X2...I was fixing to bring up what you said but in a different way...tight family breeding with best to the best breeding from within that family will be producing consistency...so quite a bit of desirable traits are displayed because they are doubled up recessives...a recessive trait to be displayed must get one gene from each parent of the same so lets say it is for ranging and hunting...so the tight bred dogs carry those recessives for that trait but when bred to an outside dog, and that outside dog just might be carrying a dominant for not hunting and when the dominant matches up with the recessive hunting trait then the dominant trait will be displayed...so lets say quite a bit of the desirable traits in that line of dogs are paired up recessives and the outside blood has quite a bit of dominant genes for the opposite....the result will be lots of culls...but since the tight bred line has to pass a recessive and the outside dog is carrying a double dominant or a dominant recessive then some of the pups will hunt but not more than half of the litter when dealing with averages...
The biggest thing about dog genetics is that I have not seen any studies on hunting traits...
Regarding what I have hi-lighted in red.......answer me this if you can........My smoke dog bred to an old gyp named sue a little over a year ago resulting in the male pup that I was speaking about in my above post that is perfect conformation wise but has yet to put it together in the woods, I have owned 4 of the pups out of this same litter and have traded or given 3 of em away here and there to close friends for one thing or another but have held on to him since 6wks of age as far as I know none of the 4 that I have been around have made dogs which is VERY strange for the line...... My male has produced some great dogs and the female used in this breeding has produced ALOT of great dogs....... both of these dogs are as breed worthy as any i've been around, solid hard hunting no nonsense type dogs and i'm not trying to toot my horn in anyway or saying that because I own one of them, they just are. ( I did not make either of these dogs the dogs that they are today, I was got lucky enough to be involved with them) Anyway what would be your opinion as to why none of these pups have worked out thus far? Smoke was also bred to a daughter of sue last year named bonnie also resulting in 1 puppy, that puppy started hunting at 6mths old and has been on over 20hogs as of now at 10 months old, she is doing great........... I am currently making the same cross again breeding smoke back to bonnie and hopin n prayin for a decent sized litter to raise, with exception to a very small group of people the pups will all be staying with me..... Anyway, all this genetics/ breeding talk interests me but when I see 2 great dogs breed and the pups not work out it makes me wonder why.... To be completely honest Sue is a better dog than Bonnie, however bonnie has nowhere near the 12yrs experience as sue so it kinda all comes out in the wash, just weird to me......
I don't know the answer as to why but first we need more information...How is Smokey bred? were both of his parents great hog dogs? How about grand parents?
Same questions for Sue...
is Sue and Smokey related? if so how much relation?
here is what I see that happens on a regular basis...a dog is a great dog from parents that are not and maybe one grand parent is a great dog...lots of junk hidden in the genetic make up...
if all the dogs are related from 2 to 3 generations or more and all are dogs that are above average hunting dogs, then you will have a higher percentage of good dogs produced...maybe once in a while a lower percentage but over the long haul the averages will prove otherwise...
my logic tells me that when you get that many culls when breeding 2 good dogs like Smoke and Sue, then there is that possibility that there is very little relations between the two...and more than likely there are a higher percentage of culls in both or at least in one of the parents lineage...not saying that that is true just that is what the scenario is pointing too when we are looking for probabilities...
also when you breed 2 dogs of different lines or breeds and one is tight bred and the other is not then a lower percentage of good hunting dogs will be produced...kind of like rolling the dice...
when one is inbreeding a little and then line breeding the idea is to produce a high quality dog that also produces consistency when bred back into the family...an example I see in my mind is this...100 blue marbles represent the bad genes for hunting and 100 green marbles represent good hunting genes...when breeding a tight family of dogs the idea is to take out the blue marbles (bad genes) and to keep all the red marbles (good genes)...
with none related dogs the bag can be 50/50 of good and bad genes (marbles) so it is the luck of the draw...but as you take out the bad then the chances of producing the good continues to go up as the bad genes are reducing...but every now and then some bad will pair up but not as often...
like I said in an earlier post...quite a bit of the hunting traits are recessives so breeding to an unrelated dog can change drastically what has been created over many years so it must be done very carefully the further you are in to the line...
my belief is inbreed early to see what you have and it is a big play in removing unwanted genes by keeping the very best pups...then line breed with these good dogs...
if it were me and Bonnie turns out as good as what her track record is showing I would breed her in her first heat cycle to Smoke...That would give me 3/4 smoke right off the bat and if bonnie started at 6 months then there is that possibility that you will have early starting pups that start at 6-10 months of age...breed the first cycle because Smoke is getting old...
This has been my logic and thought process when I was breeding mt curs...this is half of the equation...the other half is selecting the right pups and then give them the right handle...conformation and knowing what we want in a hog dog is part of it as well...
all of the above is strictly my opinion and my beliefs...
