Out of curiosity do you all put more emphasis on the gyp or male dog? I know the goal is to improve on a dog abilities but when breeding to that "superstar" most of the time pups do not truly measure up the parent. Too me superstars are freaks, and there isn't very many of them. Or would you rather breed to a very solid producing dog?
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This is something I quite often think about, I've been blessed to be able to have several old timers I've gotten to know share their knowledge with me, I've spoken about this on numerous times and just about everyone of them all had the same responses, they've all built their breeding programs around good solid females, one man in particular who breeds English shorthair pointers that in all the years he's had dogs his entire breeding program has been based on 4 females, his theory is if a gyp has got what it takes to be a reproducer then she can be bred to any good dog (any within her line) and produce a high percentage of pups better than her and the sire. This same man has a gyp that he has won the purina high point bird dog in the country with, she was the best of her litter just excelled at everything naturally and after she won that title he bred her to a good male who was a known reproducer, the pups were sub par in his opinion and he had the gyp spayed, and only field trials and pleasure hunts her now, at first I thought he was crazy but this man has been at this for a long time and competition bird hunting is his thing and he has the accolades and accomplishments to back up such odd ways of doing things. So he must be doing something right.
