. One litter cannot establish what a dog transmits, and the FCI’s international breeding strategies frame selection as a population-level matter — breeding stock drawn from the better half of the breed, screening results held in open registries — rather than something a single kennel’s figures can settle. Your template is for deciding, not for proving. Where it supports a decision about one of your own dogs, use it; where it would support a claim about the breed, send the data on instead.

Then carry the last section across the same week you complete it. A conclusion that stays in the evaluation will not be found when the next mating is planned, and the whole purpose of the final field is to make the next planning cycle start from evidence rather than from where you began.

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Sources & further reading

1. Fédération Cynologique Internationale — FCI International Breeding Strategies. fci.be
2. The Finnish Kennel Club — Breeding Strategy. kennelliitto.fi (2013–2016 strategy)
3. Royal Kennel Club — Estimated breeding values. royalkennelclub.com
4. Royal Kennel Club — Inbreeding coefficients and inbreeding calculators. royalkennelclub.com
5. Orthopedic Foundation for Animals — FAQs. ofa.org
6. Jerold S. Bell, DVM (Tufts, via VIN) — Breeding Strategies for the Management of Genetic Disorders. vin.com
7. Wilson et al. (2013), PLOS ONE — Estimated Breeding Values for Canine Hip Dysplasia Radiographic Traits in a Cohort of Australian German Shepherd Dogs. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Where evidence is limited, recommendations rest on established practice and expert judgment, and may be updated as knowledge develops. The field structure here reflects editorial judgment about what proves useful to breeders rather than a validated instrument, and the health and registration fields will need adapting to the schemes and registers in use in your own country.

Next steps

• Read next: Breeding goals worksheet.
• Related: Breeding plan template · Revising your breeding goals.
• Return to the area hub: Closing the loop: follow-up and the next generation.