Breeding Better Dogs 101...

Just a few quick thoughts about something I'm passionate about..

If your breeding two dogs in hopes of getting something better than your starting with, then your starting with the wrong ones. Breeding should be more about re-producing one or two great dogs, then trying to put something together and hope for the best.

Having said that, some breedings just won't work. Can't be blind and make excuses for what happens.

Also have to breed for your own use. No dog will ever please every hunter as we all have different expectations. Best way if possible is to keep entire litters to evaluate. Some will be better than others. If you can't keep them all, try to find people who hunt exactly like you do. If your breeding casting dogs, knowing how they hunt by being raised by someone who roads does you little good.

Evaluating dogs based on the next generation is different than evaluating based on simply which dog makes the best hunting dog. For example, slow starters begat slow starters. Just because a dog finishes out really nice doesn't mean I'm interested in breeding that dog if it took him/her three years to get there. Then prepotency comes into play, etc...

Know that not all breedings and pups will make good dogs. Have a goal, but know that the end result will be basically unobtainable. There will never be complete litters of perfect dogs.

Listen to others and more importantly WATCH others. Find out who's raising consistent litters of good dogs and pay attention to what they're doing.

Understand that for every desirable trait you breed a dog for (especially in outcrosses) that your also bringing in all the undesirables. Unfortunately breeding dogs isn't like mixing paint where you take a little of this and a little of that and end up with a perfect recipe. As an example, know that you can't simply cross rough and loose and end up with something in between. You may get a few, but the majority are going to be either rough...or loose.