# does the age of parents increase risk on puppy?



## sagelfn (Aug 13, 2009)

Ugh...so a friend of mine just bought a GSD. I love my friend dearly but he is so irresponsible he's had 2 dogs already and gave them away because he didn't have time for them and now he got a GSD...I'm trying to be supportive and helpful to make sure this pup doesn't end up the like his past dogs. Pup seems healthy. I asked him about the breeder all he knew was that the parents were 11 and 8 yrs old dogs weren't around when he picked up the pup. Not sure which parent was 11 and 8 but either way too old to still be breeding them. Will his pup have any increased risks due to the parents ages?


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## Vinnie (Sep 4, 2001)

I don’t think the sire’s age matters (over 2 years). I’ve heard of some pretty successful AI’s being done when the male was up there in age (one breeding I liked the sire was 12 yrs). 

As far as the female, I’m not sure. Hopefully some of our breeders will chime in. You would think that it would get harder for her to carry a litter the older she got.


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

Age of sire doesn't matter. For males, there is no such thing as too old. He's either able to sire a litter or he isn't. There is no risk to the pups from an older sire.

As for the dam, older bitches can have more problems conceiving, carrying pups to term, and whelping. Just as older humans can. But there's really no increased risk from a genetic or general health standpoint in the pup. If the pup was born and made it to this age, obviously his dam was capable.


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## sagelfn (Aug 13, 2009)

thanks for the info!


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## Northern GSDs (Oct 30, 2008)

I've often wondered the exact same question, particularly since from a human perspective, advancing age increases the risk of a mutation occuring during cell division (and sperm in humans being subject to this as well). There is actually quite a bit of literature in regards to research studies conducted on the effects of age, sperm, and consequent possible diseases caused by paternal genetic mutations in DNA that have suggested that the risk increases with age, so I do often wonder if this would not also be the case in canines, and if not, why?


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## Catu (Sep 6, 2007)

I don't know... even when cell division increase the risk of mutation the sperms of an old dog had been dividing for ten to twelve years... as much as the sperm of a male human of 22-25 years, so I'd not extrapolate what happens to a human of 70 years old with what does happen with canines.

What suffer more in older males is the quality of the semen, which decrease viable sperm, therefore the fertility is lower. It would be interesting to know if there is an increased risk of mutations, I'm not that sure about it.


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