Breeders of plants and animals know there are several different approaches to their work. No matter if we are raising orchids or dogs, the principles are mysteriously the same: we can mate individuals with no similarity at all … or we can breed for particular characteristics found in specimens discovered along the way in our field of research. Finding such characteristics “by chance” in a population of life forms can take forever. If we searched the world – magazine ads, online information, breed clubs, dog shows – it could take a lifetime to gather breed-able dogs with the characteristic we are working to establish in our bloodline. How many of us, with creative and curious minds, can accomplish anything of lasting importance if our focus, resources and time are distracted by searching for the materials we need with which to work? It would be like an artist spending precious hours searching for paints, brushes and canvas … only to be exhausted and without a painting at the end of the day. Productive creativity doesn’t work that way. Wasting one’s time and energy is not how things get done. Distractions – distractions of any kind – cause delays; and, for breeders of dogs, every delay means the world will not see a better dog for that much longer.
For various reasons (none of them very scientific) many people are afraid to breed dogs which are closely related. Closer examination often reveals that many people expressing opinions about how to breed dogs have never produced a litter of puppies themselves. Nevertheless, they are opinionated (and, sometimes loudly so) about what makes a good dog. Generally, it’s a dog’s personality they’re talking about and not its physical characteristics. This places their priorities in a different category from breeders working to maintain or improve physical type, movement or other breed characteristics which they value according to a written standard – or according to the development of an entirely new breed or variety within a breed, for example. Differences of opinion regarding the value and importance of “personality” over “physical type” are where controversy takes over when it comes to breeding and raising dogs.
Dog breeders are designers of dogs. In some circles today, litters are said to have been “designed” by someone instead of “bred by” them. This widens the range of thought when we discuss the breeding of dogs. Let’s consider ourselves to be designers of dogs, making choices in our work; selecting the right fabric, color and materials as we bring new life into the world. Some may, in fact, choose to spend their lives, their money and their hopes discovering “the right dog” here and another one over there as they try matching them together in a breeding program. Obviously, it’s the “journey” and shopping they enjoy most, and not the final results. “Good luck” if one of the dogs they find is just a puppy and the other is twelve years old!
Characteristics in a breed are set by mating “like” to “like” (yes, even when it comes to temperament and personality, mentioned above, the tendencies affecting personality can be intensified by selective breeding). When you have discovered or developed a trait which you believe is important enough to intensify, look to the nearest relatives of that dog for your breeding material.
These dogs, very likely, are in your own kennel or within a network of people you know. Hope and pray that these people are your friends and you haven’t made enemies of them along the way – or those relationships will prevent and delay the trait you’re after from ever happening in your breed.
We’ve covered out-crossing (useful only for the burst of “hybrid vigor” it can give when desired in a breeding program) and, we’ve described it as the slowest way to reach one’s breeding objectives that anyone could imagine. Basically, it’s like throwing your hopes to the wind and almost like letting Nature just take it’s own course. The odds are, nothing’s going to happen and if it ever does, it will be absorbed into the vast gene pool and lost forever. It might have been fun (for you) to own a dog that had the qualities you think are great – but the rest of the world isn’t going to have that pleasure. There’s a word for that approach to things – “selfish.”
There is another approach to breeding, and it’s called “close-breeding.” In all my years of experience with biology, agriculture and animals of many different kinds, I have been more amused by the different interpretations of “close breeding” than by anything else. I’ve shaken my head and laughed until tears come to my eyes when people show me a five or six generation pedigree for a dog “close-bred” or “line bred” and all I see are a sire and dam with one or two common relatives. This is what they consider to be effective breeding? I can only say (And, yes, I have seen it happen) “I sure hope that dog you have in the fifth and six generation back there is dominant for that ear-set you’re after” … as I think to myself … “See you around in another fifty years.”
Of course, one could throw all care to the heavens and say “OK, fine! I’m breeding litter-mates and immediate family members together! NOW, what do you say, Mr. Hevener?”
I say go for it. I once had a Great Dane and she was the result of three generations of such breeding. She was also yellow-eyed, a white-ivory fawn color, only about the size of a Collie and I was laughed out of the ring at the local dog show. Lest I forget to mention it, she developed Wobbler’s Syndrome, too. Had the dogs in her background been superb specimens and of excellent health, the results would have been different. It’s not the method of breeding I’m criticizing, but the individual dogs which were chosen to be bred from. (By the way: I took that dog and produced from her – by out-crossing for another three generations – the most beautiful Danes anyone had. And I won the class at that show ten years later. Make note: it took ten years).
Next to cloning (which has a long way to go before it is truly perfected for reproduction) line breeding from healthy individuals is my choice when it comes to animal husbandry. Health is the key when it comes to breeding. As part of the overall design, it is essential. That being said, one can develop and intensify any trait for many years – then introduce an out-cross to a similarly line-bred individual (if possible) displaying the trait you want (if you can’t find it, then do an outcross with a healthy dog that has what you want and trust your own bloodline to come through). I once knew of a herd of Black Angus cattle that had been closed to outside blood for fifty years, with no adverse effects.
When it comes to dogs, I know of a bloodline intensified on a champion as many as twelve times in six generations. I know it because I took on the responsibility. I did the work, line-bred for years, and I have happily lived to tell the tale.