Using color in breeding??

Just some food for thought from our friends on the other side of the pond ...

"Many times colour type selection has been overlooked in breeding game dogs, especially in the USA where I went to visit big yards of dogs from 35 up to 250 dogs at a time. It surprised me that only one or two men did this and they are legends in the breeding of game dogs, these men are Floyd Boudreaux and Jerry Clemments (Clemmons).


Over the years we have done the same and with great success, to say the least. If you have lack of space or have a small genetic pool, then you can actually tighten up your blood/family by selecting on type and colour. It is never a guarantee as game dogs come in all colours and shapes, but for instance lets say you where breeding the Alligator line, and you only access to say 4 to 10 dogs, then I suggest you use this tecnique to your breeding program. If I breed for Ch. Alligator blood then I want them to look like him in every way, which means black coat, red eyes, long body and all the other qualities this dog was known for.

Now I was in the yard of Gary Hammond and he showed me the purest Alligator dog he had, and to my surprise it was a buckskin and white. Although i never said anything out of respect. To me this was a big shock. as I found out that the Alligator breeders over there try to have as much Alligator or his son (Rufus) shown in a pedigree, but they did not select on colour or type.

I realised that the purity of them families dropped by 40% in my mind, as they bred on a paper %. I also realised why they could breed much tighter now than we could, because they stack and pack various amounts of different dogs. With colours from white to brindle, red to buckskin and black in to the genetic pool, the result is a great diversity of different acting and looking dogs out of the same breeding. To my mind this shows a lack of uderstanding in breeding dogs, they see it as a short cut if you are able to keep 50/100/200 dogs . In the US they call this a breeding crap shoot, which more or less confirms their way of thinking on breeding.

Now, we have been breeding better dogs % wise in this part of the world , probably because of lack of space and could not afford to feed so many dogs or just had dogs that lacked quality. We have all had are mother or aunty say - "Johnny boy you look and act like your grand-father in every way". In theory you are only carrying 25% of your grand-fathers gene pool, but in real life you could be a throw back to him and be carrying 75/80% of his gene pool, and this how it works in the dogs. Too often people look at the pedigree and not the dog, and breed such and so to such and so - because it looks good on paper and yes then the outcome becomes like a crap shoot. If I breed for the Alligator type of dog, the apple must fall near the tree, he doesn't have to be a duplicate. But the one that resembles him the closest will join the breeding program.


You might say his buckskin brother is much better quality than him - why dont you use him? My answer to that, is a dog like that would be good for the box, but he definitely has a genetic build up of dogs prior to Alligator. I am trying to base my breeding on his colour type and quality, so you can see there is a difference between breeding stock and brood stock. Of course the brood stock must be of the same quality as the stud stock, this you do by weeding out the bad dogs and you will be left with a couple dogs that resemble the original dog you are breeding for.

From this foundation stock, this is where your breeding really starts. And you will find your breeding is a hell of a lot tighter, with less breeding needed and you are less dependent on the name of a particular dog. This means that a dog that has Alligator 6 times in his pedigree is much tighter and purer than a dog that has Alligator in his pedigree 12 or 15 times. Recognising type and colour is a very unrecognised tool for breeding good quality game dogs.


Another example of of breeding good dogs, or should I say a VERY good example is the Nigerino dogs. I am sure that most of you know this dog, or have at least heard of him. Well take a look at his pedigree, he is 75% Eli Jr and 25% Gr Ch Art. From that Art blood, 50% is Eli too, meaning 50% of Art is Claytons Java. And in the pedigree of Nigerino she is only 12 1/2 % present, but this bitch had a phenomenal influence on Nigerino and Art was his grand daddy. Now Gr Ch Art was red and won all his matches in short order.


Some say he was blessed by the Eli Jr style which is true to a certain extent I would say. But Nigerino got his ability, his style, his colour and his conformation from Art. Now Nigerino was a prepotent dog and produced lots and lots of dogs red in colour with black masks like he and Art had. All the way down from Art to Nigerino his grandson who produced his son Red Rover, who produced our bitch Rosey. They are red dogs with a blackish mask and perform in a very quick way. If we start looking at the pedigree the dominant dog by far is Eli Jr, I believe he is there 35 times. If she carries 5 times Gr Ch Nigerino/ Gr Ch Art, then yes she is still an Eli Jr dog. Well nothing could be further from the truth, she is a complete throwback to Gr Ch Nigerino and Gr Ch Art., and there you have your answer I guess. Your questions and papers are inportant of course, but nothing is more inportant than using the type and colour tool, if you are breeding for a certain dog."

JAMES BOND

 

Oh boy, where do I start... this guy is all backasswards. We had this discussion on another private gamedog only board and color has nothing to do with a dogs genetic potential. Please take this article with a grain of salt. Scientific fact has proved this as total backyard tactics.

Regards,

B

 

Intresting, and I will respectfully mention I dont have the experience in this aspect as the author, but I would like to discuss it a bit and see what type of opinions we come to.

I think this would have more bearing in things such as Racehorses, greyhounds, and other sports were you need a certain PHYSICAL trait, without getting involved in the deeper emotional mind-set of the specimin. If all you are breeding for is hard-charging devesating stifle dogs, then basing your breeding off the dog who showed those traits and using color as any sort of judge would hold more weight imo. We all know thats not (or shouldnt be) the name of the game, and gameness is not a physical trait, it is not only possible but happens all the time, that a creature will inherit a certain look from one ancestor, and take on the attitude of another it looks nothing like!

I'm not a genealogy expert, (hell I probably cant spell the damn word right!) but I do know the basics, and have done some minor studying into the issue. If it was as easy as breeding a game black stud, to a game black female....we wouldnt have any need for testing! What we work for isnt a physical trait, and if it was that easy we would all have yard fulls of dead-game aces!

 

i like this,nice read

 

Ok this is the genetics game. XY XX how many options are there in this code? More than meets the eye because the split and bond in the metamorphic stages. however this is cirtain that both have a gene from the previous sire and dame. Unless you are inbreeding real bad then your not going to get 75-80% of any grandparent gene pool You get 25% period. How ever in the vast variations of the splitting of the chromosomes and such the variations drop into particals of generations past and hidden traits that may show any time. Mathematically his theory is impossible. Unless of course one is inbreeding and line breeding greatly. Might explain why the who royal family looks like clones of eachother. I beleive that inbreeding is poor practice in any living organism. It is my oppinion that is. You see in all animals there are various factors to put into genetic codes i.e. colour, shape of skull, colour of eyes, length of tongue, legs, muscle mass, stance, temperment. Far too many factors to be looking at one thing and that being the colour. Which is only good if you are not colour blind. I hope those that breed keep charts of the traits. Pedigree one event that I have charted and I know who is related to how and how close. But keeping track of weight, shape size speed a long list of things that just can't be tossed into one post. Although I tend to write longer ones than others and I am trying to condense them best my mind will let me. In one strand of dna there many markers and the strands split in half and apart bonding with with those of the other set. Ok Mathimatically there are hundreds of variations that can take place in one breeding and the odds of variations are greater the more pups are in that litter. I was forced to sit with my half brother not long ago with one of those things his wife wants to call get to know each other. Any way he sits on his very large butt all day and watched the TV. the movie was wrong turn. That is the vision I get from too much inbreeding cutting the tree too close on the line breeding too often also. No I am not getting onto those that do it a few generations back to tighten a line. Just remember those old thoughts of billy bob and becky sue who grew up to gether and wed had kids and only had one set of grandparents and only one set of grandparents and the great grandpa and grandpa was the same feller. It happens in livestock too. Ya start getting genetic flaws. three legs, two heads and all that stuff they show on animal planet. Dairy cows are the most effected in this area. the will inseminate with the same bulls sperm for years not concidering the fact that that sperm is being used generation after generation. Any way holstiens have a high rate of birth defects. And inbreeding is why. ok that was 50 cents but I tossed it out. Our English friend needs to bring something new into the gene pool from us before they start getting retarded dogs. I think my brother had one such dog. I think he had to tell that dog to breath it was so slow in the head.

 

First this guy should kiss the feeds from gary, then he should praise the ground gary walks.And now something to the subjekt

 

If you cross wolves with poodles you will get animals that look like poodles and act like wolves and you will get animals that look like wolves and act like poodles and you will get all between that. Its a proven thing(Eric Zimen).Look is nothing performance is all.

 

Good replies guys.

I do not believe a grandson can carry 80% of his grandfather's genetic material. Simple math tells us he can only carry 25%. But I think JB was talking bulldogs, not people in which many bulldogs are inbred or linebred, in which case a grandson carrying more than 25% of a certain dog would theoretically be possible.

As for inbreeding, I am a fan of it. Every good dog I've ever owned except one was inbred & the one that wasn't was linebred. Inbreeding is a useful tool to isolate traits. Since it does isolate traits - both good & bad - it will produce the best or the worst in a line. It's pretty simple really - if you inbreed on crap, you will get crap. But if you inbreed on good stock, you will get good stock. I would not however advocate inbreeding over 3x on a dog.

I found this article of interest b/c I know an old dogman who is producing some real nice stuff who sometimes chooses by color. Ironically he was a close friend of Mr. Boudreaux, who according to the article anyway, sometimes chose by color too.

I once had trouble choosing a pup out of a Eli/Boze breeding. The pups were only 4 weeks old so I didn't have much to go on. I could only choose one & I was stuck between a black & a brindle. I asked his advice & he told me to choose the brindle b/c his brindle coat showed he was probably a throwback to Boze & would have more Boze traits. I was suspcious, but I took his advice & sure enough he was right.

In a Eli/Vindicator litter he chose a black female. I was curious as to why he was so quick to choose the black female. After all, he didn't know anything about her. I asked him about this & he told me the black female would have more Eli traits. Again, I was suspcious, but the old man was right again.

After that I myself started observing the colors vs. traits in my own litters & I have found that in many (but not all) cases that color can give you an indicator of how a certain dog will act. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but I have found it uncanny that while there is of course still a blending of traits; but my red, chocolate & brindle dogs seem to favor the Vindy family, while my blacks seem to favor the Eli family.

I have not yet found color to be an indicator of gameness. My brindle Eli/Boze dog was a very game dog, but the black Eli/Boze dog was cold, which to my knowledge is NOT an Eli trait! JB also made it a point to say in his article that game dogs come in all colors, which is something we already know.

But in my experinces & evidentally in the expericnes of others color did seem to indicate if a dog would carry certain traits; such as style, high (or low) drive, meekness, boldness, barkiness, destructiveness, etc.

Anyone else have these experinces?

 

i think i follow what he's saying ,,,,to a certain extint but color still doesn't make game ,,,you can wish for more or less but game is game,,,color is color,,,

 

No, I don't think color = game. If it were only that easy! I think he's more saying that color may be able to determine a dog's likelyhood of displaying or producing favorable traits of a certain dog.

And while a lot of us like to say "color is color" some of us choose by color. Of course most fanciers would die 10x over before admitting it but I think either conciously or not, sometimes we do.

I think it was Ed Faron who said they once picked black pups in Bandit's litters b/c Bandit was black & if a pup looked like his outstanding sire or grandsire many of us would choose that pup if all other things were equal. On the flip side of that coin a lot of game dog breeders would sell or even cull a blue.

So whether we like to admit it or not, I think color can sometimes be a factor in the selection of pups.

 

if i follow you right ,,,you take a dog of color that greatestly resembles the predaccessor and breed it back in to tighten up certain traits,,,of that dog,,,even still game but with color of choice,,,

 

I personaly try not to choose pups on color, but I have noticed that when Ive bred a black male that is spooky around new people most every black pup that comes out also carries that trait.

 

Why would you breed dogs to LOOK like the grandfather or father? That sounds like a show breeder to me.

True you use bloodlines that carry certain traits to obtain your desired results. But you breed based on individuals qualitys and ability to produce.

Its the same as breeding to a Ch.'s littermate. It may be its littermate but does not carry the same genetic makeup and will not throw the same type of dogs. The Ch. littermate may throw BETTER dogs.

I'd like to quote Mr. B if I may. "You can have 2 sons from the same parents, one may turn out to be the president while the other brother isnt worth the powder to blow him up".

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but that article was FAR from the truth. Genetics arent about % on paper. The proof is in the puddin. Some click and some dont, only way to tell is to try it. Or let someone else try it.............. and buy it.

I'd say its safe to say that people who own and breed the dogs enjoy a lil bit of gambling.

YIS

 

Good post Jeepreno.

But I would like to point out James Bond never said to breed FOR any type of look, but he said a dog that looks like a famous anscestor might carry more of his traits besides looks.

 

This article reminded me of a breeding a friend did. Both parents were proven and solid black w/ no piebalds in a 7 generation pedigree. When breed together(uncle to niece) they had 3 solid blacks and 2 piebalds. The piebalds didnt turn out but the 3 solid blacks turned out great. I never even realized this untill now. Very interesting. This is for more picking out pups and not breeding, correct?

 

I dont know a whole lot about breeding for color. To me you can take 2 dogs of the same color and not all will come out that way. We are not god and dont get to pick and choose what they will have. On the other hand There is an AB bloodline called blackchamps www.blackchamps.com They breed black into AB"s. They are several generations in and everyone I have talked to about them say the are awsome. Especially on the working scene.

 

Very interesting! When I first started reading it I was thinking, " what? no, no, no" until about half way through. There are good points here.
what this guy is saying (from what I gather )If you have a large yard and have the ability to produce many pups per year, try choosing some dogs who greatly resemble the dogs who's qualities you want in the ped. That makes sense, I didn't get it until he compared it to Jimmy and his grandfather. Some people or animals really take after certain relatives more than their brothers and sisters. I don't think he is saying color alone, but over all physical structure, stance and experssion. The color black probably is important. Black is a very dominant genetic color and if you have a tight Alligator like he described that is lightly colored, that probably means that particular dog is favoring the genetics of the other dogs in the ped. NOT Alligator, because black is VERY dominant in breedings.
Yes, many dog breeds were developed breeding for working abilities AND physical structure, so why stop? Dobermans were most definatley bred for specific working abilites, but because the breeder ( back when the breed was being developed ) had enough great stock to work with, they decided to take it a step further and breed for a specific design. Literally, dobermans were bred to a mathimatical calculation for peak physical performance. Everything from their pasterns, their legs, their eyes, briskets, everything was intentional in the making of this breed. They retained the temperment they wanted and created what they saw as the ultimate canine. Conformation dobes now-a-days don't have the same structure and it is very hard to find the proper design and temperment because they have been over bred by those who are not benefitting the breed.
The same should be true to APBT's, of course gameness is key, just like the drives of a dobe. You can't argue though that if you could retain that gameness and high prey drive in your stock and throw in the very best physical design than you have the best. Of course pit's need good structure and design like other breeds, they are also participating in very physical work and I am sure if you looked at the best of the breed you would see a pattern in their solid physical form.
So, it's really about color, it's about keeping the traits you want and a dogs heart and soul can be as solid as anything but if the body can't do it, well, they won't be all they can be. Also, black skin is healthier than pink. I think I got his point.

 

Every creature has a number of chromosomes Ok I don't think I have enough room to possibley formulate the multiple Punnett square's of each possible combinations of genes for a single trait compunded out into ever dominant and recessive inheritable genotypes. Let me try and nut shell genetics.You formulate sex genes, genotype, phenotype of each parent. It boils down to a chemical reaction and the DNA combines crossover of homologues and gene recombinations for a human when this is all said it works out to 2 to the 23 power or about 8.5 million posibilities in each set combine the sperm and egg posibilities and that is close to 72 trillion posibilities. you also have intermediate inheritance, multiple-allele inheritance, sex linked inheritance, polygene inheritance and add on the influaence of environmental factors and chromosomal misshaps. Not alone trying to figure out the pedigree of recessive traits. If you inbreed long enough you can really get into near cloneing but genetic faults usually accompany that activity if carried out for too long. You can go for traits such as color, size and so on but you have way too many factors to narrow down to get the Blue blood theory. you know royal family intermarrying deal (inbreeders). They may look alike as many races of humans do to some extent. Not exactly alike but share certian characteristics. Every animal has a number of chromosomes divide that number by two and that is the pairs from each parent. 2 is your base number for each male and female set if a dog has 48 the it is 2 to the 24 power times that sume again for the result of both parings. It isn't very likely to get a grand son or daughter to be 80-90% the same as the grand parent 1: a double didget trillion of a chance.

 

Ummm... so, you're saying... what?
Sorry, I got a pretty general idea of what you were talking about, and I'm going to assume you know your business because of the 8.5 million complex/scientific words you used!

 

well,i believe color does play a role in the dogs traits because killer matches his sire in every way,same color.same markings,same everything ,once he hits two years old it will be hard to tell the difference