annoying

[Naj]

Although I would consider 'well-bred' to be a reflection of modern trials breeding, I don't think that comparing the amount of red ink on one pedigree as against that of another necessarily gives a true reflection of the relative merit & worth of the resultant progeny, which was my point.

Naj

[paul spaniel]

what gets me guys is the price of pups bred from nothing, not the successful trialling bitches..

[DesO'Neile]

Although I would consider 'well-bred' to be a reflection of modern trials breeding, I don't think that comparing the amount of red ink on one pedigree as against that of another necessarily gives a true reflection of the relative merit & worth of the resultant progeny, which was my point.

If you are happy with what you are doing, fine but I think you are totally incorrect in your assumptions. Flawed as they are trials are the only common denominator when assessing the potential of an unseen/untrained pup. I'm not trying to talk up trials more trying to talk down the assessments of owners who appear to pay little reference to the general shooting field. At the 50th anniversary dinner of The Northern Ireland Pointer Club Sean Flemming started his address with "One word changes one's appreciation of a dog like no other. Ownership!". Over the years I have been invited to look at quite a few "Wonder Dogs!" and they have one thing in common. Most of them are just about useless. A classic example being a Lab that had an "astounding nose" and "the softest mouth" but was so unsteady that on the afternoon I shot over it caught two pheasants before they hit the ground. When asked my opinion I said it would be difficult to say until the dog was trained. That elicited some dirty looks, a few forced laughs and a bit of head scratching. When people say speed or size isn't everything they usually have slow or small dogs in that order.
So when you get down to the red ink bit, and I mean real red ink, none of this FTAW crap, at least with a dog like Jet you have something to ponder over. Other than that you have only your experience of actually seeing the pup's predecessors in action to know the breeding and the potential it has. To have forty F.T.Ch's in a five generation pedigree suggests an almost amazing level of consistency of achievement. I have of course heard many say that a dog "only" has to win two open stakes to become a F.T.Ch. but to me that's a bit like saying that Linford only had to run for ten seconds to become an Olympic Champion.

The other side to this particular coin of course is that argueably one of the greatest cockers ever bred, Speckle of Ardoon was the result of an off pedigree mating forced because foot and mouth restrictions at the time the bitch was ready to be mated meant that you couldn't move ANY animal more than ten miles from home and Will had seen the sire going mental in it's garden jumping up on a table to see over the wall as he drove to work. However, and it is a huge however, had Speckle gone to a shooting home we would never have heard of her. That she produced nothing nearing her level only confirms the use of the red ink filled pedigree.

[paul spaniel]

Although I would consider 'well-bred' to be a reflection of modern trials breeding, I don't think that comparing the amount of red ink on one pedigree as against that of another necessarily gives a true reflection of the relative merit & worth of the resultant progeny, which was my point.

If you are happy with what you are doing, fine but I think you are totally incorrect in your assumptions. Flawed as they are trials are the only common denominator when assessing the potential of an unseen/untrained pup. I'm not trying to talk up trials more trying to talk down the assessments of owners who appear to pay little reference to the general shooting field. At the 50th anniversary dinner of The Northern Ireland Pointer Club Sean Flemming started his address with "One word changes one's appreciation of a dog like no other. Ownership!". Over the years I have been invited to look at quite a few "Wonder Dogs!" and they have one thing in common. Most of them are just about useless. A classic example being a Lab that had an "astounding nose" and "the softest mouth" but was so unsteady that on the afternoon I shot over it caught two pheasants before they hit the ground. When asked my opinion I said it would be difficult to say until the dog was trained. That elicited some dirty looks, a few forced laughs and a bit of head scratching. When people say speed or size isn't everything they usually have slow or small dogs in that order.
So when you get down to the red ink bit, and I mean real red ink, none of this FTAW crap, at least with a dog like Jet you have something to ponder over. Other than that you have only your experience of actually seeing the pup's predecessors in action to know the breeding and the potential it has. To have forty F.T.Ch's in a five generation pedigree suggests an almost amazing level of consistency of achievement. I have of course heard many say that a dog "only" has to win two open stakes to become a F.T.Ch. but to me that's a bit like saying that Linford only had to run for ten seconds to become an Olympic Champion.

The other side to this particular coin of course is that argueably one of the greatest cockers ever bred, Speckle of Ardoon was the result of an off pedigree mating forced because foot and mouth restrictions at the time the bitch was ready to be mated meant that you couldn't move ANY animal more than ten miles from home and Will had seen the sire going mental in it's garden jumping up on a table to see over the wall as he drove to work. However, and it is a huge however, had Speckle gone to a shooting home we would never have heard of her. That she produced nothing nearing her level only confirms the use of the red ink filled pedigree.

excellant post des..

[t jack]

Although I would consider 'well-bred' to be a reflection of modern trials breeding, I don't think that comparing the amount of red ink on one pedigree as against that of another necessarily gives a true reflection of the relative merit & worth of the resultant progeny, which was my point.

If you are happy with what you are doing, fine but I think you are totally incorrect in your assumptions. Flawed as they are trials are the only common denominator when assessing the potential of an unseen/untrained pup. I'm not trying to talk up trials more trying to talk down the assessments of owners who appear to pay little reference to the general shooting field. At the 50th anniversary dinner of The Northern Ireland Pointer Club Sean Flemming started his address with "One word changes one's appreciation of a dog like no other. Ownership!". Over the years I have been invited to look at quite a few "Wonder Dogs!" and they have one thing in common. Most of them are just about useless. A classic example being a Lab that had an "astounding nose" and "the softest mouth" but was so unsteady that on the afternoon I shot over it caught two pheasants before they hit the ground. When asked my opinion I said it would be difficult to say until the dog was trained. That elicited some dirty looks, a few forced laughs and a bit of head scratching. When people say speed or size isn't everything they usually have slow or small dogs in that order.
So when you get down to the red ink bit, and I mean real red ink, none of this FTAW crap, at least with a dog like Jet you have something to ponder over. Other than that you have only your experience of actually seeing the pup's predecessors in action to know the breeding and the potential it has. To have forty F.T.Ch's in a five generation pedigree suggests an almost amazing level of consistency of achievement. I have of course heard many say that a dog "only" has to win two open stakes to become a F.T.Ch. but to me that's a bit like saying that Linford only had to run for ten seconds to become an Olympic Champion.

The other side to this particular coin of course is that argueably one of the greatest cockers ever bred, Speckle of Ardoon was the result of an off pedigree mating forced because foot and mouth restrictions at the time the bitch was ready to be mated meant that you couldn't move ANY animal more than ten miles from home and Will had seen the sire going mental in it's garden jumping up on a table to see over the wall as he drove to work. However, and it is a huge however, had Speckle gone to a shooting home we would never have heard of her. That she produced nothing nearing her level only confirms the use of the red ink filled pedigree.

excellant post des..

Seconded

[Naj]

So if, as I presume, you are asserting that choosing the 'best' is simply a matter of choosing the pedigree with the largest number of FT Champions in it, then choosing your next field trial champion should be a doddle. In fact, we could do away with the competition side of things & just have a count up - only joking . And I do value a trials bred puppy for similar reasons to those mentioned, but there are plenty of examples of well bred dogs out there that don't come from a FTCh x FTCh union & which are good gundogs & have the potential of producing sound - & exciting - shooting progeny, & FTChs. Many pro trainers carry such lines, or, at least, they used to do. I've never seen a 'wonder dog', nor have I owned one, but the failings of the lab that you mentioned were surely down to training, or the lack of it, not breeding. It could have had an impeccable pedigree. I would certainly be interested in a pup from breeding stuffed with FTChs but I wouldn't see any advantage in paying way over the odds for one when I could get a pup with good trials breeding that I liked for, perhaps, half the price. And I'm not convinced that in paying the extra money I would necessarily be getting a better pup, all things being equal. Perhaps if you are totally focussed on trials, & winning them, rather than just entering them, you need to go with the popular breeding of the day, but even so you must surely be prepared for a few discards before you find your FTCh, if, indeed, you ever do. Plenty don't.

Naj

[DesO'Neile]

I've never seen a 'wonder dog'

In the context of my post neither have I, more's the pitty.

I feel that if we knew each other better we would have quite a lot in common and there are points you make that are well made but if I may go back to the Lab. It so happens that it had an excellent pedigree. Had I been looking for a Lab when it was a pup and been offered it I may well have bought it. It was, more than likely, a product of the training regime it had been put through and from what I could tell the owner probably had the ability to bring the dog to an acceptable level, had he known what the dog was supposed to do. This though doesn't alter the fact that until you try to get the dog to do the whole job properly you don't know if it ever could have been trained. If you have a chap who chases a few pheasants round the land of a friendly farmer, never encountering more than a couple of birds at a time, steadiness could easily seem like an unnecessary skill and not worth the effort to train for. This is where the people who tout their "Wonder Dogs" get lead badly astray. The Lab's owner really thought he did have a "Wonder Dog" and that's why my comments rankled. This is a generalisation I know but would you buy a pup from a keeper based on how it goes about it's business. I would suggest not as usually the most unruly dog at the shoot belongs to him as he is a keeper first and foremost and dog training is well down his list of priorities. Why you may well buy would be on the strength of it's pedigree as more than likely it will have predominantly trialling blood.
The lack of objectivity in the assessment of the non-trialled dog worries me. If I told you that you should buy a pup, the young dog I have now in my kennel called Van because he has, Celt, Roi, Jump and Bold in his pedigree, and I think they were great (Great in this context is nearly a warning) dogs would you buy it? Or would you be more likely to buy it if I told you it had Int.F.T.Ch. Doohatty Forest (Celt), F.T.Ch. Prince of Darkness (Roi), Irish F.T.Ch. Sugarloaf Bold (Jump) and F.T.Ch. Bold as Brass (Bold) as it's ancestors? Surely the second line of ancestory had got to mean more?

[springer-spaniel]

So if, as I presume, you are asserting that choosing the 'best' is simply a matter of choosing the pedigree with the largest number of FT Champions in it, then choosing your next field trial champion should be a doddle. In fact, we could do away with the competition side of things & just have a count up - only joking . And I do value a trials bred puppy for similar reasons to those mentioned, but there are plenty of examples of well bred dogs out there that don't come from a FTCh x FTCh union & which are good gundogs & have the potential of producing sound - & exciting - shooting progeny, & FTChs. Many pro trainers carry such lines, or, at least, they used to do. I've never seen a 'wonder dog', nor have I owned one, but the failings of the lab that you mentioned were surely down to training, or the lack of it, not breeding. It could have had an impeccable pedigree. I would certainly be interested in a pup from breeding stuffed with FTChs but I wouldn't see any advantage in paying way over the odds for one when I could get a pup with good trials breeding that I liked for, perhaps, half the price. And I'm not convinced that in paying the extra money I would necessarily be getting a better pup, all things being equal. Perhaps if you are totally focussed on trials, & winning them, rather than just entering them, you need to go with the popular breeding of the day, but even so you must surely be prepared for a few discards before you find your FTCh, if, indeed, you ever do. Plenty don't.

Naj

nice one mr.s

[Rothievale]

Great posts Des and Naj.

[greenshank1]

I would never be annoyed what someone wanted to pay for a dog it's entirely up to them and if they are happy that is the main thing.
As some one training their first gundog and loving it . I would like to ask the experienced people on he forum , in their opinion and experience in the great dogs they have owned or seen how much of the dogs talent and brilliance was done to its breeding and how much was down to its nurturing and the time and commitment of its owner / trainer ?