Breeding From the Best Without Regard to Bloodlines

[Ole Mule]

I would like to hear some comments on Breeding From the Best Without Regard to Bloodlines whether you think this is good or not.

[Ole Mule]

OK I will start it off. Breeding Best to Best in my opinion is not necessarily a good thing it more than likely will be an outcross meaning the two dogs have nothing in common pedigree wise. Therefore it would be hard to determine what the git would be. Yes we would get decent bred pups but would they be an improvement to the breed, probably not.

[BAR-NONE]

Why ask the question if you already have your mind made up on the answer?

[Ole Mule]

Never said it was a bad thing just said it may not necessarily be a good thing, that does not mean my mind is made up on anything.

[NorWester1]

Personally speaking..... I favour breeding for traits and characteristics first. The bloodline is an afterthought. If you're selecting all your stock from dogs that display the same traits descended from the same, why would the bloodline matter?

Truth is there are all kinds of dogs being bred from the same blood but selected for different reasons........this causes a wide variation in traits being displayed. This is why you hear the phrase all the time that "breeding is a crapshoot"
It's not really but that's what you get when umpteen zillion breeders use the same blood but breed to different standards but each assume they all breed to the SAME STANDARD, which is almost never the case.
This is why if you want to really be successful you can't rely on what is written down on a piece of paper.

[Alabama John]

Best to best breeding is done in many creatures, even humans!
Most of us upon picking a bride have to ask ourselves did we open her mouth and check her teeth, watch her walk and see how she runs and if it is was straight or not.
Even more important is did we listen to her mouth and consider if we liked it and could we stand hearing that for a lifetime!
How would she be on having and raising young and what kind of flaws were in her line when we met her kin.

Same goes with our Beagles.Breed the best dog that you can find that excels in your territory and style you like to one that does the same to up your chances of getting what you like.

Cross breeds, hybrids do exceptionally well above straight line breeding in fowl and animals, and I like that type of breeding.

[PREACHERS KENNEL]

I love best to best.. but I do it. within a certain bloodline.. in my case patch// there are several versions of it . superior.yates../and u can keep going with that .. we all within that line have put certain stamps on it ...I have improved to my liking from the patch dogs I started with something like 13 years ago. ..I am not a paper breeder.. both dogs must be very solid dogs with traits that would compliment each other...it has worked well for me as most the litters I have are spoken for before they are born.

[mybeagles]

I breed best to best with emphasis on specific traits I want to improve. The only reason I look at pedigree is to ensure I don't breed anything to close. I'll take completely unrelated over family breeding everytime.

[Shady Grove Beagles]

I agree with the Preacher in that I also believe in breeding best to best----within linebreeding parameters.
The winner of the Kentucky Derby each year is routinely bred to the best mares in the WORLD and to my knowledge NO Derby winner has EVER produced a Kentucky Derby winner!! So what's happening there? Yet there are many top horses in racing that enjoy success that are linebred.
Mybeagles.I say this to you with respect but I couldn't disagree more with you.There is no such thing as breeding too close! We are talking dogs here and not human beings and incest laws.Too many people breeding dogs are paying too much attention to the pedigree and the degree of relationship such as half brother x sister,niece x uncle ,grandsire x granddaughter,etc. They need to be paying more attention to traits/charecteristics and the degree to which the sire and dam are able to reproduce those desireable traits and not whether they are "cousins"or not.
It's only my opinion but I believe that if you "take completely unrelated over family breeding everytime" that you may get lucky and hit that home run someday but in the meantime you will raise lots of litters that will lack consistancy in what you're trying to achieve.
May I suggest some books that might lend some insight to breeding dogs---Breeding a Strain of Better Beagles by Tom and Velta Dornin,Call of the Hounds by Del Cameron,This is the Beagle by George D. Whitney D.V.M.,Never Outfoxed by Benjamin Hardaway III,Dog Genetics by Carmelo L.Bataglia D.V.M. and The Standard Book of Dog Breeding by Alvin Grossman D.V.M.
NorWester1 makes some very good points.

[Ole Mule]

When looking for a stud there are several important traits that should be summed to form the final result for a dog in question as a stud to any female I own. Since we are talking beagle then degrees of merit consist of search, pursuit of game, general impression of pursuit, and use of tongue. When a dog loses trail, it is said to check. A good hunting dog works industriously to find the trail again, resulting in a high degree of effectiveness of check work... Speed to some degree would be considered but not high on the list. Fault includes, in addition to ghost trailing, other faults of hunting work: backtracking, lack of endurance, and babbling (i.e., faulty tonguing during pursuit). The best way to get this info is first hand but sometime this is not easily done so you either go by word of mouth of person you consider trustworthy and or decide if titles are a good reliable source. Then you need to consider the faults of the female in question then determine if this is a good match. Beyond this I like to keep it in the family because I believe in inbreeding and line breeding and they both have their plusses. There are a few other things I consider but not necessarily needed to breed a good dog. I do not necessarily believe best to best is the way to go especially if they are no common ancestors in their background. Each to his own this is the way I have done it in the past; I no longer breed dogs but do own a few. Always curious as to how other people operate when it comes to breeding dogs. Not meaning any harm to anyone when I throw a question out there just kicking around a question every now and again to see what comes back.

[mybeagles]

Shady Grove,

I've seen so many consistently bad inbred dogs that I can't stand it. The kennels I observe that breed out to the best hounds are consistently producing really good hounds. I guess I don't know what your talking about with not knowing what your going to get? Nearly all of the pups I've bred were solid rabbit dogs with a few exceptional ones.

From what I observe it's the inbreeding that often leaves guys with unusually high number of complete culls.

I own a real nice 2 y/o female that's an extreme outcross of top hare breeding X close cottontail breeding. I just crossed her with a ubgf male that's flat medium speed with huge nose. These puppies will have big noses and medium to medium fast speed and super line control. I'm selling one of the pups to a board member who can report back in 6 months to tell you how his outcross turned out and I will let you know how my two turn out....none of them will have that dull dumb look in their eyes, cherry eyes, kidney problems, silly short ears or any of the other faults that are so common in close bred dogs.

Not trying to stir trouble....just calling it the way I see it. I continue to observe new hounds everyday and always inquire about the dogs breeding. The longer I observe the more my beliefs are confirmed. When I start seeing exceptional inbred dogs start popping up I will take note...until that time I'll keep doing what has been working to my satisfaction thus far.

[Ole Mule]

That's the kind of stuff I like to hear. It's how you word a question to get people to contribute. Looking forward to the 6 month comment.

[mybeagles]

Here are the 3 you will be hearing about

[Ole Mule]

Three beautiful pups. Outstanding pup handler.

[Ole Mule]

The two females I own are sisters and they come from an outcross in other words the Sire and Dam are not related and they are cracker jacks money can't buy them. And I do not have any plans to breed them now or in the future.