Bad Habits

[Officially Retired]

I think people often mislead themselves by not having a true mission statement. You know, the line of shit companies put out there to remind themselves of what they should be doing, and should have been doing all along. The dog game is no different.

Awesome point EWO.

Absolutely, one should have a mission statement: a clearly-defined goal as to what one is breeding their dogs to do, exactly.

If a guy's mission statement is to win matches and his mindset is solely on winning matches then the bad habit dogs (on percentages they are of no value to him, understanding there are exceptions to the rule, but those exceptions are few and far between). On the other hand if a guy wants to breed his dogs to win matches then that very same bad habit dog can be a vital point to the program.

I know what you're saying, but have to disagree a bit.

Zukill won 6, and killed all 6 dogs in under an hour. Most dogs with teeth can't do that, let alone without.
Robert T Jr. beat four 4xWs ... with no teeth ... again most dogs with teeth can't do that.

I am not talking about keeping a dog that is just "game" who's a problem dog, but one that is truly outstanding.
A dog with truly AWESOME talent is a dog with truly awesome talent ... and he will almost always win no matter what.
These are the ones to "bite the bullet" over and deal with their problems (if any).

Such are ALWAYS more valuable than mediocre dogs that "can win" (but there's nothing truly awesome or excellent about the animal).

An analogy would be jumping from line to line every time a dog wins or loses. People with an intelligent plan, stick to that plan and bad habit dogs can be a huge asset to that plan going forward.

Agreed. Stick with what you've got, if it's truly excellent. Keep trying to raise the bar by KEEPING the truly excellent genes ... but try to breed around any faults.
For example, breeding Robert T to a daughter who has no mange ... then keeping the pups that have his style and also have no mange.

However, if the cards fell that the best dog in the litter had mangy feet also ... then I'd have a yard full of mangy-footed ace head dogs ... rather than "nicely-footed" average palookas

Are they easy to own? Nope. Hence the name, hard keepers. Are they of value?. Absolutely. If his only bad habit is a bad chain habit, yet he demonstrates and performs well, he is of value going forward, maybe not on show night, but most definitely in getting the next one to the show. EWO

The toothless dogs I mentioned did BOTH ... they performed better on show night than 99.9999999% of any dogs that ever were shown AND (if they would have been bred correctly) could have carried on that ability into posterity.

Unfortunately, too many people DON'T know how to breed dogs, DON'T really have "a mission statement" clearly-defined in their head, and they turn a literal Godsend of a dog into a "passing fluke" either by not breeding them at all ... or by not specifically making it their "mission" to keep those great traits alive.

Finally, it's not even just about "winning" ... it's how WELL and DECISIVELY you win

As the old Porsche ad says, "It's not how fast you go; it's how well you go fast."

Jack

.