another great breeding question..lol

[duece24]

say you have a gyp that has a good nose, brains, and stamina, but you would like to add more range and speed. how do you go about adding those positives but not lose those great traits that she already has. personally i believe the ideal thing would be to find a dog that has all the positives of your gyp AND has those traits you are trying to get, but those dogs are really hard to find. i believe one way is to find a stud that has all your positives and one of those traits you are looking for. take the ones out of that litter that show all the traits of your gyp and has that one other trait you were breeding for and take that pup back to either the stud or the gyp they came from locking in those traits. then find you another dog that has the original three traits(nose, brains, and stamina), but has that other trait the first stud didn't have and breed it to the offspring of the second litter you produced that has the original 3 traits and the trait you added. i believe then you have a good chance of keeping your original traits of your gyp and adding in the two other traits you wanted. of course this is all in theory as we all know the pups will sometimes be like the dam, then others like the sire, and you'll get a few that are carbon copies of the granddam or grandsire.

i would love to hear your opinions and techniques of how you add in traits that your dogs are missing currently...

[pig snatcher]

Just breed her to a good hound. DONE, PROBLEM SOLVED.

[Hog Dog Mike]

I have bred a few litters of hog dogs but I have bred bunches and bunches of bird dogs. It will work out the same. You have just as good of a chance of breeding the things you do not want as the things you do. In fact I think that bad traits seem to come out more in a breeding.

Find a really good dog you like that has produced good dogs and then breed. That is about as good as you can do.

[Reuben]

I agree with what you are saying... The challenge is selecting the right pups from the breeding and culling the rest. Some of the culls may be good for hunting but not good for breeding....

[Hog Dog Mike]

I really did spend alot of time and money studying about breeding bird dogs. There was a bird dog man over in the south east named Thompson that did it this way.

He developed what is called a prepotency index. This was easy at the time because every bird dog that was registered  was listed in the American Field. What you could do with this information is this. You could find the number of winners produced per times bred. This is the true test.

In other words dog A might have produced 50 dogs that won 300 times. Dog B might have produced 50 dogs that won 300 times. However, dog A might have produced 1000 total dogs and dog B 100 dogs. The important number is how many winners compared to number of dogs produced.

Some dogs can produce good pups and some cannot. Just because a certain dog is a great dog does not mean that he can produce good dogs. Find a male that is a known good producer and breed to that dog.

I am of the opinion that the female is more important than the male. The horse guys agree. If you can find a really good producing female get you one of those pups. There are no guarantees but that is going to be as good as it gets.

[Reuben]

Hog Dog Mike,

That is a good post.

what you are saying is to go with the higher percentage of pups produced by the stud. In my mind the higher the percentage of winners calculated from a higher number the more accurate it will be.

I read the article that silverton put on his post, it was a very informative article and it also said the female was more important in the breeding program. I never knew that but one thing I know for sure, breed the best to the best from a line bred strain of hog dogs and eventually identify the best dogs for breeding and use them more frequently.

It would be easier to find someone that has already done this and just buy some pups as long as you like the type of hunting dogs that are being produced. Then you can go back to that breeder and pay for stud service on your gyp. This would be more economical in the long run and you will have 8 pups to cull from and you should wind up with some jam up hog dogs. Raising and selecting correctly from these pups makes it even more rewarding.

[make-em-squeel]

LINE BREED.

Remember it brings out the "hidden" bad traits as well so it helps to start with line bred dogs, whatever you do if those bad traits come out, find one in the litter that doesnt exibit them and line breed again to cut out the negative! If you out cross at that point the bad traits will be passed on forever.

[Reuben]

Just breed her to a good hound. DONE, PROBLEM SOLVED.

Some of the best hog dogs I remember were cur crossed with redbone, plott or walker.

The mtn cur is somewhere in the middle.

[Hog Dog Mike]

This guy that I used to train bird dogs with was the best I ever seen at breeding. I have spent many an hour in a truck with this guy trying to pick his brain. Here are some of the things he told me.

1. One time he bred a national champion female and a national champion male together and wound up with average bird dogs.

2. The Kansas Wind won something like 12 open chamionships and NEVER produced anything.

3. There was a dog in Ok named Spaceglider that they bred everything to. He could produce puppy and derby winners but when you went to tighten the screws down and break them they came apart like a cheap suit.

4. He had an old dog named Jumper Jim that never won a championship but produced the dog that won more than any other. Rebel Wrangler won 13 open championships and 9 runner ups. His full brother won 6 open championships and 3 runner ups. One of the ones he won was the national derby championship.

5. He had an old bitch dog out of Buckboard that you could breed to Jumper Jim and every dog in the litter would be a good dog.

6. I bred to Double Rebel Jack (the 6 championship winner) to my best bitch and every dog in the litter was a good dog. Some were better than others but all were good.

7. I trained a setter for a Dr. that was out of outstanding breeding. He had her with a trainer that did not have a clue. She was a good dog. I bred her to a dog down on the King Ranch that was outstanding. EVERY dog in two litters were simply outstanding. One thing everybody always said is that it took two years to break a setter. I had one of the pups dead solid broke @ six months.

8. One of the things Tony always told me is that he looked for dogs that wanted to please him. That is about the best advise I ever received. Any dog that wants to please will make you a dog.

[blakebh]

Just breed her to a good hound. DONE, PROBLEM SOLVED.

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