Message #582887

[The Old Man]

The longest running "closed program" that I know of was Charles Gantte, who raised Plott Dogs. He got dogs in the 1950'S, they were of 5 crosses some of which were related. In the late 50's or early 60's he started breeding them and never bought or bred to an outside dog after that. There are some names on old pedigrees that aren't "Gantte" but they are directly out of dogs that he produced. About 15 or so years ago he developed health issues, and was unable to hunt any longer, but he and a few friends still produced a few, and honestly I believe the quality went down when he was no longer able to personally witness the dogs performance, but relied on word of mouth to ascess the dogs.  Although not many are left in this world there are some young dogs still in this world that have a pure Gantte pedigree. That means that his closed program lasted at least 60 some years, and in excess of 10 generations. He , both formally, and on his own studied genetics and dog breeding. Those dogs withstanding that much linebreeding for that period of time shows that Charles had an uncanny ability for selecting individuals to breed.