Drives and genetics - Page 1

As a breeder what's more important understanding drives (training) or
genetics (bloodlines) ??

Not a breeder, but I am a student of both, and cannot really say one is appreciably more important than the other if I was to breed. It is imperative to understand drives and be able to work with them for training purposes and to be able to objectively evaluate your dog and others. Only with brutally honest and objective evaluation, from a perspective of knowledge, can one ascertain the qualities of one's dog and match up with a suitable mate. In other words, you gotta know your sh!t in order to make good breeding choices.

weird question. most important is to see potential and understand dog itself.
training totally dependable onto genetic potential of that dog.
if certain bloodline tend to produce serious and intelligent dogs then should be very obvious that those dogs would be very successful in training.

if another bloodline tend to produce idiots, who live only to chase the ball, then obviously there is no talk about training and learning. what such dogs usually been taught is just a set of responses to the stimuli with no brain work behind it.

Valk
Koots
Yes without a doubt we got to know our shit and evaluate the pair that's considered for mating
It is a bit of a weird question.

Have always believed that knowledge of your bloodline is more important than understanding drives(training)
Recently was told that it's more important to understand drives and training to be successful as a breeder.

understanding drives is another thing than training, drives are genetics, training is what you do with that

genetics are the foundation, training is the house you bild on the foundation,

if the foundation is bad, you can never build a decent hous on it

Duke Thanks
Have always believed in genetics being the foundation.
But was told first we must understand drives through training dogs 

And this would help more so being a breeder

Not so much studying researching bloodlines of the mating pair

I disagreed as young puppies at 8 weeks cannot hide what the they are born with or any other traits for that matter.

As where drives through training can be made to look better than they really are. 

And hide their weakness (mask)

Knowing the genetics behind the 'dogs in front' will help you to understand the strengths & weaknesses of those lines/dogs. This will help you to select complementary & compensating mates, based on genetic traits. Phenotyoe & genotype must be considered along with innate, natural drives of the dogs. It takes a lot of time & knowledge to be familiar with the genetics of select dogs, and if you have or develop relationships to access that information/knowledge then you are doing well.

Koots
It does help with breeding from your own stock that you've raised.
To know as much as you can about the good and bad traits where they are coming from.
The main problem is that the majority of breeders are sourcing Stud dogs from another kennel
And purely relying on paper work from that dog. And a picture or 2 giving some idea of its phenotype.
But not much information other than that, such as the Stud dogs litter mates as one example

It's taken 10 years myself to create dogs which have medium to high prey drive.
But more so the Aloof reserved suspicious kind. On the lower threshold in defense when provoked.

It's the same old nature vs. nurture. Nature is what the dog is born with (genetics), and nurture is the environment (what happens to the dog, whether by Mom, training, food, things in the environment, etc.)

The only part of nurture the breeder does is care for the pregnant bitch, and the environment, caring for/interaction with the puppies until they go to their new homes.

Genetics should bring the correct amount of drive ,nerve and anything else you are looking for as long as you choose correctly 😉