Natural Breeding being bred out?

[Caro]

The one thing I do know about shelties is that you need to be very careful not to discourage breeding behavior in young males that you hope to bred natually. A correction for mounting can cause them to become unsure of the process later in life. Shelties as a sensitive breed need their egos stroked. Some of the shelties I know that have to be AI were runined by inapproiate management of youngsters.

This is so true. Many years ago I had a male sheltie I was trying to stud and he had no idea what to do, and we tried a number of bitches. It was rather embarassing and I can only put it down to not seeing how it was done earlier in life and being discouraged from humping.

BTW - I am supportive of using AI, esp in small (relatively isolated) countries like Australia and New Zealand as it opens up the gene pool.