I believe everything Texashogdog has said because it relates to my own experiences of breeding plotts. I have bred 3 or 4 generations of tight line bred dogs & started with good dogs but it seems like the pups start falling back towards just average dogs after about 4 generations. I then look for another tight bred strain of plotts that have all the traits that I like & breed that into my line. Just like THdogs said, the pups were far superior & that is due to the hybrid vigor. Does it work all the time? No, but it seems to work more often then not & if the pups are superior enough, I breed them back into my line & continue linebreeding them.
Here is my criteria & might not be for a hog hunter because I bearhunt too.
Nose, speed, grit, endurance, tree dog. They must be able to find their own hog & they must stay bayed by their self or they are culls to me. There are other things I like but those are the most important to me.
Cajun...my experience after 15 years was lots more grit and more range than what I liked as well...not all the dogs but it was popping up...and it intensified over the next few generations percentage wise...
I expected all my dogs to be dogs that could do it all just as you said but didn't care about the tree dog...I figured it to be a bonus to be a tree dog but I didn't look for it as a requirement...Nose, speed, grit, endurance, hog dog....at one time I included swimming but gave that up because of the gator problem...but I did know what one of my dogs needed to look like to be a strong swimmer...
I see lots of folks talk about line breeding and inbreeding but I see these same folks scatter breed their dogs way more than what is needed...can't get consistency when doing it that way...Hybrid vigor is something that has to be considered when inbreeding and necessary at some point...but that is also touchy because how much do you really need to freshen up the blood without losing what has already been gained...that is a good question and must be done very carefully...
I knew a dog that was ugly as sin and about as dumb as a bucket of rocks and he was super inbred on a hall of fame dog...when he was bred to the right bitches in that breed of dogs her produced some awesome pups...he was entered into the hall of fame for producing hunting dogs...
