[ SHOWGSD-L ] Swim in the pool you have
- From: "David Fritsche" <d_fritsche@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "showgsd-l@freelists. org" <showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:39:52 -0800
I have learned a ton about breeding, but not enough to be an expert. What I
have learned this far is that I don't know much.
We had a long legged dog who moved great, but was not too sound in
temperament. We also had a bitch with short legs who moved great and had
great temperament. So, to balance out the extremes and to come to a mean
average, we bred them. End result: Half the litter looked like and moved
like and had the temperament of their sire and half were almost identical to
the dam. Nature does not seem to cooperate with the theories of the mean
average. Wish politicians could understand that!
Acknowledging that it did not work, we then decided that the best course of
action was to stick with our other sound bitch and breed several generation
from her, breeding toward the movement she lacked. Several generation later,
we decided that whatever it was in her genetic influence overpowered what we
were trying for and we gave up again.
Then we hit on it! It was simply the size of the gene pool. All we needed to
do was expand the gene pool to unlock the strong influences we had
unknowingly locked in. Our friends had a wonderful import, so we went for
it. In retrospect, we did know the pedigree on our bitch and the health
problems we needed to stay away from, but not being able to read German, I
had no idea what was behind the import back four to seven generations. Bad
decision. That one litter ended our entire breeding program.
Start over.... New bitch, and who should we breed to??????
Answer: Acknowledge our ignorance and the error of our approaches (plural)
and just let Liz and Carolyn make the decisions.
See! I've learned a lot about breeding - let those who are consistently
successful make the decision for me.
OK, I am a wimp -
Dave
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Evan you made some good points, however I would want to increase the gene
pool not just for the purpose of creating more options, but to lesson the
risk of serious health issues from the same supply of current genes,
resulting in perhaps a better overall dog..... <snip>
....I want it all!....Ed
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While I have no objection to a larger gene pool, remember that it means Â
less predictability in the breeding results.
Evan  Ginsburg
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