“…we must center our attention on several faults in type or structure possessed by this bitch, so we can go about breeding her for correction and over-all improvement.”[i]
“Paper breeding”, as Brackett called it, alone can be very dangerous. Start with the pedigree as you consider linebreeding, but avoid if both the bitch and the prospective stud dog carry a common fault. Or if a weakness or fault is observed in the bitch. Then be sure that the stud dog and his ancestors do not carry that same fault. Carmen Battaglia stresses that “it is safe in study of pedigrees to assume that the recurrence of certain traits for more than four generations is genetically stable and not likely to be easily lost.”[ii]
“We must also try to find one who not only possesses these correct attributes himself but comes from dogs who had them.”[iii]
If possible, the sire should further be prepotent in the attributes in which the bitch is weakest.
“If we DO know that either the sire or dam, or any others amongst her ancestors, did have one or more faults mentioned, then we most certainly do not want that dog or dogs in the pedigree of the mate we select for her—if we can possibly avoid it. Should such be unavoidable, then that animal should be so far back in the pedigree as to make its influence negligible.”[iv]
It is critical to properly undertake an evaluation, particularly of the breeding pair and their sire and dam and their littermates, if at all possible. Above all, know the genotype traits of both the bitch's and potential stud's back a minimal of three generations.
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