Originally Posted by No Quarter Kennel
I agree with you whole heartedly Jack. I wish I had known these things years ago. I haven't bred any dogs in around 6 years. That's actually real good. I was simply copying proven formulas and trying to repeat things already done. Now that I have a much better understanding of creating dogs and have the best I've fed left, although old, that's exactly what I intend to do. The litter that produced AC/DC's Diablo is the litter I am hanging my hat on. I guess in around 18-24 months, we'll know exactly how that pans out.
You can't fail by following the extreme credo of "breed for whole litter quality/uniformity."
In fact, I would go so far as to say that (if there were two 10-pup litters) I would rather breed to the 1 dud out of a litter of 9 very good dogs than I would to breed to the 1 very good dog whose 9 other littermates were duds
If it is a breeding fact (and it is) that "you get what the average of your line is," mostly, then the key to breeding dogs is you have to keep your averages better than the next guy's. To do this, you cannot only look at "individuals," you have to look at the whole quotient.
To see how easy this is to prove true, just imagine the extreme reverse: if you bred to a rank cur individual dog (like a pomeranian), who had all rank cur littermates, and came from two rank cur parents (who themselves came out of all rank cur littermates) ... and if it played out like that as far back as the pedigree can go ... then how could you possibly get a game dog out of an animal with such 100% pure rank cur lineage? You can't. It is genetically-impossible because there simply are no genetics for gameness in that dog.
No go back to the positive side: if you breed to a legitimately-game, talented dog ... who comes from a whole litterful of game, talented dogs ... who came from two legitimately-game and talented parents (who themselves came from two litters UNIFORMLY-FULL of game/talented dogs) ... and if it played-out like that as far back as you can go in the pedigree ... and these dogs were from the same family ... AND you're breeding this dog to its close relative who comes from a similar background of uniform across-the-board genetic excellence, then you could have an accidental kennel breeding in your sleep and produce good dogs
Because, if those are the true genetic realities behind them, how could they not produce uniform gameness? That is what they are genetically-programmed to do!
You always get what you breed for, and so those people who breed to "a" good dog (who comes from a so-so litter) are always dooming themselves to produce this in their own litters. They will always produce a lot of lousy dogs, with the "occasional good one," because that is what they're breeding to ... and so that is what they're breeding for: the occasional good dog out of a basically lousy litter. And so that is what they are going to get themselves.
Thus it only makes sense to be selective when you choose to breed, and to pass-up those "occasional good dogs," out of mostly-lousy litters, and instead breed to the good dogs out of truly good overall litters ... and then to stack the deck even more in your favor by breeding such dogs to their close relatives, who likewise come out of uniformly-excellent litters.
Jack
Reply With Quote