Best to Best vs Pretty Ped?

[No Quarter Kennel]

I like the Garner's Gr. Ch Spike that's down from Doc, China Boy and those dogs. The Spike x Molly breeding. I like it as a cross with my Alligator stuff. Some real good dogs have come from that cross. I have a little stud dog that is a grandson to China Boy, but he's 3/4 Tonka Red Baron as well. Which is fine, but I wish I had a little bit more of it. I like the Chinaman stuff as well, but I'm no Frisco fan. No offense to anyone out there, it's just not for me. I guess I'm partial to what I know.

[FrostyPaws]

I think too many folks get a little to over the top with the macho "BULLDOG X BULLDOG" and "BEST x BEST" b/c if that is ALL anyone ever did, there would be no bloodlines or families at all. I understand completely selecting and breeding the best we have within families and proven crosses, but the genetic structure, dan and pedigree have to be considered.

Startin Convo - that's all!

Let's hear it.

I think this last paragraph sums up a lot. Best to best or Bulldog to Bulldog, within a certain family, is absolutely the way to go. That's if you're actually interested in breeding and/or maintaining a line of dogs. To the man that is only interested in showing dogs, it doesn't make any difference what the pedigree says a lot of the time.

[No Quarter Kennel]

I think this last paragraph sums up a lot. Best to best or Bulldog to Bulldog, within a certain family, is absolutely the way to go. That's if you're actually interested in breeding and/or maintaining a line of dogs. To the man that is only interested in showing dogs, it doesn't make any difference what the pedigree says a lot of the time.

I agree

[Kimo615]

Yea thats what breeding the little Gator stuff is out of. My pup im referring to is Chinaman/Little Gator. He out od Crocodile/Miss Crocodile breeding this year. Little Gator...Black Angel...Joe Black. All in his ped

[OGDOGG]

Breeding to get a good family of dogs is not an easy task. By the time you breed 2-3 generations down, it's already been 5-6 years. And by that time who knows..you might be out of the dog game. I give props to the breeders thats been breeding the same line for a long period of time.

[EWO]

Sometimes it is not just best to best or bulldog to bulldog. Let's say the best bitch is a freak mouthed, game dog with little to no ability. The very best male one has access to is a hard mouth, game bum with no ability. Both have used what they have and logged a few wins. If one would want make long term strides and solidify a certain line it may not be the best plan to best to best breed these two. Since both of them carry basically the same traits it may be an idea to take them each to a game and talented partner with lots of ability. Then in time the 'complete packages' out of this litter would be second layer of the foundation to create a family with the ability to sustain itself with selective reproduction. EWO

[TFX]

On all of this "best" business, I'll tell you my thoughts. You could offer me to breed to the latest 5 time winner who has shown a lot of heart, and I really don't want any of it, even if he is the "best" dog around. You see, for me he is not the best. We have just worked way too hard for much too long to go willy-nilly breeding to any old great dog, even as rare as great dogs are.

I am a seed stock breeder, and I would breed to the very good dog of my line over the great outcross every time. If someone with my stock wants to make a cross and turns up with something extraordinary, then I would consider breeding that back and tolerating the outcrossed 1/4 as a means of improvement, but that would be about it for me. I still take the risk of what is behind that outcrossed quarter haunting me for generations. I have seen way too many "best" dogs; including CH, GR CH, and ROMS, throw garbage because nobody took the decades required to stabilize the gene pool behind them. Now that I have a gene pool I trust and believe in, nothing else is really appealing. It's not that I don't appreciate the great dog for what he is, but he doesn't appeal to me as a brood dog as a means to improve my personal breeding efforts.

[No Quarter Kennel]

On all of this "best" business, I'll tell you my thoughts. You could offer me to breed to the latest 5 time winner who has shown a lot of heart, and I really don't want any of it, even if he is the "best" dog around. You see, for me he is not the best. We have just worked way too hard for much too long to go willy-nilly breeding to any old great dog, even as rare as great dogs are.

I am a seed stock breeder, and I would breed to the very good dog of my line over the great outcross every time. If someone with my stock wants to make a cross and turns up with something extraordinary, then I would consider breeding that back and tolerating the outcrossed 1/4 as a means of improvement, but that would be about it for me. I still take the risk of what is behind that outcrossed quarter haunting me for generations. I have seen way too many "best" dogs; including CH, GR CH, and ROMS, throw garbage because nobody took the decades required to stabilize the gene pool behind them. Now that I have a gene pool I trust and believe in, nothing else is really appealing. It's not that I don't appreciate the great dog for what he is, but he doesn't appeal to me as a brood dog as a means to improve my personal breeding efforts.

THIS....THIS RIGHT HERE - THIS IS WHAT I"M TALKIN BOUT!

TFX, I've like a ton of your posts in the past, but this one is straight to the point and good stuff. Said a whole lot of stuff I wanted to say.....but better.

[TFX]

THIS....THIS RIGHT HERE - THIS IS WHAT I"M TALKIN BOUT!

TFX, I've like a ton of your posts in the past, but this one is straight to the point and good stuff. Said a whole lot of stuff I wanted to say.....but better.

Thanks NQK, you're a real gentleman, and there aren't many of those left in the fancy.

[Officially Retired]

On all of this "best" business, I'll tell you my thoughts. You could offer me to breed to the latest 5 time winner who has shown a lot of heart, and I really don't want any of it, even if he is the "best" dog around. You see, for me he is not the best. We have just worked way too hard for much too long to go willy-nilly breeding to any old great dog, even as rare as great dogs are.
I am a seed stock breeder, and I would breed to the very good dog of my line over the great outcross every time. If someone with my stock wants to make a cross and turns up with something extraordinary, then I would consider breeding that back and tolerating the outcrossed 1/4 as a means of improvement, but that would be about it for me. I still take the risk of what is behind that outcrossed quarter haunting me for generations. I have seen way too many "best" dogs; including CH, GR CH, and ROMS, throw garbage because nobody took the decades required to stabilize the gene pool behind them. Now that I have a gene pool I trust and believe in, nothing else is really appealing. It's not that I don't appreciate the great dog for what he is, but he doesn't appeal to me as a brood dog as a means to improve my personal breeding efforts.

Great post. That was my experience, time-and again, all throughout my breeding dogs: every time I made a cross, even though many of my "cross dog" efforts yielded great dogs, I always had highly-inbred(linebred) dogs on the yard that would whip them. And when I bred my core dogs back into the crosses, the 3/4-1/4 results were always better still than the original crosses.

Further, when I ran my core dogs into other people's crosses in school, those other people almost always picked up. When I sent my core dogs to all 4 corners of the earth, they would routinely (8-9x out of 10) whip just about every "badass cross" they ever faced in the pit, by out-smarting, out-gutting, and out-lasting them.

So I pretty much stopped bothering to make crosses.

Jack