Ch Wolfpack Northwind of Tigara
Bred by C. De Villiers
Owned By S. Kranz & C De Villiers
"TO BECOME A BREEDER IS NOT DIFFICULT, BUT TO BE A BREEDER IS VERY HARD"
I am sure you have heard about Mendel. All his theories about dominant and recessive you can see when you are breeding dogs.
I will give you an example. In Holland there is a black Doberman and he has mated many bitches : All his offspring is black. Now you know he is homozygote for black. When you cross two black Dobermans, it is possible that you get four colours : black, brown, blue and sable. Then you know one of the parents is homozygote for black, brown x brown gives always brown or sable, for brown is a recessive colour and does not ‘ hide’ any other colour.
Sometimes we make rules and say : it is not allowed to use a stud who give monorchide puppies. This is not realistic as the mother is responsible for monorchide or cryptorchide offspring.
People always give the fault to the father and that is not correct, both parents are responsible for the good and the bad points.
When you want to be a breeder of course you start with an excellent bitch, now you can do the following.
1/
You can use a dog for stud who is not related to your bitch.
This is
called an OUTCROSS.. Most people make an outcross to get a
special quality point that the bitch does not have. you must
look at the offspring of the male, if they have this quality point,
there is a possibility that your puppies can also get it. But you
can never be sure. Realise that a champion mated by a
champion does not automatically produce a champion. Of course a champion
is a good dog, but is he also a good producer? That is
a question of dominant and recessive. When you are lucky with an
outcross and there are good results, that means good puppies, you
can repeat this combination. The results prove that the dog
and the bitch are complementary to each other . Do not
base your opinion on one champion in the litter but on the
average value of the whole litter, that must be of high
quality.
2/ The next thing you can do is line-breeding. LINE-BREEDING is when you breed with animals who are family of each other. Then you can expect that dogs that look like each other ( phenotype) also have the same genotype ( heredity qualities). Now you must try to fix the good points and exterminate the bad points.
There is
a Doberman breeder in Holland who breeds with line breeding. Her
dogs have the most
beautiful
heads I have ever seen. This point is fixed very well in her
breeding. In each country I
can see
which dogs are of her breeding. In Holland we have many good Bouvier
breeders. There are some lines that give beautiful head types and
other lines give good size with strong bone. I must say that
these people are breeding for 20 years or more. They know exactly what
they are doing.
3/
Some words about INBREEDING. Inbreeding is the mating
of closely related family. Like : father x daughter, mother
x son, half brother x half sister, brother x sister. It is the most
difficult but also the most dangerous way of breeding.
Inbreeding
is the way to fix traits in a family. It is a way of bringing
out the objectionable recessive traits so they may be
eliminated.
Inbreeding
fixes the good and the bad qualities in his breeding.
Only a breeder who has a lot of experience and a deep
responsibility can use this way of breeding.
Before you go into breeding talk with a good breeder and ask him or her for advice. Buy some good books on breeding, they will help ( “ How to breed dogs “ by Leon Whitney ) I wish you lots of success!!
Ilona
Onstenk-Schenk
(Holland)
