I have been breeding for over 30 years, and realistically, I know most people will not willingly give up the goods on their studs, unless you ask them directly because you are breeding a bitch to their boy....and then you get the lovely ones, whom I will not mention names of, but who will say " Not that I know of ...." and so you breed to them, and lo and behold you get the very fault you were trying to avoid...and of course then the answer is " I never have had this happen before, you are the first one" and then upon further chatter with others who have had the same thing happen, LONG BEFORE you even bred to the dog, and you were told that the stud owner most definately DID know about the fault, and lied to you! I have had this hapen to me personally, and have seen it happen to clients and friends....I don't need advice on how to breed my bitch or pick a stud, I do know what i am doing...I just saw the list of sires who dont carry the coat gene (which by the way might not b e a selling point if you have a close coated bitch and actually want to breed to a male who carries the coat gene or is coated...whether a male carries the coat gene would only concern me if I was breeding a coated bitch or a very close coated bitch, like my Roxy years ago for anyone who remembers her) anyway, I saw the list and thought "wouldnt it be nice if we could do this on a wider basis". I have my own list of what I know, and do my homework before breeding, and know exactly what I am looking to get or avoid when I breed a bitch. A list was just an idea to make the search for a stud easier and quicker....it is so very interesting that a suprising number are either threatened or offended by the thought of such a thing! As for a sire who produces a small number of puppies with a particular fault, that is called luck! With the simple genes, not the complex ones with varying factors and mutations etc... but the simple ones like coat and missing teeth...either you carry it or you dont. There is no such thing as a male who carries "a light coat factor", because he has only produced a handful of coats...the percentages on genetics are based on 100 puppies out of the same combination, and usually it works out about right if you have a nice big litter, but it is possible to breed a male to a coat and get 10 pups with no coats and then assume he does not carry it,and then repeat it and get all coats! It has happened...unless you have either 100 puppies out of the same sire and dam, or the marker is identified and tested for, you cannot be 100% certain anyway. So if a male has thrown a few coats out of 10 litters, or had a few missing teeth in a few litters, all it means is he carries it and you have been either lucky, or most of the bitches he was bred to did not carry it. If you bred him to 10 bitches who all had missing teeth, or you knew carried it, you would get missing teeth in all of the litters. I am totally not trying to knock any stud he re....for example, I like Bull Durham, and the fact that he throws missing teeth would not stop me from breeding a bitch to him, but I would not breed my bitch who is missing a tooth to him.....and I don't care what some people say, serious breeders who are really trying to get rid of or avoid certain faults or problems would find such a list useful and would take it seriously...and no, until the genetic markers have been identified for various faults and tested for, it would not be the end all and would change as time goes on and a dog that has never produced a coat suddenly produces one, or puppies grow up and you realize you did get missing teeth, but it would be a good resource and save people a lot time when looking for a stud...I dont think information is ever a bad thing! Maggie Marshall Aeval German Shepherds http://hometown.aol.com/gsdlady28/index.html updated 03/02/2007 -----Original Message----- From: Wasatchgld@xxxxxxx To: GSDLady28@xxxxxxx; showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 3:36 PM Subject: Re: [ SHOWGSD-L ] Fault-Free-Yeah Right!!! Maggie, The original "fault-free" post was made in jest because any claims that a dog is free from most faults would be very unreliable. In the case of coats or black factored dogs, the genetics is known and predictable. Many other faults are multi-genetic or require an environmental trigger to activate them, so a dog or it's progeny could be fully affected but you wouldn't know. Add to that the strong possibility that the problem could show up in a pup that was sold as a pet and the breeder may not even know about it, let alone the owner of the stud dog. Then there are the problems that don't show up until years later, ie, bloat, EPI, Pannus, etc. Then add to those the recessive genes that have can to be passed for up to 15 generations without being manifest and you can probably see why no knowledgeable breeder would take such a list seriously. Your best bet is to directly ask the owner of a stud dog about any conditions you are concerned about, and make sure you tell them if your bitch or her closely related relatives are affected. Most stud dog owners are more than willing to answer honestly - especially if they know your bitch is likely to carry a recessive for that condition. - Janice In a message dated 3/3/2007 10:53:11 A.M. Mountain Standard Time, gsdlady28@xxxxxxx writes: You are missing the point of a "fault free list" it is not a list of dogs that dont produce any faults....of course no such list would exist unless the dogs were never bred! It is a list of what faults dogs either DO or DON't produce, and it would be "doing your homework" to have and use such a list! It would be used for "weighing the good with the bad" and obviously you have to know your own lines for it to be of any use to you. I DO know my lines and missing teeth is something I am concerned with....if I had a coated bitch or a bitch with a very close coat, then I would be concerned with the coat factor...if I had bloat or torsion in my lines, I would be extra careful about that in a stud...it is all about not throwing out the baby with the bathwater...just because a dog or bitch produces a fault doesnt mean you dont breed them, depending on how serious the fault was, you breed them carefully and do your homework on the stud you choose,hence a list of what a male does or d oes not produce would be useful when you are trying to offset faults or improve a problem in your lines...and as far as why a list of studs and not bitches...I would say most stud dog owners dont go hunting down the perfect bitch to breed to their boy, and then ship them across the country to breed to said bitch....it is the bitch owners who would find the list most useful, and they would be aware (ideally anyway) of the faults their bitch does or may produce, and THAT is the whole point of having such a list! For people who DO want to do their homework and KNOW their own lines and faults they are trying to outbreed....It would simply be nice to have some kind of a list of popular studs and what they are known to produce or not produce...like i said earlier, we all kind of have this list in our heads when we are looking for a stud anyway.... "Gee, I like dog X but I heard he throws blues, and I know I have blues back there so not him....and I like dog A, but I heard he throws mega, and even though I dont have that problem, I dont want to get into that....hhhmmmm I really like dog B too, and I dont think he throws coats or blues and he has everything I want...I wonder if he throws missing teeth, because I know my bitch does...." So then you ask the stud owner and hope they are honest, and ask others who have bred to him if they got any...etc... It is a tedious process sometimes, as you go through reviews and make a list of dogs you like, and then cross off the dogs who would double up on faults you already have or are trying to stay away from. It would just be nice if we all were a little more open and honest and shared info on what we DO know...there are enough "unknowns" and suprises out there when you breed as it is....a refrence list putting info that is known but scattered and fragmented on stud dogs together all in one place would be an invaluable tool for breeders who are seriously trying to imrove their lines and the breed in general....JMHO Maggie Marshall Aeval German Shepherds http://hometown.aol.com/gsdlady28/index.html updated 03/02/2007 AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. 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