Which school of thought are you in??? - Page 1

I thought it would be interesting to see what everybody's opinion is on Line breeding vs out crossing? If you are for line breeding how closely related will you breed.  Don't just say line breeding or out crossing, tell us why you prefer the method you do.  It would be very interesting to see where everybody stood and why.  Please don't get offended or be offensive I just think a friendly discussion (debate) would be very informative.

I prefer Harvard over the University of Phoenix, mostly because it's too hot in Arizona,,,,,sure, sure I know, it's a dry heat, but still.

 It depends on the dog,s and what they both bring to the table as far as genetics and ability, I don,t think there is a Line breeding or out crossing mind set because it depends all on the dog,s and what your goal is for the breeding and each breeding is different. You also have to take into account what has been dominant and recessive in previous breeding and lines. JMHO 



   

I am of the Linebreeding school of thought.  Back when I did breed it was a very successful program.   I was able to work with what I knew and breed with the good and the bad within  the lines. I also bred dogs that were similar in structure to ensure consistency. I always bred slightly doggy bitches as they seemed to produce nicer showier pups.  If flashy was bred to flashy the results were mediocre. Plain bitches bred to Stallion type males were the best for us.  Every outcross we did ended up with newer and better problems to deal with.  However the best outcrossing I ever saw was when Mary Rogers introduced Dutch stock into her American Showlines.  Even three generations down the road the improvements were exceptional.

I think line makes sense, just not sure as to how much is too much. I'm somewhat skittish about dogs with more than 4 dogs repeated in the previous 5 generations.

LOL Duderino, I would kill for some dry heat right now, as would my dogs I'm sure! Brynjulf, I'm in the research phase of everything I'm having a lot of fun learning it, never dreamed there would be this much info to immerse myself in.  During all of my reading and resarching it appears to me that if you are going to breed and you ever hope to have anything you can really call your own, or if you ever hope to create anything that even leaves a dent on the vast world of the breed linebreeding with the ocassional outcrossing is the only way to accomplish that.  From what I've learned constantly outcrossing will not accomplish this. Linebreeding takes some patience I'm guessing you would constantly have to be thinking a couple generations down the road as oposed to just the "quickness" of outcrossing, but if you are patient and do it correctly the biggest benefit it apears to me is the consistency you get.  You will know what your line produces, good and bad.  I would think that would make it easier when you did do the ocassional outcrossing to know what you were looking for in the dog.  When you outcrossed did you typically go with another linebred dog? As I said I'm still learning but I would think when you outcrossed if you used another linebred dog it would be much easier to have an idea what they produced good and bad so you could make the decesion on wether it was a good fit for your program or not.  One of the  conclusions I have come to (and I could be wrong) is that a dog that is made up of constant outcrossings is not going to be anywhere near as consistent when producing as a linebred dog? So breeding to a product of a hodgepodge of outcrossings is kind of like a crap shoot.  Is that the case?

Yes she does.  She is a Doberman breeder though :)  Look under Marienburg kennels.  By introducing Dexter to her program she improved bone, color and temperment ( not that she had a problem before) and the heads on those dogs! Truely impressive.

When I added outcrosses to the lines they were not heavily Linebred dogs.  I may have had better success with closely Linebred outcrosses.  For us outcrossing proved to be a waste of time and effort.  

This shouldn't be an either/or question; you need to do both to breed consistently/correctly, imo.

Linebreed to get desired traits, then outcross as needed...to way way oversimplify for the sake of brevity.

I firmly believe you must utilize both techniques.

If I'm going to consider outcrossing, I'd still like one, if not both of the parents to be linebred.  IOW, outcrossing with two seperate linebred lines.

My "N" litter was an outcross of two unrelated but linebred producers, the sire a 3-2 on Bero v Friedersdorfer flur and the dam a 3-4,5 on Alf v Kornersee.  The "N" litter dog could thereafter just have nicely complimented a fresh new linebreeding on either it's paternal or maternal side, but I instead oucrossed AGAIN with another linebred producer of a different unrelated line, 3 - 3,4 in Yoschy von der Dollenwiese. 

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Sure, you might receive some nice outward/phenotypic results from a carefully selected outcrossed pair, but because each parent has higher levels of heterosis (because they are not linebred), there are going to be a lot more unknown factors (genetic recessives) carried into the next generation, a generation which when goes to breed, will not produce itself all that consistently.