Thanks for posting AL.

Your posted pedigrees actually show the very phenomenon with "crosses" that makes them difficult to manage, genetically, and that is which "side" of the pedigree does each individual dog actually pull from?

For example, the dog I pegged as having Diamond Girl blood in it (Saya, Dog #4) actually had less Diamond Girl blood in her than the Sydney (Dog #2), which is her mother. It is harder for me to spot the Diamond Girl blood in Sydney than it was for me to see it in her daughter Saya. Not only does a breeder have issues of head shape, body style, and color to deal with ... but of course there is also the issues of ability, mouth, air, performance style to deal with too. This doesn't mean that different dogs, of different shapes/colors etc., can't all be good dogs ... it just makes it tougher to manage "what you're going to get" if you're trying to streamline things a bit. For example, the Hiruku dog (Dog #3) I would have never pegged as either a Poncho dog or a Diamond Girl dog, and yet I could clearly see this in Saya, and yet they're both littermates

I am sure as you progress forward, certain individuals are going to distinguish themselves in the more important physical attributes, at which point you will be streamlining your or own efforts in that direction. On my yard, for example, Diamond Girl blood has always = short-winded, but game as hell. I bred Silverback to Dirty Diamond, to try to keep things @ 50% Ch Hammer, but to add the devastating qualities of Silverback rather than the average-but-game Diamond Girl qualities ... and I got the "average-but-game" Dirty Hammer :cry:

Yet, when I added another helping of Silverback, inbreeding Dirty Hammer back to him, these pups have all come out blistering and intense and have utterly demolished what they have been put with. I was able to push back the low ability of the Diamond Girl blood, but yet that consistent gameness has stayed, as it seems to me that Diamond Girl blood is at its best when left at 1/4 or less in a pedigree (although her son Ch Buster 4xW) might disagree ... yet, in his case, he did not inherit that short-winded push-face.

I have another Diamond Girl bitch, also 1/4, named Little D, in whom you can also see a little bit of that push-faced look ... but I added a heavy dose of Screamer blood to her, which (as you know) has exceptional stamina, with a kicker of the Big John blood, and Little D is a ferociously-game and intense bitch ... who has unbelievable stamina ... and if she hadn't have knocked-out all her teeth forever trying to pull roots and dig down to China, she would scare the ghost out of most bitches her weight, with the unrelenting drive and pressure she puts out

Jack


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