Quote Originally Posted by scratchin dog View Post
So here's my question..if you have a dog that is everything you want in a dog but it has a physical genetic defect, do you breed it? My thought is to breed it, cull the defective offspring and move forward with the healthy ones. What does everyone else think?
Culling for physical defects "visually" is only a show-breeder's mentality, and it generally weakens a line of dogs. (OFRN Hemphill dogs are the classic example of a "visually-pleasing" line that has been rendered almost useless by breeding for pedigree and "looks.")

Some of the baddest dogs in history had structural defects, and (in my experience) some of my own very best dogs had structural defects: Stormbringer was too stocky; Icon was undershot and had straight stifles. Yet these dogs would utterly trash any "conformationally-flawless" animal they met. Sure, it is nice to get both great structure as well as great performance in one dog, but if one is to sacrifice one for the other, then the sacrifice should be of "looks" in favor of keeping optimal performance alive.

Therefore, to cull through a litter based on conformation alone would be essentially to turn the Hollingsworth dogs into another sad Hemphill story, which (unfortunately) a lot of people have done. I had the RTK's Ali dog, for example, and although he had a "tight pedigree," and was outwardly pretty, he was essentially a caricature of a true Hollingsworth dog (which themselves needed help in certain aspects). Athletically, Ali was mush-bodied and weak (rather than powerful and strong), and he had a congenital heart defect. I honestly think my 32-lb Icon dog could have spotted him the 14 lb and whipped his ass. (Don't laugh, when he was 9 months old, Icon got into a kennel accident with Phoenix, spotted him the same amount of weight, and whipped his ass!)

I never rolled Ali, because I found out he had a hole in his heart, but he clearly was not a world class athlete. In fact, he would labor in his breathing because of his heart defect, and after he got bit by a brown recluse spider, he died. I had other dogs get bit by these spiders that recovered without a problem.

Anyway, sorry for digressing, but I would caution you to put your show background in check when making breeding decisions, and based such decisions solely on gameness and ability. For example, on my yard, although Duke Nukem won the ADBA Nationals for his class, and although Stormbringer didn't have Duke's perfect physique, Stormy would kill 3 of Duke Nukem looking for a fight ... so if I could magically make only one of them re-appear on my yard again, I can promise you it wouldn't be Duke Nukem

Jack