EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

I have finally seen the light on the value of breeding generations of hog dogs to get hog dogs. I recently purchased some pups from a well respected hog dog breeder and hunter. These pups are bird/bull and are something like 5 generations of hog dogs and it shows. My question is, when breeding two dogs of different bloodlines or breeds to get a huntin dog, is it more or less a crap shoot as to how the pups will turn out ? The guy I got mine from breeds the best to the best and his dogs are linebred or inbred and he has a higher percentage than most with his dogs. Are most folks doing this or just gambling with their breedings ?

if you buddy has 5 generations of these dogs his pups aren't a crap shoot(generally speaking). his first cross was a crap shoot. after that he has done best to best and locked in certain traits so he has a better idea of what he is getting litter by litter.

i think you will find a wide array of answers to you question. some people on here simply breed best to best, no matter the breed. others have a plan and will crossbreed, linebreed and inbreed to get what they want. making sure to cull very hard along the way.

Without all the B.S. its pretty simple.  Breed good dogs to good dogs "Best x Best" and you will get good dogs makes no difference if its a Reg Cat x Reg Bmc are a mixed Cur x Hound  find the click and keep on clicking.  Sure there will be a few culls but that is your job to make the difference on that part.

I believe you breed greatness to greatness! then its a crap shoot! breed anything less and its a guarentee "CRAP" without the shoot!

When I was running bird dogs I worked harder at this than lots of people did at work. When beeding close and  it works it is line breeding and if it don't it is inbreeding. I have owned well over 200 bird dogs in my life.

Here is the deal and the bird dog guys, horse guys, and coon dog guys have pedigrees longer than my leg on dogs. All that does is tell you who was supposed to be bred to who.

There is a bird dog guy named Fred Thompson that hit the nail on the head. He came up with something called prepotentcy index. What this means is winners produced per number times bred. This is the way to look at it. Say you breed male A to 4 different females and wind up with 8 winners.  Then you breed male B to 10 different females and wind up with 8 winners.  Both dogs produced the same amount of good winners but dog A is much more potent.

The horse guys and myself agree that you look for the great producing female. In bird dog lingo that is a "Blue Hen". A friend of  mine got a dog out of a female named Hot Haunches and she produced winners and several champions out of six different males. The Kansas Wind won over 10 open chamionships but never produced jack.

Breed the best to the best. You cannot make chicken salad out of chicken $&^%. If you know of a breeding that has produced good dogs go with that every time. Some say that dogs are more potent in their younger years.

If you breed some dogs and get what you like breed those dogs to similar dogs and your chances are good of getting some good pups. Also if you get a damn good female that throws good dogs every litter call me.

I agree...only thing I would add, is breed good blood dog to good blood dog..In other words, you will find some good dogs that come from nothing....Don't breed those dogs unless you want a high % chance of breeding nothing...

That is kinda what I was wondering or getting at. Percentage of dogs that turn out. When you breed an exceptional dog of one breeding to an exceptional dog of another breeding, and you breed some dang good dogs that are related, what do you think will throw a higher percentage of pups ? I would think it would be the related dogs.

I bought this bird dog named Rex and he was out of 1972 National Champion The Texas Squire. The female was out of a champion daughter of National Champion Riggins White Knight. Bred in the purple and Squire produced several champions.

This bird dog could have set back the pointer breed 50 years with proper breeding. I spent lots of money, time, miles, horses, ect. to try to break this dog. Rex had a great nose but zero brains. I finally gave up and gave the dog away and regret that because I should have shot him.

Jumper Jim never won a championship but produced Double Rebel Jack and Rebel Wrangler that won 20 open championships between them. He could just produce good dogs. I bred 2 bitches to Jack and one breeding produced pups that every one turned out. The other breeding were all culls and the female was good and bred well.

I bought a bitch out of 6 time chamion Roll Call and she was great dog and then some. Handled like a dream from day one and just wanted to please. Everybody I hunted with then wanted dogs out of Roll Call.

They went to the guy that owned Roll Call and bought 3 pups. All three of these dogs were nightmares and would not handle and could care less where you were. I could have made the cover of PETA for the things I did to those dogs trying to get them to handle.

I started checking a little and guess what. Their momma was a sister to Rex. I had run her with a guy that owned her when she was young and she was just as stupid and worthless as Rex. My theory is this-----bad traits are more easily transmitted in dogs than are good traits. I have seen this too many times.

If you can see a dog hunt and they hunt the way you like I would not hesitate to breed them. Just because somebody that you do not know says such and such a dog is great does not make it true. I had one guy that wanted to breed his counterfit male to my best bitch. She would have been better off getting hit by a rattler than that dog breeding her.

The guy I purchased my dogs from has a high percentage of hogs dogs versus other folks. Just seems to me you have a better shot of getting better dogs from a breeding "program" versus "scatter bred" dogs ???

DawsonBMC and HogDogMike both know what they are talking about.  I am fairly new to hogdogs, but have bred performance dogs for 20 yrs.  Best advice ever given to me was . . . "never breed pedigrees".  Just because a certain dog was out of two outstanding parents, that doesn't make him a stud dog.  There are Stud Dogs and there are PUP GETTERS.  A Stud dog consistently throws his traits into his pups when bred to a variety of different females.  A PUP GETTER will simply "get you some pups".  The bad traits surfacing in dogs more often than the good traits is definitley true.  Dogs do not receive the same proportion of good and bad genes distibuted equally to each pup in the litter.  This is why you often see a litter where there will be a couple of dogs in the litter will be outstanding and the rest of the litter is culls.  When looking for a stud dog to breed to, I want to know how did his brothers and sisters turn out.  If he was the only dog in the litter that turned out to be good and the rest were junk, then I would not breed to that dog.  I look for a dog thats parents and grandparents were good, and then the litter as a whole was good.  This dog will have a much greater chance of producing a high percentage of good dogs.  In other words, never breed to a FREAK.  Performance dogs are one of the most difficult animals to consistently breed true.  Their tendancy is to always revert back to the weakest links in the gene pool.  Unless you are constantly testing them under fire and culling hard, you will end up going in reverse from what you are trying to achieve.  The absolute best way to establish a line of dogs you can be proud of, is to find a female that you like everything about her.  Then do the research and find out about her parents, grandparents and littermates.  If they all check out to be above average and consistent, then breed this female to a stud that is producing consistently good offspring when bred to a variety of different females.  Keep these pups and test them hard, culling for the traits you like and don't like.  When the female comes in heat again, breed her to a different bloodline stud with the same qualifications.  Keep those pups and continue to cull hard.  Now you can breed dogs from these two different litters to each other and they will be double bred on the original female.  Now you can breed half-brother and sister, uncle/niece, etc; and over time, you will have established dogs that will hunt the same, act the same, look the same, have the same mannerisms, etc.  You will know your dogs better than anyone and more importantly you will know things like how quick they are supposed to start, which characteristics surface early in the pups that remind you of previous breedings that you like/didn't like.  You will have a better idea of which pups will turn out, based on how they "ACT" at an earlier age.  This will allow you to make culls earlier, because you are familiar with YOUR dogs and what characteristics surface that will tell you if they are more likley to turn out.  I've seen this many times with established breeders who don't breed off their own yard.  They can look at a litter of 6 month old pups in a pen and tell you which pups will make dogs and which ones won't, because they know THEIR dogs and know what to look for.  It all starts with the female.  Remember this . . . A good Stud will make you famous, but a good female will KEEP you famous.             

Amen to the females. I boarded and trained a female setter for a doctor here in Tyler. I wound up with this dog when he relocated. To be honest I was never really that much of a setter man but a pointer man.

The doctor had her with a bad trainer that told him she was worthless. There was nothing wrong with the dog that groceries would not cure. I got her fed up and sent her to the prairie in Oklahoma with a training friend for the summer. When she got back she was ready and I broke her easy easy.

I was helping a guy train some dogs and doing a little guide work down at the King Ranch. He had this male setter down there that was the best one I ever laid eyes on. I breed that male to my bitch.

She had 8 pups and every single one of them was outstanding. Bred her again and she had 7 and every single one of them was outstanding. She was a daughter of  Ch Im Oscar ---the very heart of the Smith Setter breeding. Elwin G Smith had a good program and it showed in that female. If she had been the first bird dog I had ever owned I would have never had any kind of pointer. There is no telling how many pups I trained to back using her. When she parked it she stayed parked.

Everybody thinks that Elhew pointers are the best there is. I have trained several and owned a few. Many of them are just plain crazy and too tender for my needs.

If you can find somebody that has a history of breeding good dogs and you know for a fact that the dogs you observed came from his kennel that is the way to go. If you can find a repeat breeding out of a great producing female jump on it. Watch out for "brood bitches". Lots of times that is a cull that they use for breeding because they are hunting their good bitches.

rrslim its funny you said never breed pedigrees, but what you just described was breeding pedigrees. i bred pits for years and pedigrees aren't an absolute to getting good dogs, but it helps to line out the traits in dogs and where your dogs come from. most of us on here know where our dogs come from and what their blood has in them so it is the same as pedigrees. i would never breed to a dog just because it has such and such dog in it.

pedigrees help you to keep things in line. like you said rrslim if you go onto pedigrees online(an apbt online pedigree site) you can pull up a stud dog and see every dog that is behind him, you can pull up ALL is offspring(that has been put into the site) and you can see what they look like and how they have performed when bred to different bloodlines. this helps you to know what blood goes best with that dog. some blood just doesn't produce very high(butcherboy/rascal) others produce at an alarming rate(jeep/rascal/redboy).

i also agree that a great stud dog will make you famous, but a great female will KEEP you famous.

i'm a ways away from trying to breed any of my females, but when i do i will SEE the stud i want hunt. then i will find out about parents and grandparents, then i will find out about his litter mates, if this all checks out i will then and only then look to his offspring. if my potential stud can't pass the first round of checks, there is no need for me to look at offspring.

I don't know, but I think he meant just breeding paper because the dog has paper...One thing to also remember is that the paper is only as good as the man who bred the dogs..We all know that paper sells and there are some out there who take advantage of this in order to sell a few pups..

Deuce24, you are right.  What I should have said is don't breed to a dog because it has a good pedigree only, make sure it is a good dog first, and then as you said, the pedigree is important.  Best example I could think of (where me and you would undestand it) would be that most folks don't know that Honeybunch was bred to Zebo once, and It's my understanding that the whole litter was culled.  Another example would be the time a friend of mine took a daughter of Tant's Poncho that was out of a direct daughter of Yellow John, and she was a 100% good bitch in every way.  She had produced high percentage way above average dogs when bred to (non-Jeep/Redboy studs).  He sent and had her bred to Havana Boys GR CH Jumpin Jack Flash (which was the hot stud dog at the time, around 1991/92)  which on PAPER should have crossed excellent, but every dog in the litter was a cull.  We bred her to Hunter Red, I raised all those pups and they were average or below average at best.  Also bred her to Kitten's Ch Britches (didn't take).   I owned a son of Jeep x Dolly (otisxhoneybunch) which made him double grandson to Honeybunch.  Bred him to 5 or 6 females, and didn't get much to speak of.  but I was breeding a pedigree and NOT a good dog to start with because I thought his pedigree could tote the mail.  But you are correct and I agree with you, the pedigree IS IMPORTANT.                 

those were some top notch dogs that you mentioned...and you are right many people don't know that zebo and honeybunch had a litter..the whole litter was worthless. zebo was that freak that you were talking about. i don't know of one freak that was able to reproduce a high percentage...butcherboy, zebo, bb red, banjo, etc. all of them were freak dogs but never produced at a really high level. we found out the hard way, kinda like you, that peds don't tote the mail. the dog does. after we learned that only tried and true dogs from tried and true parents and litters were put together. we found ourselves breeding less, but getting much higher %'s. when i get to this point with my hog dogs i will do the same. be very meticulous in what i breed until i get a few solid dogs that i know will produce what i want. then i will only breed when i need some youngsters and my buddy's need some youngsters...lol

When we breed our dogs we are going best to best. From that all the pups will find pigs and want to stop them. Some are tougher than others and some have better bodies. I am really quite an uneducated breeder in that I know nothing much of theory, just how t get dogs that will catch me pigs. One rule we follow is that the bitch is the most important thing in the mix. We have found the body of the bitch is the governing factor for overall size and style of the majority of the pups. Also if the bitch is a top worker and the dog average, the pups will be good workers. Conversely if the bitch is average and the dog is outstanding, half the pups will be top workers and half will be average but you won't know for sure which half until the pups are about 12 months old.
Pedigress mean nothing. The person doing the breeding means everything.
Cheers.

Many years ago a guy that I bird hunted with bought a male from a guy that had a cardboard sign on a telephone pole. I was really into pedigrees at the time and thought Jack will just have to learn the hard way.

I had a grand son and a grand daughter of Flush's Country Squire at the time. Squire had already produced a national champion. I breed my two dogs together and we kept all the pups.

Jack's cardboard sign dog was a pure natural if there ever was one. He could handle running wild birds at nine months which is something that some dogs cannot do in a lifetime. No papers on this dog and he accidently bred a bitch of Jack's that was out of good stuff. What does our dumb ass do--we give away all the non papered dogs.

Long story short--all the dogs we kept needed to be knocked in the head. All the ones we gave away were damn good bird dogs. Bill (the non papered dog) caught cancer and died before we could breed him. He was one of the top 5 dogs I have ever seen in my life and I have seen a bunch. Only dog I ever saw point a bird with a dead bird he was retrieving in his mouth.

My theory now is that I want to see the parents do it. I am not talking about a "gonna be" or a "has been" but and "is now" dog. If I can get a dog out of a repeat mating where good dogs were produced I will go with that every time.

I was the same way, I use to be all paper and now I could care less.... In the end, dogs are dogs and to find the good ones (good producing ones), you need to find the guys that are known as hunters first and use their dogs to hunt with.  Someone that is know to catch more hogs than anyone in their area...If you can find him or them, you will find the dogs.  If you are new to the sport, Go to your local hunting store or feed store and ask them who catches the most hogs....After doing this, you will find the dogs.. Now, just hope he hunts the kind of dogs you want.  To many peope get in to hog hunting wanting to get the breed of pup they want, when they should go on several hunts with different people hunting different styles so they can actually know what they want first.  I wish I would have done this, would have saved some money..

dgDawsonBMCs--Right you are. Find the guys that catch the most hogs and try to get some of their stuff. Some of the bay pen dogs could not find a hog in the woods if their life depended on it.

I got lucky. The guys that took me hunting the very first time always catch lots of hogs and have good dogs. They go through lots of dogs but you can bet if they are feeding one it is a pretty good dog.

Probably the best male cur dog I ever hunted with was a dog named BJ. He could wind off the box, take a cold track like a hound, would leave and go hunting if cast into woods, would catch smaller hogs, bay bigger hogs and catch with a catch dog. Good nose, good handle, loud bay bark..just no holes in him.  He was always hunted alone and found hogs all over my area. When someone had a hog they couldn't catch, this is the guy and dog they called. And most times, he would catch them.

I mean this was a TOP dog in anyones kennel. Problem was he must have been bred 50-60 times over 10 years and never produced one pup worth feeding.....I mean he was bred to some good dogs too, hog dogs, cow dogs,  and a few birddogs. Just nothing seemed to click .........

So even breeding a jam up dog to a good dog can be a crap shoot.........the prepotentcy thing is what we are all looking for. A dog that can produce dogs as good, or better than he or she is. There are just very few of them out there......

Like ya'll mentioned, some dogs are outstanding but don't reproduce. Like one of ya'll said, a good repeat breeding would be best, next I think a good linebred dog, and lastly two "scatterbred" dogs that are really good but not related. Sound good to ya'll ???

how about two line bred dogs that are not related (at least in a 5 or 6 generation pedigree....I wouldn't even try breeding "scatterbred" dogs...