Breeding dogs...???

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.