Top knotch dogs come from lesser parents?

Poor approach to breeding in my opinion. I've heard of people who use the lesser dogs for their brood stock and just hunt the best. Bad business plan if you ask me and I can't see that type of program lasting more than a couple generations at best before the whole bunch will need culling.

Starting with and continuing to breed the absolute best while keeping them as closely related as possible is the only way to roll.

I get irritated with those that think "linebred" is some term that simply means better dogs. Even done correctly, linebreeding is nothing more than a tool used to produce CONSISTANT dogs....meaning consistant with the ones you STARTED with. Take some mediocre dogs and linebreed them to beat all heck and you're not going to end up with anything more than a bunch of mediocre dogs that are NOW RELATED. Everyone with a viable linebreeding program can tell you the dog their line strives to reproduce...and with a little luck, occasionally you may get one that's even better. The major IMPROVEMENTS in the line usually come with a VERY careful outcross which is then brought back in tight.