FTCH parents? Does that really matter?

[pontbeck]

I'm not suggesting breeding from an average bitch but line breeding from proven stock.If the bitch has no connection to the dog ( an outcross ) you are expecting too much from the dog,IMO, to produce top quality stock,no matter what aspect you are breeding to achieve .

Bill

[BIKRS]

Can someone please explain to me why you would line breed from an average dog in order to improve the breed. It's average so it therefore passes on average or am I wrong? If it's too slow it surely produces slow puppies, poor nose then puppies with poor noses?
There has got to be something in this line breeding but I don't get it?

It surely has to be better to put an average bitch to a FTCH and hope all the pups take the dogs traits than to get a guaranteed mixture of average and with possible health problems to boot from the close relationship?[/quote]

Because you are not line breeding to the average dog but to a common ancester in sire and dam of exceptional proven quality.

[baguio]

BIKRS wrote : 'I would rather line breed using an average dog than outcross to a champion any day'. but also wrote : 'Because you are not line breeding to the average dog but to a common ancester in sire and dam of exceptional proven quality.'

You have confused me even more now! Which is it? Both your statements and they appear to contradict each other? I can understand line breeding exceptional to exceptional but then ftch to ftch is exceptional to exceptional which is why most owners of ftch bitches will use a ftch dog and funny old thing exceptional dogs are produced. (obviously they have the added benefit of mostly going to top trainers too which means that they WILL maximise their potential as well)

Surely if you use exceptional to exceptional you're probably going to end up with exceptional regardless of whether they're related so therefore you might as well use an exceptional non related dog and avoid the risk of health problems?

I'm not trying to create an argument honestly. I'm just interested in the theory of it.

[kent]

BIKRS wrote : 'I would rather line breed using an average dog than outcross to a champion any day'. but also wrote : 'Because you are not line breeding to the average dog but to a common ancester in sire and dam of exceptional proven quality.'

You have confused me even more now! Which is it? Both your statements and they appear to contradict each other? I can understand line breeding exceptional to exceptional but then ftch to ftch is exceptional to exceptional which is why most owners of ftch bitches will use a ftch dog and funny old thing exceptional dogs are produced. (obviously they have the added benefit of mostly going to top trainers too which means that they WILL maximise their potential as well)

Surely if you use exceptional to exceptional you're probably going to end up with exceptional regardless of whether they're related so therefore you might as well use an exceptional non related dog and avoid the risk of health problems?

I'm not trying to create an argument honestly. I'm just interested in the theory of it.

I think your just missing the point in two ways. 1. line breeding only gives more certainty of the type of pups due to common genes, if your line produced rubbish then the likelyhood is it will alway produce rubbish of the same type - it only locks in type more good type or bad type. 2. exeptional to unrelated exceptional will generally not breed true to type the pups hence are more a gamble than many think they might be if you looked at only the awards in selection, the genes are more varied and will mix at random.

[BIKRS]

Exceptional to exceptional does not guarentee exceptional pups. In my opinion the dog you want to line breed to should appear in the first three generations of both sire and dam.

[vicky payne]

Naj has written some interesing suff on line breeding and the breeding of champion dogs in another thread.

The way I look at it line breeding is good for producing consistent dogs but for me MUST be linked with health testing. Outbreeding increases variability (but I'd still be health testing!!!!).
Naj seemed to raise the point that what breeders of trial dogs want is NOT consistency but variability! They don't really want all the dogs in a trial to be the of the same ability and quality, they actually want one or two 'stars' which potentially leaves lots of....not stars. I don't know enough about the breeding and mindset of top triallers to know if this is how they think or not. The shooting man wants to produce an even litter of good dogs that will do ok even ith a less talened trainer.
I'm not sure why posters on his forum are using the term 'average' in a negative way. An average dog is what most shooting men want (no sexism implied!), one that hunts well enough, has a good enough nose, is biddable enough for what they want. Average doesn't mean 'noseless plodder' as I'm sure no-one wants to breed more of those (except the show ring???). So......we're back to breed or buy for the job YOU want to do and don't assume the 'average' dogs who go out beating, picking up, dogging -in, wildfowling ad pigeon shooting every day are any less important to the breed than the glitering FTCHs.

[baguio]

I have used average Vicky because I assumed that breeders would want to produce better than average qualities including the health of their puppies. After all we try to breed from dogs with better than average hip scores don’t we? I would hope that not too many people breed from rubbish although I have no doubt that a few do. (In fact I think that Vicky has posted that a few do in the 'Random Rants' section.)
It’s not a slur on average though, although I concede that it does appear that way on my posts’ for which I apologise.

[vicky payne]

Apology accepted. I think (hope!) even the guy with an 'average' bitch wants to breed pups at least as good as their dam, Maybe that means he picks a FTCH to put over her, maybe he picks the keepers dog that he really likes...he would have to have a litter from both sires to prove which produced the better pups- and even then the 'shooting man' may have a different idea on which is the better pup than the 'trialling man'.
What we need to avoid is the 'less than average' bitch being put to any dog as this is never going to improve the breed! This means stud owners have to be prepared to say no as much as the bitch owner doesn't it?

[pontbeck]

Quote :This means stud owners have to be prepared to say no as much as the bitch owner doesn't it?

The argument against that from the stud dog owner is that if he refuses to allow his dog to line the bitch they will only go somewhere else and use an inferior dog , thus producing even inferior pups. I`ve heard this argument many times, mostly from very well known dog people.

Bill

[kent]

Of course the stud fee doesn't even enter thier head