Quote Originally Posted by CA Jack View Post
Talent can't come from "nowhere" ... it has to come from somewhere.

Some buckskin dogs have a rednose gene in them. You can breed two such buckskin dogs (Aa) and produce a rednose (aa) dog with them.
In the same way, you can breed two no-talent plugs, with a common badass ancestor, and produce a badass dog with them.

But you can't keep doing that forever.

The reason is, some of the buckskin dogs will be pure AA buckskins and have LOST the rednose gene.
Similarly, some no-talent dogs off of talented dogs, have simply LOST gameness and ability somewhere.

Therefore, if you keep breeding no-talent pieces of shit together, even if they're linebred on a highly-talented dog, you will LOSE gameness and ability if you're not specifically looking at your dogs and SELECTING FOR gameness and talent.

You can't just keep breeding no-talent dogs together and KEEP gameness and talent; you have to keep breeding to the dogs that exhibit gameness and talent.
You have to breed for performance.

Sure, you can sometimes "get by" by breeding no-talent, inbred plugs ... that have some super-duper dog back there ... but you don't want to make a perpetual habit of this.

Like anything, a little common horse sense goes a long way ...

Jack
This is excellent. I can't imagine why anybody would be regularly breeding no talent plugs, inbred or no: my understanding is gameness will be irretrievably lost if you are not constantly selecting for it. That means breeding to game dogs as, like you say, it can't come from nowhere. It has to come from somewhere.

It's funny you mention horse sense since a lot of this is as true for thoroughbred racehorses as it is for dogs. They breed winners to winners & game losers. I can only dream of a day when matching game dogs is legal like horse racing. The very same thing is happening: you're watching a living laboratory that tests which animals to breed. And some people make some coin off of it. The practical difference? Thoroughbred ownership tends to be much more wealthy & more organized than game dog ownership. I've heard it said about fighting cocks as well, but I know almost nothing about that sport; my understanding is that it's legal in at least a few states. It's really sad that they discriminate against the dogs like that.

Sorry for the run on. Question: do you define "talent" as gameness, or ability, or both?