About 9 or 10 years ago Charles Gantte gave me a book on canine genetics called "The New Art of Breeding Better Dogs". I suggest it to anyone interested in this stuff but it is a bit complex in places and ultimately, the author, Kyle Onstott was a breeder of show dogs. I mention it because as you mentioned . . Onstott got interested in livestock breeding records and after years of research he found that the most extensive records ever kept on a breeding program were the plantation documents of slave breeding. Regardless of political incorrectness or crimes against humanity . . . slaves were among the most valuable assets of that period and their owners kept very detailed histories of their slaves and the results of the "crosses" they made. Onstott spent years going over the information contained within and used it and some of their methods as a basis for not only his dog breeding but the dog breeding book as well. In fact . . he got so wrapped up in the slave records that they inspired him to write novels loosely based on slave life such as . .
"Master of Falconhurst"
or "Mandingo" that was later made into a movie . .
And if you really want a lesson on line breeding . . go directly to Charles Gantte of Dandridge, Tennessee. He's been breeding the same strain of bear bred Plotts since the 1950s without a single outcross. All of the perhaps thousands of dogs produced from his line go back to five individual crosses within the early registration or pre-registration Plotts. Regardless of what anyone may find good or bad within his strain . . it's all a matter of taste or opinion. The fact that he still produces healthy animals without immunity or sterility issues is a testament to his abilities as a breeder. I'm just a rookie with a spell checker on his google box.
