back in the olden days you could ask the average old timer about breeding closely related dogs and most would say it makes crazy and deformed dogs etc...etc...
after reading many articles over the years...and breeding mutts as a kid and purebreds as an adult I have developed my personal theories on some of these ideas/reasoning...
closely related animals have similar genes and more alike when sire and dam are bred...that is why they look the same, act the same, hunt the same and so on...each parent passes on one gene and quite a few of these match up as the same...the lack of diversity in these paired up genes makes for a weaker immune system as they become more alike over a few generations...most purebred pups won't make it past 3 months without worming's and vaccines...that alone would be enough to discourage the old timers from breeding too close...back then there were no vaccines...
so the old timers believed in outcrossing and just breeding good dogs that weren't related or even of the same breed but they tended to look alike or maybe hunt alike...so if they did breed a certain amount of like to like then they would lose some of the pups but the ones that survived were the ones who lived to hunt and breed...
some scientist's say that when selecting correctly the lack of diversity is not a big problem because one should select the very healthy ones...there is some truth to that because out in the wild there is quite a bit of inbreeding but mother nature tends to do an excellent job of culling the inferior...she does not make mistakes so the strong survive to live, hunt and breed...coyote etc...etc...
some of us with the purebred dogs do all we can to save the whole litter because if they all live we can sell a few of these stem winders and make a profit especially if they have some great dogs in the pedigree...thus more inferior dogs produced to carry on with the inferior genes...
when I was a kid I bred some of the throw aways that were thrown out on our country road and there were no such thing as taking them to the vet and no worming and most lived and hunted...hunger is a great motivator for a pup to hunt...with 9 kids in a family there were no such thing as table scraps...
like Justin said on the other thread...just trying to start some conversation...getting a little slow so thought I would throw this out there...
The part about sellin a few to make money.. that's why I don't do that. I know that the people who pay more money have their plans on breeding and if the dog isnt tested I wouldn't want it bred. So I give my dogs to friends and people they personally refer to me. Is it expensive? Yes.. but instead of using the dog to bail myself out I just take a break or farm the dog out to someone I trust. Why do I do this? its prevents unknowledgable people from breeding dogs I don't feel will improve the bloodline. This is a breeding practice not breeding it self.
I like to start out with linebred or inbred stock then make the outcrosses myself. That way I know what I'm starting with. I know people who used outcross with unknown stuff then got upset when something strange popped up and they blamed the linebred/inbred stuff that I knew from personal experience did not have those traits.
In our minds we need to separate the choices the "breeder" makes from the actual breeding results. This way a person knows what the next step is and doesn't waste time and money.
