Written by Pat Wilkes, who can be contacted at:
I will attempt to tell you here of my experiences with breeding poms. These are strictly my views and experiences. I do not claim to be a professional but I have had experience as I have bred one of my females 4 different times and my male once. I will start at the very beginning and go all the way through.
I feel it is important to first mention the male you choose. The male should be very close to the same size as your female. Itcan be smaller, but should not be much larger. If you choose a male that is too large, the puppies are likely to be too large for the female to have without having a C-Section delivery. Female Poms (like all other dogs) go into heat approximately every six months. The heat lasts about 3 weeks. You need to watch your female very closely during this period mainly to be sure an unwanted male doesn't breed with her. I found it helpful to keep a heat calendar on my females so I would know when to expect it.
At the beginning of a heat, the vulva will swell and she will bleed. You need to check them every day when heat is close because small poms don't bleed much and it is easy to miss with all the hair they have. Also, it is important to watch closelyso you can catch the first or second day. The timing is important. She will bleed for about the first ten days and then the bleeding should stop. You need to count 10 days after the first day of heat. The breeding period is usually 10 to 15 days from the start of heat.This is when the female will accept the male and breeding takes place. I put my female with the male starting on the 10thday. I watched them to see how she reacted. The male will follow her every move and literally drive her mad. If she is ready, she will stand still for him and let him breed. If she is not, she will snap at him and try to stay away. Sometimes, she will snap at him for a while and all of a sudden let him breed her. I usually left them alone for a couple of hours.
If they did not breed by then, I would separate them and try again the next day. Try this every day for a couple of hours.Eventually they will breed. My vet always told me that one breeding usually does the trick, but it doesn't hurt to let them breed more than once. After they breed the first time, skip a day and try again. This gives the male a chance to rest and let his sperm build back up. After the 14th or 15th day, the female usually will not longer accept the male. The heat should last about another week and a half. She will not breed during this time, but the males around will still smell her and want to breed. Continue to keep her away from any male dogs as they will fight over her and she is likely to get caught in the middle and be hurt. Mark on your calendar the first time she bred. Make sure the "Mom" eats well during this period. You can give her vitamins if you wish, but usually if her diet is good, they are not necessary. The gestation period lasts about 63 days from the firstbreeding. I usually could not stand the suspense and took her to the vet to be checked after about a month. With dogs so small, sometimes the vet can't tell if she is pregnant until about six weeks. They can take an X-ray and tell you, but I did not want to go to that expense. My pups were usually born around the 60th day.
I can tell you about the birth process and raising the pups if there is an interest. I hope this has been helpful.
I don't think it can be stressed strongly enough that our breed should not be over-produced the way that they are in the United States. What is even more interesting is that many breeders in the U.S. prefer to ignore the problem completely. The buyers of their puppies are doing with them anything that they want to (such as breeding to anything).
For the most part, all puppies should be sold as spayed/neutered pets. A limited registration should also be used for all puppies unless the breeder can get some very good references on the puppy buyer as to their motives for buying a puppy Breeding just to produce puppies is wrong. Breeding after careful consideration of lines and quality or buying to show a pomeranian is correct. If a puppy buyer sees puppies being offered at very very low prices, the buyer should realize that these are not poms of good quality and are not appropriate breeding or show stock. On the other hand, if a buyer walks into a pet store and sees an outragously high price on a puppy, that does not mean it is breeding or show stock. These puppies come from puppy mills and are not good quality.Pet shop personel will tell a puppy buyer anything that they need to hear just to make a sale. It is up to the buyer to realize this.
The best suggestion I can make about pet stores is "do not go into a pet store!" Most puppies are sold from pet stores because a buyer may see a puppy, feel sorry for it, and believe that they are rescuing the puppy from this place. What they do not realize is that next week there will be a new puppy in the pet store to take that one's place. And so, the attempt to rescue a puppy actually keeps pet stores in business.I'm glad that the UK is not faced with the same numbers as here in the US, but it is a lesson to be learned. Always beware of what is happening with your breed and keep your populations in check by using spay/neuter agreements or any other measures that can help. Do not offer public stud service unless you are sure of what the person's real goal is in producing a litter. Too many breeders do not understand that this too adds significantly to the over-population.