When Line Breeding Where Do you Cross The Line: - Page 9

I would have absolutely zero problem finding a dog that "can do the job" within a week. Not difficult at all.

Susie was right though when she made the point about breeding based off of pedigrees and just expecting the offspring to end up like the dogs they're linebred on. Too many people doing that, trying to wow buyers with either a popular line breeding or a rare one and claiming that the pups will be like the dog they're 3-3 or 4-4 on. That never happens and yet people keep claiming it does. Usually it's kennel blindness. In smaller countries with small breeding pools, it happens because they don't have any other choice but to line breed on the popular stud from 5-10 years ago. Breeders will claim that it's the best thing since sliced bread, and because their customers rarely know the difference it doesn't make any difference. Biggest problem the breed has is the lack of breeders testing their current stock and just expecting the line breeding or the outcross to be whatever they believe the pedigree says it should. Lack of objective comparison to their contemporaries is what keeps breeding programs stagnant and the breed where it is today.

Sadly, the only qualification for most breeders to have is to put a male and female together and forever be known as a breeder. There is a serious lack of knowledge worldwide of how breeding families come together. Add to this the gut feeling that comes from many years of breeding and, an enormous amount of good luck.

Mackenzie

Meh...that's kind of my point. We give people with "decades" of experience a break because of their gut feelings. If you titled/tested/ect your breeding stock you wouldn't depend on luck. Instead too many are looking for magical formulas through pedigrees because it's cheaper and easier to convince people to buy those puppies with some sort of sales pitch than it is to actually work the dogs and prove them. I've been following breedings for a while now and I don't think it's luck when it comes to producing good/stable GSDs. Title them, don't lie to yourself about what you see, and you'll get a nice, consistent litter that is capable of work. I think luck is involve when you're talking about the best of the best dogs, but even then a lot has to do with proving you can produce good dogs and pairing one with a handler capable of training to the highest levels.

I know that the "newbies" must piss people off...but I get just as pissed off about the people with decades of experience claiming they don't need to test their dogs because they can look at them and "just know" they're capable.

. Seriously, I think the biggest problem in the breed is genetics. I think the genetics are so screwed up that 80% of the GS today really can't do stressful work...even as seeing eye dog. I find that totally unacceptable, but people will continue to allow the twenty percent represent the breed ( meaning the breed is in great shape) to fit their narrative. Smh

Ok I keep saying 3-4 is a strong breeding but you say the coefficients are so low how could that be. This next paragraph is my humble opinion only and others may have a better explanation. I think the difference lies in what we are looking at and the hands on experience we have with our animals. Always always look up from the pedigree and look, evaluate and know the animals you are dealing with. Make informed choices – they may work out or not but at least you have done your due diligence. I have found the inbreeding coefficients used mostly by scientists and geneticists most of whom have little or no practical hands on breeding experience. They are paper breeders. Also they are looking at the total # of animals in a pedigree and basing their decision on a purely statistical measure forgetting that we apply selection and knowledge and yes sometimes instinct or gut reactions to the equation.

Thank you TIG for that explanation. I am a working Malinois person and study bloodlines and Videos of the dogs working all the time. You said "evaluate and know the animals you are dealing with", and thats THE big thing for working dogs. There are so many "so Called" breeders out there that breed dogs for purposes that they have never even worked OR EXPERIENCED themselves. How can you breed dogs for even "Therapy Dog" work if you've never done it. Yes, I know most social dogs with a CGC can do Therapy work. But, my point being, is that we need to know whats expected to create the best in our dogs. We need also remember that, work-ability, Sociability, Looks/Conformation, and Health, ALL fall in different necessity categories.

Good post!

How can you work accurately with a pedigree when some dogs that are shown, regardless of position in the pedigree, have a fake background. This is where experience and knowledge really come into play. There are a number of dogs during Hermann Martins reign who were widely used that fall into this category.

The pedigree papers should be treated as a guide and only a guide.

Mackenzie

[Viljestark] 14.11.2016 - 22:11

● "Ok I keep saying 3-4 is a strong breeding but you say the coefficients are so low how could that be."
That's because people are thinking along wrong paths.
The last four pages of posts have mostly overlooked not only that in each generation the offspring "lose" half of their sire's alleles and half of their dam's alleles, so that "mathematical line-breeding" is a nonsense, but ALSO that the function of a CoI% is NOT to predict a LITTER, it is to evaluate a BREED population's genetic variability.

Instead of thinking "line-breed on names", mentally switch to think "in-breed on an allele". If you correctly identify a stud and a brood with the same desirable allele, you will get a litter where most of the pups will be at least a carrier, and at least 25% of the pups are likely to be homozygous for the allele your seek. At worst, only a ¼  of the pups will completely miss out totally on that allele.

However, if you incorrectly identify the existence of that allele in one or both parents you will be in the situation a past president of our GSD Advisory Council was - she didn't like either paent that had produced self-blacks in another kennel, so tried mating "blanket-backs" and "bi-colours", thinking that their darkness indicatedd that they were carriers. We now know that the recessive for self-black is switched off by the alleles for any other coat pattern. She did eventually produc e a litter with a self-black in it. kept that pup, bred from it - and produced a litter of DOAs (Dead On Arrival).

● "Yes, I know most social dogs with a CGC can do Therapy work."
I had a brain-fart while reading that - mentally thinking of "civil dog" instead of the "social dog" you wrote. So, havign noiw realised my error, I will change the "social" to "civil" so you can see what I was thinking and can "laugh up your sleeve" at my boo-boo:
Not the way I've seen the term "civil dogs" used by cops! To them, a civil dog is, unlike a DogSport competitor that's trained to grab ONLY the padded sleeve (which is, of course, ALWAYS on the left hand arm), one that grabs at ANY part of the opponent.
A DogSport competitor considers that it has "won" if it can take that sleeve off the "stooge", and will then go and play-kill the empty sleeve without worrying about what the "stooge" does.
Whereas a "civil dog" is alert for anything held in the target's hand and doesn't consider it has "won" until (depending on which way it has been trained), the target is standing still with his hands empty, or is down on the ground, or the cop commands "Enough - Watch".

Oh well, off to bed to emotionally prepare for having the eye-specialist stick needles into my right eye in 10 hours time.... (I am a needlephobe. But at least she made sure that I DIDN'T see the needle rushing towards me last time.)

Anyone who wants to understand why the breed is where it is…see the above post. More important to breed for a known color allele than to test the stock and pick the best dogs to breed no matter what color they are. Although it gets difficult to figure out what good breeding stock is when your selection is limited and the experience you do have isn’t anywhere up to the level it should be in order to truly understand what is important when it comes to breeding a German Shepherd Dog.