Deep game or game enough?

[LollipopGuild]

Pretty hard to breed to a dead game dog unless u have him collected. females are just impossible. I go by game enough for my standards. But i rather say good enough for my standards.

That's why I said ''dead'' game. But, I agree. I want something game enough, or good enough, by my standards. If a dog is deeply game with the ability behind it, more power to him.

People always make these "totally polar opposite," extreme comparisons.

For me, I wouldn't breed to any dog (dead game or destroyer), unless I knew what was behind it

That said, I don't think anyone is an idiot for breeding to a (nearly) dead game dog, if it comes from high-percentages of this trait in the background.

Looking at it this way, if you want to talk about extremes, I would gladly breed to the game plug (from a litterful of great dogs) ... over the "destroyer" out of a litterful of curs

In other words, I would rather breed to the game plug Long's Werdo (all day, every day) ... while you couldn't pay me to breed to Roadblock's Gr Ch Joey

From what I understand, every dog in Joey's litter quit, and his mama and daddy quit. So, yeah, Joey was a great "destroyer" individual animal, but the average of his line was a bunch of curs, and consequently Joey produced "mostly curs" on average ... whereas Werdo through badass dog after badass dog.

Idiocy in breeding would be the man who only looks at "individual dog ability" and doesn't pay attention to percentages and lineage to make sure he's not breeding to a fluke (either way)

Furthermore, when you're speaking of producing, sometimes ability doesn't matter even among littermates. Still remember a conversation between Pat Patrick and myself about Kincaid's Ch Princess and her sister Pretty Girl. Both were game dogs, yet Princess had the match ability while Pretty Girl was a plug ... yet, despite the same pedigree, and despite being bred to the same dogs, Patrick said, "(the plug) Pretty Girl could out-produce (the ace) Ch Princess any day of the week." So what does anyone have to say about that?

The reverse was true for me: I had the littermates Duke Nukem and Jezebel. Duke was a game plug; Jezebel was an A+ dog. Almost every dog Duke threw was game (but took forever to win), while every dog Jezebel threw whipped Duke's offspring when schooled together. So, in that case, breeding to the ace of the litter was the way to go, but the thing that made me love breeding to either one of them was they were out of an all-game litter. If every other dog in their litter quit, I wouldn't want to breed to either one of them.

MORAL: DEAL IN GAMENESS FIRST ... high percentages of it ... if you expect to breed BULLDOGS on a consistent basis ... and then worry about the proper mixes you need to employ to get you some ability.

That's my $0.02

Jack

Of course people use extremes when comparing; it's a way to show a preference and make a point. On the subject of litter percentages, I should have clarified. I would rather have a higher percentage of quality match dogs that may or may not be deeply game than a litter full of deeply game hounds, but lack ability. I'm not saying I won't look at the total package of the dog and base a breeding off that. If I had a choice between breeding to a destroyer from a litter full of curs or a game plug, I'm not going to breed.

[Officially Retired]

Of course people use extremes when comparing; it's a way to show a preference and make a point. On the subject of litter percentages, I should have clarified. I would rather have a higher percentage of quality match dogs that may or may not be deeply game than a litter full of deeply game hounds, but lack ability.

Well, that is what breeding is all about: selection.

My own view would be just the opposite, and my dogs have enjoyed a 20+ year career stopping other people's dogs ... well past the 1-2+ hour mark ... nearly 9x out of 10, precisely because this is the philosophy of most people.

I remember when I sold Vise-Grip's Igor to a fellow in New England. The guy rolled Igor out hard a couple of times, and stopped a couple "match prospects" with him, but he got rid of Igor because (he said) the dog "had no ability."

Well, the new guy who got Igor said he was going to really game-test Igor against an exceptionally-talented dog ... but when the smoke cleared Igor stopped this dog too in about :45. Igor was such a durable animal, and so deeply game, that these so-called "match dogs" just couldn't break him down like they could lighter-boned dogs of other bloodlines. So what does this genius do? He puts Igor uphill 16 lbs ... "to prove he'll quit" ... and this great big dog he used really did just slaughter poor Igor for about :35 ... just broke him up all to pieces because of his size advantage ... but by about the :40 min mark this big dog got tired and started to turn from the down Igor ... yet Igor (though he was dying) was still screaming with rage trying to get to this big POS ... and so the guy finally stopped it because there was just no way Igor was going to quit.

Well, the genius couldn't save the game Igor either (some people can't do anything right) and so the extremely game tough Igor lost his life to another idiot. The point here is if these two bozos would have just matched Igor (instead of trying to "game test him" and break his spirit FOUR TIMES) the dog could have been a 3-4xW ... as (even though Igor wasn't a very good athlete) he *did* have *two* tremendous assets: extreme gameness and extreme durability. These traits, to me, are worth more than absolutely anything as they are what define the breed

Another story, Gr Ch Zukill had a very game sister named O.G. Posse's Volcha. Now, Zukill was a true ace finishing dog. He won 6x in a row, in times between :19 and :48, and he did so without a cutter in his head. He was so strong he manhandled everything, and he favored kill spots (throat/kidney) and bit hard enough so that the pressure alone would DOA the opponent.

Well, his sister Volcha was just a plug IMO (seen the whole litter on a video OGP sent to me). Yet Volcha was matched into ProSet Kennels (who, at the time, had never lost a match). They were using one of them-thar "high ability" dogs (a daughter of Ch Bozak), and this bitch proceeded to whip the daylights out of Volcha ... for 30 min, 40 min, an hour, 1:30 ... but she could NOT kill the game, tough Volcha ... where other dogs would die to this Bozack bitch, Volcha was too game, and too tough, to just lay down and die ... and so by 1:45 Volcha pulled even with the Bozack bitch ... and by 2:15 she was on a down dog finishing her

So, here again, if you want to be satisfied with ordinary gameness, you'll have lots of people agreeing with you on that point. But my dogs have stopped WAY too many pretenders like this over the years for me to ever be satisfied with anything less than absolute gameness as a benchmark. Sure, I would rather have Zukill than Volcha. But I would breed to Volcha every time she came in heat, for the rest of her life, and never want to breed to the "high ability" ("pretty game") daughter of Bozack who ultimately laid down to Volcha after being ahead for 1:30 ...

Again, it is all about selection.

If I had a choice between breeding to a destroyer from a litter full of curs or a game plug, I'm not going to breed.

Well, I respectfully disagree with that posture.

Again, I personally would be glad to breed to a super-game plug, out of a litterful of excellent dogs, any day of the week.

Cheers,

Jack

[EWO]

Good post. Lots of good dogs are over looked, wasted or ruined in search of the ace, or the sure thing. EWO

Well, that is what breeding is all about: selection.

My own view would be just the opposite, and my dogs have enjoyed a 20+ year career stopping other people's dogs ... well past the 1-2+ hour mark ... nearly 9x out of 10, precisely because this is the philosophy of most people.

I remember when I sold Vise-Grip's Igor to a fellow in New England. The guy rolled Igor out hard a couple of times, and stopped a couple "match prospects" with him, but he got rid of Igor because (he said) the dog "had no ability."

Well, the new guy who got Igor said he was going to really game-test Igor against an exceptionally-talented dog ... but when the smoke cleared Igor stopped this dog too in about :45. Igor was such a durable animal, and so deeply game, that these so-called "match dogs" just couldn't break him down like they could lighter-boned dogs of other bloodlines. So what does this genius do? He puts Igor uphill 16 lbs ... "to prove he'll quit" ... and this great big dog he used really did just slaughter poor Igor for about :35 ... just broke him up all to pieces because of his size advantage ... but by about the :40 min mark this big dog got tired and started to turn from the down Igor ... yet Igor (though he was dying) was still screaming with rage trying to get to this big POS ... and so the guy finally stopped it because there was just no way Igor was going to quit.

Well, the genius couldn't save the game Igor either (some people can't do anything right) and so this game tough bulldog lost his life to another idiot. The point here is if these two bozos would have just matched Igor (instead of trying to "game test him" and break his spirit FOUR TIMES) the dog could have been a 3-4xW ... as (even though Igor wasn't a very good athlete) he *did* have *two* tremendous assets: extreme gameness and extreme durability. These traits, to me, are worth more than absolutely anything as they are what define the breed

Another story, Gr Ch Zukill had a very game sister named O.G. Posse's Volcha. Now, Zukill was a true ace finishing dog. He won 6x in a row, in times between :19 and :48, and he did so without a cutter in his head. He was so strong he manhandled everything, and he favored kill spots (throat/kidney) and bit hard enough so that the pressure alone would DOA the opponent.

Well, his sister Volcha was just a plug IMO (seen the whole litter on a video OGP sent to me). Yet Volcha was matched into ProSet Kennels (who, at the time, had never lost a match). They were using one of them-thar "high ability" dogs (a daughter of Ch Bozak), and this bitch proceeded to whip the daylights out of Volcha ... for 30 min, 40 min, an hour, 1:30 ... but she could NOT kill the game, tough Volcha ... where other dogs would die to this Bozack bitch, Volcha was too game, and too tough, to just lay down and die ... and so by 1:45 Volcha pulled even with the Bozack bitch ... and by 2:15 she was on a down dog finishing her

So, here again, if you want to be satisfied with ordinary gameness, you'll have lots of people agreeing with you on that point. But my dogs have stopped WAY too many pretenders like this over the years for me to ever be satisfied with anything less than absolute gameness as a benchmark. Sure, I would rather have Zukill than Volcha. But I would breed to Volcha every time she came in heat, for the rest of her life, and never want to breed to "the high ability" daughter of Bozack who laid down to her after being ahead for 1:30 ...

Again, it is all about selection.





Well, I respectfully disagree with that posture.

Again, I personally would be glad to breed to a super-game plug, out of a litterful of excellent dogs, any day of the week.

Cheers,

Jack