Breeding Dogs With Structural Defects

[projectx]

I would say that in an ideal world breeding dogs with no structural defects or genetic defects would be the best way to go so as not to continue having dogs coming out with those defects in the future.The fact that we still have them means that past breeders either didnt care or didnt notice the defect and try to cull it out in the first place, so that it would be less of a problem or infact virtually irradicated from a certain breeders line of dogs.The show or cur dog fraternity have done this very well , with breeds that had problems with hip dysplasia amongs other defects, and rather than breeding a dog just becasue in all other regards it was a good prospect or could have won some ribbons before the problem was noticeable , they cull them , or at least the serious show breeders do and infact you see peds with the negative hip dysplasia x rays and other fault free tests from these breeders showing prospective buyers of their pups or other breeders wanting a stud from their stud dog that that dogs at least do not carry the faults that serious show breeders regard as unacceptable .
The problem within the apbt fraternity is the fact that there is less attention paid to these type of problems as outlined in other posts, such as faulty hocks or kness etc which becasue a dog was game was overlooked and bred ,which in the long run if you dont try to cull or at least not breed in those dogs with severe structural faults then inevitably they will continue to appear .The thinking should be a little different , instead of worrying that your game dog that has some faults wil be lost to the breeding program and therefore you loose a special dog , is to think that if the dog dropped dead today the world of apbts wouldnt just collapse because that dog died or wasnt bred into the genepool, because then you would look for a specimen that didnt carry the defects and who was also a good game dog to breed instead of the defective dog.
We panic and make silly deicsions based on the idea that that dog is a once in a lifetime specimen and even if its blind deaf and crippled and if we dont breed him we will never see another like him again , which is hogwash .Where there has been one there will be another good dog , the history of this breed is littered with good game fult free dogs so why do we think that we cant breed another one that doesnt carry faults? I for one would never do what a supposed great breeder like gary hammonds has done for 40 years ,and thats breed deaf dogs ,of which there is no good reason to do especially when like hammonds you keep a large yard of similarly bred dogs to choose from , that is just bad breeding practice and very lazy to say the least, and should never be sold to others to breed into there line which he has done , even if i was begged for a dog like that to breed from another breeder i would not sell it to them, i would infact cull dogs with any deafness/ heart defects or blindness without hesitation, the other defects like hocks etc , depending on how obvious and how much they affect the abilty of the animal to move freely as there are varying degrees of severity would then be a choice each breeder knowing their line if they could breed that individual back into the line without making the problems any worse than it already is, but my way would be to not use even those dogs that showed minor strucural defects where possible if i had another dog of similar quality that didnt show those defects, but to breed dogs with severe defects and certainly dogs who are deaf /heart or blind defects is just bad breeding practice and i dont care how good the dog is , if you bred him you can breed another and hopefully if you dont keep adding in defects which no serious breeder in thier breeding program of any breed of animal be it cows horses etc will do and theres a good reason why , and the sooner the apbt fraternity starts thiking like that the sooner we wont be having to talk about what the obvious thing to do is when an animal with genetic defects pops up, and thats CULL IT .

[Officially Retired]

I would say that in an ideal world breeding dogs with no structural defects or genetic defects would be the best way to go so as not to continue having dogs coming out with those defects in the future.The fact that we still have them means that past breeders either didnt care or didnt notice the defect and try to cull it out in the first place, so that it would be less of a problem or infact virtually irradicated from a certain breeders line of dogs.The show or cur dog fraternity have done this very well , with breeds that had problems with hip dysplasia amongs other defects, and rather than breeding a dog just becasue in all other regards it was a good prospect or could have won some ribbons before the problem was noticeable , they cull them , or at least the serious show breeders do and infact you see peds with the negative hip dysplasia x rays and other fault free tests from these breeders showing prospective buyers of their pups or other breeders wanting a stud from their stud dog that that dogs at least do not carry the faults that serious show breeders regard as unacceptable .

It is easier to cull for structural defects in conformation breeding, because conformation is the name of the game. So of course you're going to cull based on conformation.

It is not quite so simple in breeding for match dogs, because you're breeding for truly outstanding ability ... which includes NON-physical aptitudes like INTELLIGENCE, INNER METTLE, and WILLPOWER ... all of which contribute immeasurably to greatness ... and therefore truly outstanding dogs won't always have perfect conformation ... while dogs with perfect conformation won't always be great.

Many structurally-perfect dogs can't take it, are slow, stupid, and/or suck ass in some way ... while many highly-intelligent, authentically-tough, and truly great dogs have certain conformation defects ... and since the ability to win is the name of THIS game ... conformation needs to take a back seat to these outstanding abilities when an either/or choice has to be made in a particular animal.

The problem within the apbt fraternity is the fact that there is less attention paid to these type of problems as outlined in other posts, such as faulty hocks or kness etc which becasue a dog was game was overlooked and bred ,which in the long run if you dont try to cull or at least not breed in those dogs with severe structural faults then inevitably they will continue to appear .The thinking should be a little different , instead of worrying that your game dog that has some faults wil be lost to the breeding program and therefore you loose a special dog , is to think that if the dog dropped dead today the world of apbts wouldnt just collapse because that dog died or wasnt bred into the genepool, because then you would look for a specimen that didnt carry the defects and who was also a good game dog to breed instead of the defective dog.

There is a difference between "good and game" and truly outstanding

If a truly outstanding dog with bad knees gets bred ... the bad knees may continue to appear ... but (if he's bred correctly) so too will the truly outstanding ability

Also, if he's bred correctly, the truly outstanding ability can continuously be retained while the bad knees get bred out (or minimized)

We panic and make silly deicsions based on the idea that that dog is a once in a lifetime specimen and even if its blind deaf and crippled and if we dont breed him we will never see another like him again , which is hogwash .Where there has been one there will be another good dog , the history of this breed is littered with good game fult free dogs so why do we think that we cant breed another one that doesnt carry faults?

Actually, I believe you have everything bass-ackwards.

Again, the first thing you have backwards is confusing "good" for GREAT (or truly outstanding in certain respects).

The second thing you have backwards is the guy who kills a truly outstanding (or even a good) dog ... over a mere structural defect ... is the one who's panicking and making stupid decisions, whereas the man who keeps the dog, appreciates its strengths, and analyzes if the defects can be bridged, is the one who's remaining calm and not throwing out the baby with the bathwater

I know an Old Man who has more experience than most on this board. He had the pleasure of being involved with two of the greatest head dogs that ever lived: Ch Robert T (9xW, 1xL) and his son Ch Robert T Jr. (4xW). The elder was a 9xW ... who beat 2 Grand Champions and 2 Champions ... but who finally lost as a 9 year old dog. The younger was a 4xW who stopped four 4xWs from making Grand Champion ... when the dog had no teeth. In their primes both Robert Ts were untouchable head dogs that beat some of the baddest dogs in the country, making them look absolutely helpless and stupid in the process.

The Old Man never bred to Ch Robert T Jr. because he had "mangy feet"

He too, like you, thought that you had to breed dogs "with no defects" ... and, though he did not cull Ch Robert T Jr, he never bred to him because he didn't want more dogs with mangy feet

The hilarious (actually, sad) thing was this Old Man always and continually told stories about Robert T Jr., over and over and over again, particularly when Ch Robert T Jr went all the way from Tennessee to California to beat Indian Sonny and Danny Burton's SDJ Cover Dog, Ch Indian Bootlegger (4xW). Over and over, Indian Sonny used to brag in the SDJ that, "Boot, off the chain, silenced so-and-so." Or that, "Boot, in condition, beat the fabulous so-and-so."

The Old Man tried to get these proud fellows to bet $75,000 on their fearsome, killing 4xW ... back in 1990 ... but they only could scrape up $18,000. The Old Man was pissed, but flew out to CA anyway. There were even some funny things going on with the scale, and Ch Indian Bootlegger was so much bigger than Ch Robert T Jr. it looked like a rat and a mouse ... and Boot piledrove Robert T Jr. on the release and shook him like a rag doll.

But when Robert T Jr glopped onto that head, and pulled Bootlegger out, that my friend was the beginning of the end ... and after about 50 straight minutes Robert T of having his ear, and turning all the skull/flesh around it into soup ... the great, SDJ Cover Dog Indian Bootlegger began to sing like a puppy with his tail caught in the door ... and refused to come out of his corner back into the Ace Head Dog that was Robert T. Jr.

Danny Burton had a lot of disparaging remarks to make about the toothless Robert T (that would actually smile on command to show he had no cutters ... and Robert T even did for the crowd afterward, aggravating the losers even more when they saw that the great Bootlegger had quit to a dog with no cutters )

Yet despite telling this story, over and over again to me and everybody else, the Old Man never bred to this great head dog all because he had a tendency to get mange on his feet

The Old Man actually said to me, "Jack, I would sell everything I own--all 5 of my properties--to be able to get my 2 dogs back ... because, with those dogs, I could win it all back and then some."

Yet the thought never dawned on the Old Man that he COULD have kept that ability alive by forming a linebreeding program around the Robert Ts. None of the dogs he did breed to could kiss their ass in ability and intelligence. They may have been "good and game" winners, but they were not true Aces with outstanding ability. That man actually let this otherworldly intelligence and style slip through his fingers over a minor "genetic defect" ... and there really is nothing else to say but that it was a stupid decision. To sit there and say you'd give away all that you've amassed in life for a dog (who has mangy feet) ... because of his true greatness in other ways ... and yet not to breed him to perpetuate these unique traits in his pups ... is simply retarded IMO. I personally would be happy to have "mangy feet" on my dogs, if they also had that kind of pit ability!

And this kind of thinking disorder is WHY this man never actually bred any of the great dogs he had, he bought them all, because he simply couldn't get his priorities straight as a breeder.
And I guarantee you that, if this is the way you think, you won't either, because you will ultimately let true greatness slip away over a minor genetic defect also.

I for one would never do what a supposed great breeder like gary hammonds has done for 40 years ,and thats breed deaf dogs ,of which there is no good reason to do especially when like hammonds you keep a large yard of similarly bred dogs to choose from , that is just bad breeding practice and very lazy to say the least, and should never be sold to others to breed into there line which he has done , even if i was begged for a dog like that to breed from another breeder i would not sell it to them, i would infact cull dogs with any deafness/ heart defects or blindness without hesitation,

I can't comment on what Hammonds does/doesn't do, because I don't have any first hand knowledge. What I can say is that if these dogs you're talking about are "just dogs" with defects, then I agree with you.

I am speaking about breeding to TRULY EXCELLENT dogs with minor defects ... not breeding ordinary dogs with glaring defects ... and a person has to have the intelligence to recognize the difference

the other defects like hocks etc , depending on how obvious and how much they affect the abilty of the animal to move freely as there are varying degrees of severity would then be a choice each breeder knowing their line if they could breed that individual back into the line without making the problems any worse than it already is, but my way would be to not use even those dogs that showed minor strucural defects where possible if i had another dog of similar quality that didnt show those defects, but to breed dogs with severe defects and certainly dogs who are deaf /heart or blind defects is just bad breeding practice and i dont care how good the dog is ,

We pretty much agree here.

Again, it all has to do with #3 in my article The 5 Keys to Success, which is understanding the dog's job.
It is not a match dog's job to be "structurally perfect"; it is only his job to have the ability and intelligence to dominate a fight and kick ass.
If the dog truly excels at his job, and has some minor defect which doesn't interfere, then who cares? The dog's job is the main goal.
But if the defect limits the dog, to where he sucks at his job, then (I agree) don't breed to that dog.

if you bred him you can breed another and hopefully if you dont keep adding in defects which no serious breeder in thier breeding program of any breed of animal be it cows horses etc will do and theres a good reason why , and the sooner the apbt fraternity starts thiking like that the sooner we wont be having to talk about what the obvious thing to do is when an animal with genetic defects pops up, and thats CULL IT .

I totally disagree here.

I think MOST people suck at breeding dogs, pretty much all the way around.
I think MOST people don't truly understand what it takes to be a truly excellent dog.
I think MOST people, who call themselves "good breeders," follow what you say ... and try to minimize "structural defects".

It is my conviction that truly great breeders aren't trying to breed "faultless dogs" ... they're trying to MAXIMIZE some truly key trait(s) they saw in 1 or more special individual(s) ... and they continuously interbreed the dogs down from these special animals in the never-ending effort to retain/reproduce those truly World Class Abilities indefinitely

Jack


.

[No Quarter Kennel]

Projectx will try to discredit Hammonds every chance he gets. Amazing. Some people just have a hard on for certain folks.

RUFUS ROM - best producing Alligator dog, from any Alligator strain, of all time, with only 2 years of breeding - WAS DEAF!
Take him out of the lineage of all the dogs after him and analyze the Alligator Family then.

This is simply one example of a retarded way of thinking

[projectx]

Projectx will try to discredit Hammonds every chance he gets. Amazing. Some people just have a hard on for certain folks.

RUFUS ROM - best producing Alligator dog, from any Alligator strain, of all time, with only 2 years of breeding - WAS DEAF!
Take him out of the lineage of all the dogs after him and analyze the Alligator Family then.

This is simply one example of a retarded way of thinking

I dont have a hard on for gary at all , you dont like the message i give becasue you cant see past what you want to see ,and hindsight is a wonderfulll thing ,but you see we can only know whether a defective dog could have been a good producer or not if we breed him , and unless you have hindsight and see into the future ,thenbreeding him is taking a risk rather than good breeding practice and thank god its not the norm to bred deaf dogs among breeders with good breeding practices but you obviuosly are not one of them if you think its fine and dandy to do it as the norm like gary has done for 40 years, and you still say your not biased towards him lol.
As for using the luxury of hindsight by saying( look how good rufus produced and if you take him out of the lineage of dogs after him analyze the family then), its a riddiculous thing to say , because the dogs in the lineage after him wouldnt exist if he hadnt been bred to produce them in the first place , now whos got a retarded way of thinking.

[No Quarter Kennel]

I dont have a hard on for gary at all , you dont like the message i give becasue you cant see past what you want to see ,and hindsight is a wonderfulll thing ,but you see we can only know whether a defective dog could have been a good producer or not if we breed him , and unless you have hindsight and see into the future ,thenbreeding him is taking a risk rather than good breeding practice and thank god its not the norm to bred deaf dogs among breeders with good breeding practices but you obviuosly are not one of them if you think its fine and dandy to do it as the norm like gary has done for 40 years, and you still say your not biased towards him lol.
As for using the luxury of hindsight by saying( look how good rufus produced and if you take him out of the lineage of dogs after him analyze the family then), its a riddiculous thing to say , because the dogs in the lineage after him wouldnt exist if he hadnt been bred to produce them in the first place , now whos got a retarded way of thinking.

I dont have a hard on for gary at all , you dont like the message i give becasue you cant see past what you want to see ,and hindsight is a wonderfulll thing ,but you see we can only know whether a defective dog could have been a good producer or not if we breed him , and unless you have hindsight and see into the future ,thenbreeding him is taking a risk rather than good breeding practice and thank god its not the norm to bred deaf dogs among breeders with good breeding practices but you obviuosly are not one of them if you think its fine and dandy to do it as the norm like gary has done for 40 years, and you still say your not biased towards him lol.

No, the point was to contradict your perspective that a dog of great production capabilities shouldn't be bred b/c he's deaf. Don't know the circumstances, but since this guy, Hammonds, like him or not, has produced more quality animals than yourself, I'd have to say he knew something others may not have known since a "defective" dog produced so many great dogs.

As for using the luxury of hindsight by saying( look how good rufus produced and if you take him out of the lineage of dogs after him analyze the family then), its a riddiculous thing to say , because the dogs in the lineage after him wouldnt exist if he hadnt been bred to produce them in the first place , now whos got a retarded way of thinking.

That's exactly what I said.
I'm not kennel blind by any friends, dogs or anything else in my life. I'm not close minded. I pay attention to reality, truth and relevance. We'll just have to disagree and move on down the road. You rarely make much sense to me and I doubt you like me either, so I'll let it go.

Have a great Christmas.

[projectx]

I dont have a hard on for gary at all , you dont like the message i give becasue you cant see past what you want to see ,and hindsight is a wonderfulll thing ,but you see we can only know whether a defective dog could have been a good producer or not if we breed him , and unless you have hindsight and see into the future ,thenbreeding him is taking a risk rather than good breeding practice and thank god its not the norm to bred deaf dogs among breeders with good breeding practices but you obviuosly are not one of them if you think its fine and dandy to do it as the norm like gary has done for 40 years, and you still say your not biased towards him lol.

No, the point was to contradict your perspective that a dog of great production capabilities shouldn't be bred b/c he's deaf. Don't know the circumstances, but since this guy, Hammonds, like him or not, has produced more quality animals than yourself, I'd have to say he knew something others may not have known since a "defective" dog produced so many great dogs.

As for using the luxury of hindsight by saying( look how good rufus produced and if you take him out of the lineage of dogs after him analyze the family then), its a riddiculous thing to say , because the dogs in the lineage after him wouldnt exist if he hadnt been bred to produce them in the first place , now whos got a retarded way of thinking.

That's exactly what I said.
I'm not kennel blind by any friends, dogs or anything else in my life. I'm not close minded. I pay attention to reality, truth and relevance. We'll just have to disagree and move on down the road. You rarely make much sense to me and I doubt you like me either, so I'll let it go.

Have a great Christmas.

Nqk i dont have anything against you , so when you say its obvious that i dont like you , that can only be coming from you feeling like im attacking you becasue of your feelings about gary because you run his blood ,and as i told you before i understand that you feel like that, its human nature, but i dont dislike you at all so maybe you need to evaluate how obviuosly attached you are to not seeing reality becasue of your emotional attachment to gary or his dogs that you feed.
As for hindsight , well gary didnt even notice rufus was deaf , and he like many others breeders took a chance and bred to a dog that under normal circumstances wouldnt be bred and got lucky, and you can try to talk it any way you like, but unless gary knew rufus would produce like he did , which none can know not even gary (who cant even tell hes got a deaf dog infront of him ) and as rufus was not even an outstanding pit dog that was so out of this world that even jack said he might breed to a dog like that even with deafness, then what criterior did gary use for breeding the dog ? becasue rufus was not an outstanding dog , so it was a chance he took and he like many other men who have bred either defective dogs or dogs with a severe defect like deafness or in many cases a cur dog who produced out of the ass ,but at the time they bred those dogs they could only have known one thing for sure , and thats not that the dog was going to produce well for them but that they were breding a dog that was either carrying a fault like rufus was or another severe structural or health fault or that thier dog was a cur , that is the only sure thing they could have known and taken to the bank before they decided to breed that dog, so lets be honest and say that with looking at things after the event we could all bet on the winner , but luck plays a part in all breedings even the ones that have all the right qualities in place beforehand and very often even they dont prove any good either , but to start with one hand tied behind your back even if it turns out well is not the right way to do it even if you get lucky it doesnt mean its right it just means you got lucky so lets be honest and stop trying to make excuses like we would for our child when the teacher say your kid is causing trouble in class, and we always try to defend our kid even if we know hes a little tearaway and we know the teachers probably right ,but rather than face it we make excuses for them ,and 9 times out of ten thosoe kids pay you back by turning out just like they said he would a bad apple, but hey he was our little johnny so he can do no wrong right? wrong those rose cloured glasses atr it again.

[projectx]

Hi jack i agree that for the conformation guys or show breeders they have a more defined view of the breeding they need to do.I said that in an ideal world we would only breed dogs that met all the requirements , but as we dont live in the ideal world then at least minimizing what type and how severe any defects we breed in are ,be they structural or health type that we allow back in to the genepool is vital if we are to actualy minimize their appearance in future generations.
If i use your idea of an outstanding dog as opposed to a good dog, then that also depends on what any given person thinks is an outstanding dog , as that is very dependant through whos eyes were looking through, as we only have our own eyes,and they may have less expierience than another mans eyes ,and to one man a dog may seem outstanding but to another he may just be a good but average dog ,so this is all relative.
But lets for arguments sake say that we can all agree on what is an outstanding dog, a dog that was obviously an outstanding dog in the pit ,as we cannot say how outstanding he or she is as a porducer as we are deciding on whether or not to breed him or her as he or she has some defects which we would rather he or she didnt have , so i will assume that his or her outstandingness must be based on their pit quality in this instance.

Ok now that we have this outstanding dog be it male or female that we would like to breed but who has some defects , we have to look at what these defects might be, so lets say the defects are mild and not affecting the performance but are more asthetic rather than hinder the dog in any noticeable way , then the next thing is to look at why he or she is outstanding.
Is the dog outstanding because he or she comes from a line of similar dogs bred form a line that has produced dogs like that before , or is this dog a oneoff and from a line of dogs that are outcrossed and as such what is the likleyhood of this dog being able to produce more likehim or herself from such genes.

If the dog is from a line that hasnt had a record of quality dogs on a regualr basis , then i would not consider this dog as there is more chance of he or she not producing as well as he or she is themselves and as such i wouldnt bother .

On the other hand if the dog came from a line ,usually a family bred line that has a record of throwing good to occasionaly outstanding dogs, then the minor defect and maybe even a slightly more obvioius defect that may not affect peformance or a dogs phyisicall abilty to work or at least defend itself properly could be acceptable , and would be something that the breeder would hope to be able to try to breed out in the next generations , and only becasue this dog was such an outstanding dog in the first place .

The thing is that many people have bred dogs, infact most dogs that have had a defect ,be it mild or severe who were bred were not outstanding and some were outright curs , but were still bred, and most of the time the reason was because of how they were bred ,and when it goes well the answer is well look how great a producer he or she was ,and that is true in many lines infact all lines today they all have dogs from cur to outstanding and everything inbetween , but the fact that the breed didnt collapse overnight becasue a certain dog wasnt bred who had severe defects who then went on to produce well is not an excuse and very easy with hindsight, becasue there is always another dog that at any given time is just a outstanding ,as that again is always open to opinion as to which dog in any year is the best , there are so many out there any they dont all get to fight each other ,so theres always an option, it isnt the end of the world to not bred the defective dog.

The thing is we all like to breed close to home noramlly from our own yard if we have a family or line of dogs , and im sure that many times we overlook some defects becasue we dont think its such a problem and we like the dog we have andwant to breed rather than waste time and money breeding to another outstanding dog, but which doesnt have a minor defect, but when we talk about more serious and severe defects either structural and heatlh defects , then i think there has to be a much harder view taken as to why we must breed that defective dog before doing it .

I still say that if the dog is not a oneoff and is from a line that has a history or good to even great to outstanding dogs , then maybe the brother or half brother or sister that is defect free as far as you can tell is just as good a bet , as long as they have other good qualites, and of course if the sire of the origianl dog is around and didnt throw dog with defects as a rule ,then of course the sire is an option, but i agree its a difficult decision as there are many variables,and using hindsight is not really the ideal way to go and even when it works , it doesnt mean its the correct way to breed , and certainly shouldnt be done as a rule when other options can be used that if all things are even will stack the deck more in your favour in the race to breed better heathlier allround dogs , but im not saying its easy , even with the best laid plans it can and does go wrong , but if you breed severe structural faults in then expect to get more of the same out, so i think if we use the rule without the benefit of hindsight and seeing into the future after the event , then only breed dogs that by your opinion are not showing structural defects that are affecting the abilty of the dogs to work properly and that is not of the type that gets worse the older the dog gets, and the same applies to dogs with deafness /heart and blindness defects as these defects should never be breed back into a line , and of course by that fact i would not have the wonder of hindsight to know they may or may not have produced good dogs by ahving done so, i would have more faith in breeding as good or better but healthier dogs rather than breed in those types,as i belive if you breed in a family line then if this dogs is good but defective ,then others will follow who maybe are as good or even better but with less defects because of it.