The ideal age to breed the male and female Fila Brasileiro, April 1994

Author: Paulo Santos Cruz Translated by artificial intelligence

CAFIB’s breeding regulations included two rules that caused reaction, misunderstanding, and many requests for clarification. These requests, in many cases, do not hide their true purpose: to complain. The first rule prohibits matings before 24 months of age. The other prohibits the use of every heat cycle, requiring, for the female dog, a rest period of one heat out of every two, or at least, in very special cases, one out of every three.

Among the arguments against these rules, the most common is that they go against Nature. “If she comes into heat, it is so that it can be used,” or “Nature knows more than we do.”

Nature is used as an argument when convenient, but when it comes to obeying her in everything else, no one even thinks about it, nor investigates how to do so.

The laws of Nature

Let us see how Nature acts. In reality, she gives the first heat between six and eight months of age. It is commonly a heat without ovulation, but in prolific breeds and in large breeds, such as the Fila, the first heat is generally fertile. At the same time, Nature maintains a set of rules or laws in order to achieve what is called “biological balance.” These are cold, calculating, inflexible laws, rapidly and inexorably eliminating the weak and the unviable. They are laws that Nature usually applies at the following moments:

1º By preventing conception: sterility in a percentage of female dogs and males. Man, chemically, provokes or restores fertility, going against Nature, making those whom she had forbidden reproduce.

2º In the intrauterine phase, with all the problems involved in the formation of the offspring, resulting in stillbirths or mummification of fetuses.

3º The weak, the unviable, those incapable even of suckling milk, or with mechanical incapacity to do so: cleft lips, split palate, or roof of the mouth. Man helps the former with a bottle.

4º Around the 5th or 6th day, death comes to take some more. It generally chooses the largest, the apparently strongest. The causes are simply undefined. We justify it: the female dog must have lain on top of them; the female dog must have stepped on them. In reality, Nature had determined a malfunction of the thyroid, hence the death, hence the abnormal growth, making the puppy surpass its little siblings in size and mass.

5º Around the 30th day, some puppies appear with white gums, revealing sudden and violent anemia. Worm infestation is one of the causes. Nature had condemned all of them. But man, with veterinary assistance, saves some.

6º Between 6 and 8 months, young female dogs receive their first heat, a series of phenomena causing problems, generally hemorrhages that nothing can stop. But man seeks them out, fights, and manages to stop them.

7º Those that manage to mate would face, in Nature, other specific problems, generally also hemorrhages, which she, Nature, would not prevent. Man prevents them from bleeding to death.

8º Pregnancy brings a great number of problems, causing a considerable number of victims.

9º Dystocic births kill many female dogs, preventing the birth of entire litters. Science intervenes, saving both the female dog and the litter; or only the female dog, going against Nature, and bringing into reproduction more females that inherit maternal disadvantages regarding difficulties in giving birth.

10º After births, fevers appear, which would take many mothers if man did not intervene to save them.

11º During nursing, the specter of eclampsia appears in all its forms. Man intervenes and goes against Nature.

12º Lack of milk, eliminating entire litters. Man supplies the organic deficiency, forcing lactation activity.

This is, more or less, what Nature does to ensure biological balance and prevent the Earth from becoming overpopulated with dogs and other animals.

Most of these problems are avoided preventively, clinically, or surgically by veterinary science. Result: most of those condemned by Nature are saved by man.

The law of the strongest

Furthermore: in Nature, the dog lives in packs, and each one has its leader, who is always the strongest male, the most capable, the bravest, the most intelligent. He is the only one that mates with the females. The other males do not even dream of participating in reproduction. Thus the strongest remains, guaranteeing selection. Eventually, a younger and more capable male challenges the leader, already advanced in age, and defeats him, taking over leadership. He is challenged by some others and also defeats them. And once again, the strongest, most capable, and healthiest male becomes the father of future generations. The less capable males grow old and die without ever reproducing.

This social organization of dogs guaranteed the almost exclusive reproduction of adult males over two years of age. Before that age, they were weak and easily defeated by the leader, if they dared to challenge him. Nature wanted the strongest, the most capable, the bravest, the most intelligent, and he only gathered all those attributes upon reaching maturity.

Do we obey Nature?

On the contrary, we bring all males into reproduction, including the weakest, also mating them with weak, deficient females, allowing the birth of individuals that are increasingly less capable and less healthy.

We adopt prenatal care, we use preventively and curatively all the achievements of medical science, chemistry, and pharmacology; in short, we do everything possible to prevent Nature from taking part, but we do not replace her, that is, we hardly practice selection. We always fight to save litters, that is, we fight for quantity; we do not fight for the use of the best, in other words, we do not commit ourselves to quality. Therefore, when rules are proposed, not to replace Nature, but to reduce and lessen the consequences of the erroneous methods used, resistance and misunderstanding are encountered.

Let us continue the analysis.

We know that the development of dogs is slower the larger the size of their breed. In reality, a Fila female, at two years old, is still childish, playful, reckless. Around two and a half years of age, the last modifications in her body can still be perceived, in the final touches of her physiognomic expression. Only then does she reach the corpulence and seriousness that only maturity brings.

The risk for the female dog

At 6/8 months, a Fila female is only a large puppy, awkward, with a thin trunk, half-crazy, entirely reckless. Her skeleton is still in full formation; some have not even finished changing all their teeth. At that age she needs many proteins to form her muscles, vitamins for her internal organs, and much calcium to build her skeleton. And she will continue requiring this and many other elements for two more years.

By making her pregnant at six months, her food will no longer be destined to the formation of her own organism, since a large part will be diverted to form those of the offspring in the litter. The feeding capacity of a female dog is limited; her organism also has a limit in processing what needs to be extracted from that food. By making her pregnant, the female dog stops her development; she remains as she is; a promising animal is lost. And the litter? There are 10 or 12 weak, small puppies, almost all of them dying during the first month. And the female dog? Most have no milk, or very little. Around the 12th day the signs of eclampsia begin; those that are saved remain nervous, sensitive to allergic manifestations, present dental cavities, and some even suffer bone fractures when going down stairs, jumping from a chair, etc.

Is this what Nature wanted?

Why not wait for the female dog to complete her development? Why not wait for the first heat after the second year of life? Why not ensure normal gestation, birth, and nursing? Why not confirm strong, healthy, capable puppies?

Recovery of the female dog

Litters in the Fila breed are numerous. The Fila is certainly prolific. It is customary to leave up to six puppies with the female dog and raise the excess with a bottle. But until the third day, all are left with the female dog so they can suckle the colostrum.

Around the 20th day, six puppies, taking a bottle every three hours, require 4 to 5 liters of milk daily. The female dog has to produce the same amount of liters to feed the six left with her. And she produces them, keeping her offspring nice and plump.

We have done and repeated this experience in our kennel. The quantity of components that make milk a food is impressive. And all of them, in fats, acids, proteins, vitamins, carbohydrates, etc., are extracted from the organism of the female dog.

Many cows do not give 5 liters of milk daily. Compare the size of a cow’s body with that of a female dog, and conclude: at the end of the nursing period, virtually 60 days, how will the organism of the female dog be?

It follows that, at the end of nursing, when milk is already scarce, the female dog begins to regurgitate, vomiting for the offspring her own food, semi-digested by stomach acids and enzymes; that is, she continues producing milk, but reduces her own nutrition. How will that female dog’s organism be at the end?

In summary: 63 days of pregnancy, production of 10 skeletons, 10 nervous systems, 10 brains, 10 muscular systems, 10 sets of internal organs, 10 endocrine systems, 10 venous systems, 10 lymphatic systems, 10 skins, etc. After those 63 days, another 60 days of nursing and regurgitation. Total: 123 days, or four months of intense physical and organic wear.

From there, after barely two months, the six-month period counted from the previous heat is completed, and the next one arrives. If it were used, all that wear would be renewed, repeated. We ask ourselves: were those scarce 60 days of rest enough for the female dog to recover? Will her organism be able to produce another excellent litter like the previous one? Or will the puppies be small, weak, with organic deficiencies only noticeable much later?

Why not grant the female dog a longer period so she can rebuild herself, restore herself, recover the necessary means for healthy reproduction, capable of providing the expected satisfaction?

Do not think that CAFIB is creating novelties in cynophilia. These same rules are adopted by specialized clubs for the German Shepherd, Dobermann, Rottweiler, Boxer, Great Dane, and Akita breeds in Germany, Japan, and France.

Therefore, now with this attempt at clarification, we dare to appeal: let your female dog and your stud reach two years of age before breeding them. Afterwards, let the female dog rest one heat out of every two. In this way, you will be helping to recover the Fila Brasileiro breed.