That's a different story of course. But I said in my original post IF it was not genetic. I don't know much if anything about pedigree dogs, so am not sure which breeds are prone to which types of cancer, but let's take my friend's Schnautzer as an example and let's say that in the history of the breed, there are no known cancers that the Schnautzer is prone to ... yet our Schnautzer has been diagnosed with, say, melanoma. This most likely would be purely environmental, and therefore I would say that if the male in question was healthy and full of joie de vivre, and the vet gave him the go ahead, then I would say why not?

But there are a lot of if's there of course.

As a PS to my last post, I just don't think that with dogs one can ever say "never" ... I would never do that, or I would only do this.

Every case would be different, and should be viewed on its own merit. There must have been hundreds of thousands of matings that have taken place when the male has been suffering from a particular cancer. I think if I wanted to breed from Tai, and I found out that he had cancer, I would probably ditch the plans.

Would that be a captive or wild wolf, ?

Is this generalization from personal experience ? The average life span of a Wolf is 8 in the wild although they can live up to 12/13 & we've only had one dog that was this age when he died(pts at 8 with Cancer), in protected wild packs the average rises to 16 & in captivity 20 years.

The average life span of pet dogs is 10-12 years.

The bigger the dog the shorter the life span so dogs & wolves cannot really be compared as most wolves are about the same dimensions.

When we asked our vet what age Hal should hang up his clogs at, mating wise, she replied there isn't one. As long as the dog is healthy and can perform, he is fit to mate and will be fertile. Unlike human males, it would appear that dogs' sperm count doesn't decrease much with old age, they remain fertile until the end of their days, bless 'em!

Sorry, I agree with everything you say, but I don't understand your last paragraph. Why can't dogs and wolves be compared as most wolves are about the same size? Whereas this is true, and of course with dogs with have huge size differences, I am not sure I follow your logic here !

Confused as to how you are fighting with me here while at the same time agreeing

The average life span of a wolf in captivitiy is as you say about 16 up to 20 years or more
the average span of a pet dog at 12 years isnt close to that
Even if we ignore giant breeds from that the average life of a wolf sized dog is not as good as the average life span of a wolf

So our breeding is making dogs LESS healthy! Health should be a major consideration - YOU told me that months ago, I am agreeing with you

If you remove the giant breeds then the average life span of a pet dog rises dramatically just like the difference between a wild wolf & a captive(ie zoo, safari park, "Wolf man's wolves"although the qualify of live of a captive wolf is poor when compared to the life of a wolf in the wild, wolves has vast territories in the wild whereas in captivity it's a few acres. No hunting for captive wolves, no real "family unit"for them totally & utterly unnatural.

Don't forget that captive wolves receive expert veterinary care & in the wild they would die far early as they get older. The incidence of Cancer(of all types) in captive wolves is as high as that in giant breeds(this comes from a "Zoo"vet BTW)

Dogs range in size from 2 kilos to over 50 kilos & as the larger the breed the more stress is put on the body itself & thus the bigger breeds have a shorter life span. Wolves have evolved to be quite uniform in size & therefore there is not the divergence of lifespans in wolves.

You are not comparing like to like, in wolves only the fittest survive & the wolves susceptible to cancers & other conditions rarely got the opportunity to breed, leaving the physically more robust to supply the genes for the wolves in captivity.

Captive wolves do not have to travel far for food, wild wolf packs can travel 100s of kilometres to hunt. Thus to have a genetically successful breed having an easy life.

TBH honest comparing wild animals & domesticated animals isn't logical, perhaps comparing feral & domestic dogs lifespans would be more meaning full.

Going back to the original question..my answer would be no.

I wouldn't choose a stud dog that had a skin problem or temperament issue and nor would I choose one that I knew had cancer...just incase it carried through the lines.

Obviously if it was diagnosed after the mating or pups are whelped then there isn't much you can do, but I would make sure any potential puppy owners were informed so that they could decide if they still wanted to go ahead with the purchase. I'm the first to admit that I don't know anything about cancers and the genetics, but I simply wouldn't risk it.

It's hard enough getting everything right to ensure your litter has the best possible start in life...I just couldn't do it personally, but that's just me, even if it were my own stud dog and I desperately wanted something out of him before I lost him I still couldn't do it.