Breeding Better Dogs 101...

I am an old man and have bred a few hog dogs. I have bred lots of bird dogs and worked harder at it than most people do at jobs. One time I counted up the bird dogs I personally owned and quit when I got to 200.

Here is the deal and take it for what it is worth. Many hog dogs are not registered so it is hard to trace bloodlines. Bird dog men have been keeping track for well over 100 years. A registration certificate has 3 numbers under the dogs registration number. The first number is the number of wins that dog has, the 2nd is the number of winners that dog produced, and the 3rd number is the number of wins that the off spring had. Just because a dog has a great number of wins means nothing because some of them cannot produce winners. One group started keeping track of winners produced per times bred and that is the one to go with.

The American Field is a publication that comes out weekly and you can keep up with which dogs are running and winning. You can also which of their offspring are winning. Some of the articles depend on who is writing the article. Once I got to judging field trials I could not wait to see some of the famous dogs actually run. What a shock for me. MY thought was this dog cannot possibly be the dog I read about.

Here is what I would do. The bird dog guys learned long ago that the horse guys had been doing it longer than they had. One of their secrets was a PRODUCING FEMALE. They are referred to as a blue hen. They can produce good dogs bred to any number of good males. One bitch named Hot Haunches produced 6 champions our of 6 different male dogs. She could just produce.

I would look for a producing female and I want to see the dogs with my eyes the dogs she produced. Breed her to a producing male and I want to see the dogs he produced with my eyes. Some guys tend to run the good females and not breed them which is a mistake. If you do that you will be way yonder ahead in the game.