Sometimes it seems that every second person that is buying a dog then becomes
a breeder. So obviously the more customers I have for training the more “breeders” I am exposed to.
With all this exposure I am amazed at some of the things these “breeders” come up with. Show breeders for years have felt they could predict a ten week old puppies future with a few tests and their “knowing eye”. While the poor Walker and Bluetick hound breeders had to wait a year or maybe two to find out if their dogs would hunt.
Todays “breeders” of PP, sport and for some reason giant breeds seem to have a lot of breeders who own two or three dogs and produce a few litters a year. They claim to be into performance, not show, but they all have the ability to do what the show breeders do, not the established working breeders.
They can predict the future with a wide variety of “tests”. I was told yesterday of a breeder that kills pups if they raise their hackles while growing up. Seems that is a genetic sign of an unstable temperament! Another kills pups that get car sick, seems motion sickness is a sure sign of ??? some kind of genetic fault.
Now, I am not a breeder, though I have had a few females dogs bred. But my breeding experience is like the hobbyist dog trainer that has a club that gets together on weekends. So I am limited in answering breeding questions with any authority. But as many new dog owners seem to be coming to the K9PRO SPORTS board everyday, and as our first goal is education, this seems to be a worthy topic for discussion. So if it were me, and I wanted to be a breeder, I would go to a person that has a proven track record with breeding and get my education. For those of you that can't I'll write what I found out.
Dave Thompson was in the Quarter horse business, is a highly respected American Bulldog breeder, and for our purposes was also a winning Greyhound breeder. That's right Greyhounds! Why Greyhounds you ask?
Because even more than **** hounds they are a breed raised for performance. And they are raised in a very successful way. This is a breed whose form must follow function and that function is proven on the track, not with human hype and BS. They are also a breed with a lot of money to be made (another bad word to IE breeders I am told)
Because there is so much money to be made breeders are held to a very accountable system that keeps the field level for all, and that improves the chance of success for the better and sometimes luckier breeders. So following is a very brief description of the breeding system of the most successful performance breed around today.
I asked Dave at what age he would test and cull (kill) puppies his answer was “Why on earth would you do that?” He said you can't test something until it is developed and culling a pup could cost you your future champion, but only the future has that answer.
So how do you get your pups to that future? And how do you test when you get there?
Dave said that all pups are raised in either a three hundred or five hundred foot pen. The size of the pen is required by the Association and must be recorded for future buyers to know.
This size pen gives the pups room for activity while growing and activity seems to be to greyhounds what socialization is to PP dogs.
Exercise and activity is encouraged until the pups reach a minimum of one year and sometimes one and a half years of age. They are then sent to a trainer for 90-180 days. Without the training the dogs potential can never be realized.
It is only at this point that a “test” is given the young dog, and that test is pretty straightforward. Can they run? But to pronounce the dog unworthy before they have the chance to develop physically and then have those abilities brought to their full potential, with training, could be an expensive mistake.
Now this seems to make sense and in fact agrees with what most scientists have to say in the old debate between “Nature vs Nurture” what influences an intelligent mammal more, genetics or their education?
With the mapping of the various genomes of mammals most scientists seem to agree we are affected on about a 60/40% basis. That is 60% is learned, acquired, or trained and 40% is genetic. And that genetic part includes the physical side of the animal, size, coat, muscle, etc., so a major part of what a successful animal becomes is based on the training it receives.
This seems to back up the Greyhound system that waits for a training program to be completed before any dogs are judged. And since we are dealing with one of the few large breeds that seems to be structurally sound, this system seems to be worth copying.
So if you are getting a performance pup from a breeder that can tell you what it will turn out to be? Well you might just look for a true performance breeder because that breeder is applying “showdog” tests to your working dog.
a breeder. So obviously the more customers I have for training the more “breeders” I am exposed to.
With all this exposure I am amazed at some of the things these “breeders” come up with. Show breeders for years have felt they could predict a ten week old puppies future with a few tests and their “knowing eye”. While the poor Walker and Bluetick hound breeders had to wait a year or maybe two to find out if their dogs would hunt.
Todays “breeders” of PP, sport and for some reason giant breeds seem to have a lot of breeders who own two or three dogs and produce a few litters a year. They claim to be into performance, not show, but they all have the ability to do what the show breeders do, not the established working breeders.
They can predict the future with a wide variety of “tests”. I was told yesterday of a breeder that kills pups if they raise their hackles while growing up. Seems that is a genetic sign of an unstable temperament! Another kills pups that get car sick, seems motion sickness is a sure sign of ??? some kind of genetic fault.
Now, I am not a breeder, though I have had a few females dogs bred. But my breeding experience is like the hobbyist dog trainer that has a club that gets together on weekends. So I am limited in answering breeding questions with any authority. But as many new dog owners seem to be coming to the K9PRO SPORTS board everyday, and as our first goal is education, this seems to be a worthy topic for discussion. So if it were me, and I wanted to be a breeder, I would go to a person that has a proven track record with breeding and get my education. For those of you that can't I'll write what I found out.
Dave Thompson was in the Quarter horse business, is a highly respected American Bulldog breeder, and for our purposes was also a winning Greyhound breeder. That's right Greyhounds! Why Greyhounds you ask?
Because even more than **** hounds they are a breed raised for performance. And they are raised in a very successful way. This is a breed whose form must follow function and that function is proven on the track, not with human hype and BS. They are also a breed with a lot of money to be made (another bad word to IE breeders I am told)
Because there is so much money to be made breeders are held to a very accountable system that keeps the field level for all, and that improves the chance of success for the better and sometimes luckier breeders. So following is a very brief description of the breeding system of the most successful performance breed around today.
I asked Dave at what age he would test and cull (kill) puppies his answer was “Why on earth would you do that?” He said you can't test something until it is developed and culling a pup could cost you your future champion, but only the future has that answer.
So how do you get your pups to that future? And how do you test when you get there?
Dave said that all pups are raised in either a three hundred or five hundred foot pen. The size of the pen is required by the Association and must be recorded for future buyers to know.
This size pen gives the pups room for activity while growing and activity seems to be to greyhounds what socialization is to PP dogs.
Exercise and activity is encouraged until the pups reach a minimum of one year and sometimes one and a half years of age. They are then sent to a trainer for 90-180 days. Without the training the dogs potential can never be realized.
It is only at this point that a “test” is given the young dog, and that test is pretty straightforward. Can they run? But to pronounce the dog unworthy before they have the chance to develop physically and then have those abilities brought to their full potential, with training, could be an expensive mistake.
Now this seems to make sense and in fact agrees with what most scientists have to say in the old debate between “Nature vs Nurture” what influences an intelligent mammal more, genetics or their education?
With the mapping of the various genomes of mammals most scientists seem to agree we are affected on about a 60/40% basis. That is 60% is learned, acquired, or trained and 40% is genetic. And that genetic part includes the physical side of the animal, size, coat, muscle, etc., so a major part of what a successful animal becomes is based on the training it receives.
This seems to back up the Greyhound system that waits for a training program to be completed before any dogs are judged. And since we are dealing with one of the few large breeds that seems to be structurally sound, this system seems to be worth copying.
So if you are getting a performance pup from a breeder that can tell you what it will turn out to be? Well you might just look for a true performance breeder because that breeder is applying “showdog” tests to your working dog.
