Putting Drives on top of a nerve base.: Breeders" views? - Page 7

Duke: 'about ten years ago I was training with a world level malinois trainer and saw him putting forced retrieve/apport on his dog, that had natural retrieving drive,it was no pretty picture, happens cleaner today, anyway I asked him why he would use forced retrieve when the dog would retrieve natural

answer was that to make sure the dog does it everywhere and allways and clean for the points, forced retrieve was a better option

now this dog had natural drive as well,....'

Me : I have done the very thing with my dogs...but not electric and they also had natural retrieve.

Duke : .... but  i have seen dogs with low drive being forced into a nice apport, and slow and

chewy dogs make a fast and clean apport without chewing with Ecollar training, but what do you

get when breeding to these dogs.'

 

Me: 

That's what I was talking about...IPO title does not tell the story about the genetics.
Heck, I trained 'retrieve behavior' to one of my husky/sled dogs using forced retrieve because huskies don't retrieve naturally ( of course there are exceptions to everything). He retrieved at the perfect timing during the routine with four other intact male dogs, every single time without fail. And he did it with exhuberence and joy...no reward other than praise... ever.( food reward would have set off a huge four way fight)

  

Both nerves and drives are extremely important and should be at the top of any breeders goals without one or the other the dog full working potentail is limited on what the dog can do over the coarse of its working life, seems like weak nerves are more common to find than dogs with lack of drives, breeding a male and female with high doses of both many times does still not produce thoses qualitys in offspring, i also find in my own program i rarely have a litter that is extremely uniform almost always when doing extreme puppy temperament tests you have strenghs and weaknesses in each pup the great thing about breeders with long staying power is they can hold back year after year after year the best in the litters to hold back for possible future breedings.

True that, too many genetic permutations to simplify down to progeny are all going to be X because near ancestors X.

Some breed for uniformity and some breed to get that one elite super dog.

Fact is all high performance animals cut closer to a thinner nerve edge. Just can't consistently push in both directions indefinitely without coming closer to catastrophic failure.

Nobody honest can solve that so it depends on goals of the individual mating, long term program and swinging the pendulum back and forth to increase the average level.

 

At one end you get a Volvo that is safe, sound and plug and play will provide years of reliable service. At the other end you have an F01 car that has to be transported in a box, needs a team of elite specialist to handle and has to be rebuilt after every outing.

 

Animal breeding is no different to any engineering design problem broadly speaking.

  i cant see or understand a reason why a breeder cant work on improving both nerves and drives at the same time. But i admire any breeder understanding the important of sound strong solid nerves its very sad and dishearting to see a german shepherd fearful of its own shadow.

Really? Why don't people just stop breeding if they don't have good nerve and drive. The only way to improve on shit, is to flush it and spray some air freshener. Carry on.

the reason one cannot even get littermates to be alike is high level of outcrossing that everybody makes ,

to make a simple comparison, take the wright or hardiman percentages of inbreeding on average combination, it is about 1 or 2 percent,on a 2-2 inbreeding I got 12 percent,  so that is about percentage of equality to expect in a litter

Actually, our Veus x Bruna litter is as uniform as it gets. Never seen such a high level of uniformity before. That being said, you have to outcross, you don't have a choice unless you want to get health issues galore. You outcross and then have to breed back into your blood.

Duke - IMO, the only way to achieve consistent resuts in a breeding program is to line breed on strong dog(s). Too much outcrossing will result in a guessing game of outcomes. That is why I had one dog 3-2 on Harro Lechrainstadt, and my present dog is 3-2 on Puci Jipo-me.   Of course, as BE says, a certain amount of new blood via outcross is needed in a line breeding program.

health issues are NOT created by inbreeding, but EXPOSED by it, you had that problem in your dogs already to start with

koots there is big difference between new blood in a line breeding program and outcross every generation to a point you cannot avoid accidently doubling up random dogs in 4th and 5th generation