Famous Dogs That Quit

[Officially Retired]

I would like to note that Crenshaw's Missy wasn't the foundation of any breeding program that I know of. I don't think any purist is stupid enough to say you can't breed curs and not get game dogs. There is plenty of evidence contrary to the fact. If you meet someone of that ilk, you should immediately disregard them as a complete and utter idiot.

Agreed.

That being said, is the bottle half empty or half full? Different degrees of gameness, different degrees of curs. It's all semantics to some degree. I believe I would consider myself a purist in regards to this topic. Have there been dogs that stopped along the way that I would breed to? Yes. Have there been dogs that quit? I don't think so. You have to realize the distinction between stopped and quit to understand what I mean. For every dog that quit that produced quality dogs, there is another dog out there that took the same punishment, maybe more, that didn't quit and produced quality dogs. To me, that is the entire issue. Why breed to a dog that quit when you can simply breed to one that didn't and retain the quality.

It is a scientific fact that there aren't "degrees of cold," there are only degrees of heat. In other words temperatures rise with more heat (atomic/molecular vibration), while temperatures lower with less heat. There isn't the "presence of cold"; in point of fact when you get to freezing temperatures there is only the ABSENCE of heat. Heat is positive vibration, molecular movement, and so the idea of "negative" temperatures in fact are merely the absence of positive movement.

If we take this analogy and apply it to gameness, which is the POSITIVE, volitional desire will to win, then dead gameness is therefore the maximum positive value of this trait.

There isn't "presence of cur" in dogs that stop trying, there is only the absence of gameness (the will to win).

As for the "too valuable to lose" argument. I understand that. If the dog is too valuable to lose, then don't show the dog. Is the dog too valuable to even be looked at to even begin to understand what it is you're breeding? Or does a person simply not care WHAT type of dog it is as long as it's bred the way they want. There are plenty of successful dogmen that did exactly as Prairie said, and there have been plenty that did the exact opposite to where no dog was too valuable to be checked to the owner's satisfaction.

Agreed. No dog is "too valuable" to roll and look at, at least to some reasonable degree that some of his traits can be assessed.

But I do think there are some dogs that are too valuable to match.

Jack