Improving Breeds

[JJK]

What as individuals can we do to improve the breeds we love.

For me, one thing I can do is refrain from breeding my dog. Even if we earned a NAVHDA VC title, I wouldn't stud him out.

[caseymcq]

Health clearances, hips, elbows, eyes, CNM, EIC, etc, as examples. Those are genetic traits that responsible breeding would address, IMO.

[JJK]

Those are good and should be at the top of the list when selecting and buying a pup.

[mcne0101]

One thing to do is don't anyone's word for it that a dog is OFA certified or CERF certified.

Each organization has a HSOforum with a database of all certified/registered dogs. Take the time to make sure those dogs tested as the person is telling you they did.

Also...Stop breeding for color!!!! If it is a factor make it very far down on the priority list.

[JJK]

Why should people stop breeding for color?

[TylerS]

What as individuals can we do to improve the breeds we love.

For me, one thing I can do is refrain from breeding my dog. Even if we earned a NAVHDA VC title, I wouldn't stud him out.

Can I ask why?

[311Hemi]

Why should people stop breeding for color?

People that breed for color often times do so with neglect to most other [more] important factors/traits such as health, abilities, temperament, etc. They only care about one thing...color. Case in point would be breeders of "silver" labs.

[mcne0101]

Why should people stop breeding for color?

In my opinion the first priorities for breeding should be drive, health, temperament, performance, etc. Color should come closed to last. I think too often color is becoming the first priority at the sacrifice of the other important traits. In many situations those traits can be present as well as the color the party desires. However, breeding with color being the #1 priority or the only priority is not going to improve breeds, it will instead do the opposite.

[JayinMN]

I don't think there is anything one individual can do to improve a whole breed.

[JJK]

Why improve a breed? Some hunting breeds need a massive overhual.

I could care less about color. With the VDD dogs they want no more than like 23% to be black dogs. The way I understand it is, that the black color is a dominate gene and too many of them will saturate gene pool. Leading to mostly black Wirehairs.

Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

[dogs]

You can't control the whole breed, don't worry about it. People that breed for color will sell to people only worried about color. Which is forunate for many "well bred labs", for they would be to smart for a owner worried about color. Labs for instance are a breed per the AKC, but to me labs arte classified by working parents and lineages and thats how I separate them. Fourtunately there are people that people that breed for traits I like. A dog that I love would be to hot for most people and to ugly(cause I don't care about looks). Best thing for the "breed"; is educated buyers. With that said,any color is good long as it's black.

[FCspringer]

Health clearances, hips, elbows, eyes, CNM, EIC, etc, as examples. Those are genetic traits that responsible breeding would address, IMO.

I agree 100% And as said The dog should have all the proper field qualifications, bird finding, marking, use of wind, soft mouth, temperament and so on to go with it. Also the desire for color and a well put together good looking dog is important to me as well. It has to be a whole, complete package. Size is low on my list, but still factored in. I simply match up ones strong points with the weakness of another. Smaller dog with bigger dog etc. Most of it boils down to integrity and common sense. I also don't worry about someone who has not sent in paper work to CERF or whatever. As long as it's been done and the paper work is there. It all costs $ to send in so often I save that $ and put it back toward another test. But I have all my paper to prove it along with permanent ID. CERF is good for one year. So on say 6 dogs that 35 bucks adds up. It can pay for hip certs on another dog for example. There is no money in raising a quality litter.

PS sell your pups with limited registration.

[JJK]

We as induviduals can do nothing? I don't think so.

We as hunting dog buyers can buy puppies from proven healthy hunting stock. But how can we tell what good hunting stock is? No breeder says, I just breed [PoorWordUsage]. They all claim to have good dogs.

When it's said that we can't control the whole breed, why not? They pretty much do it with DD's, DK's, PP's, WPG's, and WHV's just to name a few.

[JJK]

So I'm thinking, maybe we as buyers should be more selective.

[setterguy]

Oh what a topic.

How to improve a breed? Stop breeding non superior animals. Way too many people think they have a great bird dog and think that breeding it will translate into great puppies. Rarely is this the case. Dogs must be evaluated on many different levels and in many different criteria to determine which are the superior animals in a specific breed.

Now this is a long read, and specific to setters but really applies to any breed of dog out there. I've known Scott and Ben for years and this isn't just hyperbole. They are stringent in their evaluations and they have produced the dogs to prove the steps they are taking is working.

From their HSOforum -

Ben and I started breeding Setters in 1976. Ben was 23 and I was just 15 when we started. Ben started training dogs at 16 when our father built a 102 dog kennel facility for his long-time friend Ed Schnettler who put two dogs in the Field Trial Hall of Fame. Ben and I spent a lot of time at Ed’s training grounds. Looking back I know realize that Ed taught us valuable fundamental lessons. We learned from him that avoiding kennel blindness and a disciplined selection process are prerequisites to breeding superior animals. It took us a number of years of successes and failures to understand what it would take to produce dogs that exhibited strength across a variety of performance related characteristics. We also added one more requirement that would make it even tougher. We demanded they also be great companions. Disposition has a marginal effect on their performance in the field, but they are pets 365 days/year and we wanted dogs that were a pleasure to be around.

Canines regress toward the mean very rapidly. Therefore, the degree of selectivity practiced is a primary differentiating factor among breeders. It would seem very obvious that exceptional individuals are by definition one in many but the type of meticulous selection where good and even very good dogs are cut from the team is a rarity among breeders of any breed for a variety of reasons. Reason #1 is the effort and cost required to evaluate numerous females to identify superior animals. Even if you only aspire to have top 20% dogs, you would need to evaluate 20 dogs to get 4 females to breed. That is definitely not common practice and it’s still not at all adequate to meet our goals. Taken a step further, a very small percentage of breeders are willing to breed only the top 10% which means evaluating 40 to get 4 females to breed? Of course, this assumes you start with a top 10% female and have an effective selection process. The bottom line is you can’t trick the gene pool and the only way to consistently produce exceptional animals is practice a very discipline selection process and maintain a very open-minded view of the progress and what needs to be done to improve.

Most Setters are bred by hobbyists and cutting a good dog to get a better breeding specimen means a considerable effort with no guarantees of improvement. It’s also very unpopular with most families. Unfortunately, this is directly responsible for many average females being bred. Ben and I have been applying this selection process since before we had wives and children and our families learned from the beginning to accept this process which is paramount to our success. The type of effort described above is also very time consuming and costly. This type of program assures small production and substantial expense for facilities, vet, food, etc. This is not a profitable business model and presents a great challenge to those who hope to make a profit from breeding.

It took us about 15 years and considerable exposure to other dogs to understand we were not going to beat the odds. Elevating our program to the level we desired would require that we evaluate as many prospects from exceptional breeding as we could. We began to hold back more pups for evaluation and we supplemented our effort by acquiring outside pups from top females across the country. Finding exceptional females that were being bred to top males was not easy. One of the side benefits of this search was all of the knowledge and first hand information we exchanged with other top breeders. It helped us gain a deeper understanding of the characteristics of certain lines and also helped greatly with the selection of stud dogs. We continue to acquire 4-5 outside pups a year from the top females in the nation.

The value of this collective information and my professional experience with collaborative efforts made me certain that a cooperative effort among the right breeders would give us a substantial advantage. We brought this idea to Hytest Setters and Suncanyon Setters whom we had been sharing information and the occasional puppy. The idea was to share breeding females and distribute certain offspring among the group for evaluation. Collectively we would have deeper knowledge of the ancestry and we would have an ample gene pool to create a line of dogs collectively that would be very difficult for any one breeder to match. This relationship has helped all of us elevate our programs. We are also starting to work with other breeders interested in a collective effort for the benefit of the breed. Dr. Allen Dunbar, Jim Breece, and Dave TerHaar are all now participating in this effort. The collective knowledge, experience, and collaborative effort of this group has been exceptionally valuable to our program.

Side note: This effort produces many nice started dogs that do not quite meet our requirements to participate in our breeding program that are offered for sale.

Another critical component is the very demanding evaluation process we developed about 17 years ago. (see performance testing) As we stepped up our evaluation process, we wanted to test our progress and make sure our evaluation was accurate and as unbiased as possible. At the time I had been spending about 50+ days a year in the grouse woods so we started to enter cover dogs trials. However, this was also about this time we started to spend more time on the prairie evaluating dogs and we preferred the open country for evaluating prospects. So we started a National Bird Hunters Club (NBHA) and today we participate in every form of FDSB recognized walking trial. Our philosophy has become that the dogs prove themselves to us as bird dogs during an extensive evaluation on wild birds and we utilize trials to determine how are dogs compare in terms of style, stamina, intelligence of application, handling, and manners around game.

Field trials gave us a whole new perspective on what it would take to consistently produce dogs with superior abilities. Many hunters negatively associate field trial dogs with bigger run. We eventually learned that successful trial dogs must possess superior intelligence, biddability, bird finding ability, manners around game, drive and stamina. Their range, especially with Setters, is primarily a function of training. Pushing trial dogs to a greater range requires superior drive, stamina, intelligence and a very biddable nature. When pushed to an extreme, these dogs must cooperate with their handler, especially in foot handled stakes. With proper focus on mental make-up and biddability, winning trial dogs offer a great foundation for a breeding program.

In the last 15 years we have grown to appreciate just how demanding our selection process must be to identify dogs capable of improving our program and the breed. Today we evaluate 20+ dogs/yr to hopefully find two exceptional individuals to participate in our program. Our prospects are put through an extensive evaluation process on a variety of wild birds in several states and Canada. Only the most naturally gifted become part of our breeding program. Our record in field trials gives some folks the impression that range is a primary factory in our selection process which simply is not the case. We select dogs on a host of other factors with intelligence, bird finding ability, manners around game, and style topping the list. We consider stamina and drive to be absolute prerequisites but range is an attribute we put in the category of personal preference much in the same way we look at color or a preference for males or females.

What it took us many years to fully understand was that these trials dogs will not produce many trial dogs but that they will produce the ideal females for breeding. We found that these gifted dogs will often reproduce offspring with the same exceptional intelligence, bird finding ability, manners around game and style as the trial dogs but with a very manageable level of drive and range. The one generation removed females are the dogs that produce truly exceptional foot hunting dogs. It is somewhat of a trickle-down theory. However, you can’t trickle very far. The selection process must maintain the most exceptional individuals. Greatness fades quickly. We have found that the very best hunting dogs are produced within two generations of trial caliber parents. About two-thirds of our females fall into this category. They produce great NSTRA dogs or class foot hunting companions that are exciting to watch and have excellent manners on birds. Roughly 1/3 of our breeding stock are proven trial dogs. We keep half of their offspring for evaluation and the other half we match up with trialers or hunters who's environment and preferences demand this type of dog.

Our selection of a stud is equally vigilant. We won’t breed to a dog just because it’s a champion. We select stud dogs we believe will produce dogs that meet our criteria. (see below) We then take the very best offspring to participate in our program. Each year we sell several excellent young dogs that in our view are not exactly what we are looking for in our program.

Berg Bros. Breeding Criteria

1) Males 47-52 lbs. - - - - Females 40-45 lbs.

2) Demonstrates superior bird finding ability.

3) Intelligence with a strong desire to please.

4) Fluid gate that promotes style and endurance.

5) Ability to handle any species of upland game.

6) Predisposition to adapt range to the terrain.

7) Superior composure and intensity on birds.

8) Natural backing & retrieving instincts.

9) Exceptional companion & family pet.

10) OFA certified hips.

[setterguy]

Evaluation process of Berg Bros setters. I doubt many breeders and certainly back yard breeders are this diligent. The question was How to improve a breed...here you go.

Our performance testing consists of several different elements. We do not employ them in a segmented fashion. We utilize all of the elements as the dog advances through our selection process as needed for each individual dog. The elements and approximate chronology are as follows.

Phase I starts at 14-16 weeks on liberated birds. Each year we start 20-30 pups. We keep a couple hundred quail and do not use them until they are well conditioned for flight. We release and push these quail nearly every day and they fly almost as hard as wild birds. I mention this because really strong birds contribute greatly to this process. The pups don't form bad habits and we don't have to worry about them catching birds. This allows us to let the pups go unrestricted and we can evaluate their tendencies around game. It also helps that we have 54 acres fenced with 5ft high woven wire so we never have to worry about a pup getting on to a road or neighboring properties. All of this allows us to get young pups into a ton of birds very young while maintaining a natural environment. We do very little that resembles formal training at this stage. We are observing their innate abilities and traits at this point. This stage lasts until approximately 26 weeks of age.

Phase II is light yard training and we get started on wild birds as the time of year dictates. We really prefer they have very little contact with liberated birds from this point until they have had substantial contact with wild birds.

We also introduce the whoa command during this phase. With most dogs we combine whoa training with a game of fetch. It reinforces fetching and makes a game out of whoa training. The dogs are still quite young so mixing in the retrieving keeps their attention and keeps it fun for the pup. We are looking for early signs of biddability and how well they take training.

Phase III is the start of a variety of wild bird work. Evaluating dogs on a variety of species and various terrain is very helpful in determining intelligence, biddability, bird finding ability, and natural ability to handle wild birds. Our prospects will be exposed to wild birds in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Montana, Missouri, and Canada. Listed below is a rough break-down. This varies dependant on available bird numbers. We go where we can find good bird numbers! The break-down on wild bird work is listed below. We are looking for dogs that figure it out quickly and demonstrate a superior ability to handle wild birds. The variety also shows their natural tendencies in terms of adapting their range to the terrain. Depending on the dogs age this phase will usually go up to the spring woodcock migration.

35% - Ruffed Grouse - Minnesota & Wisconsin

35% - Sharptail & Huns - North Dakota and Montana

20% - Quail - Missouri & Texas

10% - Pheasant - Minnesota, North & South Dakota

Phase IV is polishing of manners. Very few hunters are going to demand that a dog be steady to wing and shot, stop to flush, and honor another dog on point 100% of the time. However, a dog’s willingness to take this type of training and advanced manners around game should be an important part of determining if they are suitable candidates for breeding. At this stage the evaluation becomes much more advanced. We demand above average to superior ability in the following areas.

1) Intelligence

2) Bird finding ability.

3) Pattern – adaptation of range / pattern to the cover and

intelligent search of objectives.

4) Ability to get birds pointed and hold them.

5) Manners around game

6) Stamina

7) Handling.

8) Style running and pointing.

Phase V, the final phase, is testing the dogs in a competitive environment. At this point we have a strong opinion about the dog’s bird finding skills. One 30-60 minute session is not proof of bird finding ability. However, trials are a very good place to test attributes like stamina, drive, intelligence of pattern, handling, style and manners around game relative to other dogs. We believe walking trials are an ideal environment for unbiased evaluation of a class bird dog. About one-third of the dogs that make our program will have the extended range required for trials. The other two-thirds will have range and perhaps slightly less drive but they will possess all of the other attributes of our winning trial dogs.

[JJK]

WOW, thats some good stuff.

Thank You.

[Acemac]

get your dog fixed!

[JJK]

Regress toward the mean very rapidly.

That's interesting. When I was out in west central MN I came across hunters with dogs. One guy had 2 and another guy had only 1 dog. All 3 of these dogs were snappy with my dog. He couldn't even get close to them or they'd show teeth. From what I saw they were decent with humans but not other K9's. Even the young FemaleDog showed these traits. These 2 guys weren't in the same hunting party, but their dogs exhibited the same behavior. Thank God the one guy had a little common sense and warned me about his dog.

Is it suprising that these dogs were labs?

[gspman]

Regress to the mean really means that dogs bred over time tend produce average offspring as far as performance goes. It doesn't mean the dogs tend to get mean and aggressive. It's called the "drag of the race" by some. It is very difficult to produce truly exceptional breed specimens. They will trend toward average with the occasional dog being outstanding.

It's the same in humans. There are limited numbers of elite athletes. The rest of us... ahem... are average. There's only one Adrian Peterson. Only one Usain Bolt.

[nofishfisherman]

It's called the "drag of the race" by some. It is very difficult to produce truly exceptional breed specimens. They will trend toward average with the occasional dog being outstanding.

It's the same in humans. There are limited numbers of elite athletes. The rest of us... ahem... are average. There's only one Adrian Peterson. Only one Usain Bolt.

Just be glad they still let us average guys breed!

[Todd Caswell]

From a performance stand point , train and or trial your dogs, you really have no idea how good your dog is untill youv'e done this. There are tons of good hunting dogs out there but very , very few that make it to the highest level.....

[gspman]

One of the challenges with improving the breed is that everyone has a different definition of what "improve" means. This is particularly true in the German pointing breeds where groups of people only participate in one venue. You have the Hunt Test and NAVHDA folks who have one definition and the field trial folks who may have a different definition and then you have Joe hunter who may have another different idea.

I actually think this is a good thing. There is no uniform definition that suits everyone and their needs. But if you look hard enough you will find dogs that suit your need.

[JJK]

How to NAVHDA and Hunt Test guys have only one definition?

What is the definition?

From what I'm seeing.

Some of the newer versatile dog folks want more point out of the dogs. The breed clubs say with most versatile breeds the pointing can take longer to develop. First time owners don't really understand what they're in for. And it will take more patience from them to get results. Those results might not be close to what they expect. I think this is why we really work on pointing. I believe German Versatile breeds don't have the pointing instinct like EP's or Setters. It's the retrieve ducks in the morning then point phez or grouse afternoon type thing we're attracted to. And the die hards would love to have the same dog blood track an arrowed deer in the evening on the same day. Then you add the retrieve of both fur and feathers aspect to the mix. Versatiles are intended to be fine hunting dogs but that's it. Seems like most the breeders take pride in their dogs, and do the best they can. They don't produce many litters, and there's some thought and selectiveness behind what they're breeding and who they sell to. They seem very dedicated to their breed, training, and testing to produce sound family oriented foot hunter, hunting dog. If you look at the standard for some of the Versatile breeds you will see theres some grey area and this is by design.

There are many that will argue why improve top notch dogs. Just maintain them.

My "means" reply was mainly for humor. But my observations and what I witnessed are truth.

[JJK]

Maybe I'm way off track here, so correct me if needed.