Pit Bull History

[Easttex91]

One FINE fine bulldog there.....

*sigh*

I was born one decade too late, I swear.

Me an Steve were just saying the same thing a day or 2 ago

X3 cept I was about 3 decades to late

[Amokabs]

When you saw dogs , or lines, being bred too tight, what would you see?  Physical issues or more disposition, drive, athleticism type issues, or some combination? And when you got to the point where u a tually saw a decline, would u breed the generation that was exhibiting the negative traits to an outstanding outcross, or would u take it's parents and go to the outcross? This is a fascinating thread. The old game dog breeders knew what they were doing and so much of their work and breeding philosophy and science is being lost. Genetics is interesting but the "backyard science" used successfully by these pioneering breeders was proven at the highest levels.

[Shotgun wg]

Lots of trial and error went into breeding the dogs they did until they got it lined out. Just like everyone else they had pairings that didn't work but nobody knew because they were dealt with at home.

[TexasHogDogs]

Well I want people to understand some thing right now so lets get this out in the open.  I don't want to come on here and people think that am a know it all and that the only way is my way of doing things .  That is the furtherest from the truth as you can get .  A man is a man and only he can figure out how he wants to breed dogs and I in no way am trying to tell someone their way is the wrong way are that my way is the right way.  If some of you got that impression then you took it the wrong way.  You breed dogs the way you see fit . When I say something on here it is because either I seen it , I done it, I lived it are am damn close friends with people that have done it, seen it and also lived it  .  I talk every week with men and yeah some famous men that have bred dogs for 40 45 50 years just because I am not active in the bulldog game and they are not active in the bulldog game any more that does not make us any less friends and some very close friends that I would die for nor does it mean they do not still have dogs are do not breed dogs any more it just means this time and day things have changed and us as dog men have changed with the times.  Again I do not want to give anybody the wrong impression and for you are anyone on here to think my way is the only way because it is not and that's a fact all I can do is just tell you how we done it and you can either use it are you can just let it go but do not get offended by it because it is not meant that way you are your on men and women.

One other thing I need to clear up .  I do not have what I call a super dog on my yard as of right now .  I have some damn good dogs that suit me and they find hogs on a consistent basics but a super dog no sir I sure do not and if you got that impression again you have took it the wrong way  .   I have dogs that are good at what they do but that super dog has yet to come but that takes time .   

As one man said in another post said that super dogs are to complexed and he would just rather breed for better than average dogs.  He could not have said it any better because super dogs come from good soild dogs and solid families of dogs.

I wanted to clear some of that up before I post on this mans questions.

[TexasHogDogs]

When you saw dogs , or lines, being bred too tight, what would you see?  Physical issues or more disposition, drive, athleticism type issues, or some combination? And when you got to the point where u a tually saw a decline, would u breed the generation that was exhibiting the negative traits to an outstanding outcross, or would u take it's parents and go to tathleticism type issueshe outcross? This is a fascinating thread. The old game dog breeders knew what they were doing and so much of their work and breeding philosophy and science is being lost. Genetics is interesting but the "backyard science" used successfully by these pioneering breeders was proven at the highest levels.

You know the old saying that to much of something good is not good at all .  Well that applys to the dog breeding game also and am sure other performace animals also.
The first thing you are going to see when a line starts to become to inbred is the weight and size normally is going to decrease.  Then as you go into the family harder you are going to start to see the athleticism type issues and you are going to start to run into breathing , lung power are not going to be as good.  Then as you go even futher into the family you are going to start to see the underbites if not already am sure, the bones are not going to be as straight and strong ,  the dog is going to be more subject to worms, sickness and his wounds will take longer to heal and skin problems and just really everything else.

Once the dog starts having athleticism issues and his lung air starts to go then why would you want to go any futher ?  There is no reason to unless it is your ego are unless you are making $$$$$ on pretty pedigress,  because that is mother nature telling you this line has had enuff ,  hense good nuff for me, she taught our asses yes sir  !

Also I don't know if you guys realize it are not but the heavier a dog is inbred the more and more cross you are going to have to use to get the real cross genes into the gene pool .  Because your dog is so damn inbred and his gene pool is so condensed that a completely unrealated outcross slammed to it does not even effect the pups they still come out inbred and still do not have the tools to do the things they need to do because of such condensed gene pool.  So you have to take those pups and put another cross on it and now the pups come out and you can start to see the effects of the outcross ,  your dogs straighten up , they bone is coming back the size is back up the air is better and they are not getting their tools back they need to perform that your inbredness took away from them.  There is just no sense in all of this my dogs is 125 times out of old such and such ,  Why ?  If those dogs are not great are good dogs with old such and such in there 12 times what makes you think it is gonna be better at 125 times ?  LOL.   Its just crazy man .

All my dogs out there are bred so their blood can breath and they are all family bred and crossed so that I can take any dog and run to another and either tighten the family gene pool are loosen it with all bloods that are proven to cross.

The one thing the great dogs and great family lines never lost during all this inbreeding and that was the will to perform they just lost the lt of inbreeding and heavy breeding .  So with the hunting dogs familys you start heavy line breeding and inbreeding and your dogs start to loose their hunt with just a little of this kind of breeding,    Well I will leave that to your imagination , but that tells me your living in a  glass house.

[TexasHogDogs]

To answer your question,  this is were I would stop and I would go back to the generation before and start my cross.

Once the dog starts having athleticism issues and his lung air starts to go then why would you want to go any futher ?  There is no reason to unless it is your ego are unless you are making $$$$$ on pretty pedigress,  because that is mother nature telling you this line has had enuff ,  hense good nuff for me, she taught our asses yes sir  !

[Reuben]

if you want more info on what Jimmy is talking about go to the topic "Breeding for Results" in the hog dog section...another thing you will see is lower fertility (including smaller testicles) in males and lower fertility rates in the females as well...

[TexasHogDogs]

Lots of trial and error went into breeding the dogs they did until they got it lined out. Just like every one else they had pairings that didn't work but nobody knew because they were dealt with at home.

Boy you said it right there.  This is how a person becomes a great breeder of great dogs trail and error hands on experience and time, time, time there is no substitute knowing what works and what does not .

I would like to say to the people that do not believe this .  Do you think in the 1800's and early 1900's any of the old hound breeders had any knowledge of genetics the big words, geno this and geno that,  homo this and homo that LOL   ,  what about the ole time Pit Bull breeders Joe Corvino ,  Gaboon Trahan , Mr Wallace, Mr Hinzel, Earl Tudor , Bert Clouse and the list goes on and on .  No I don't think they did it was trail and error and they developed their breedings skills by using their dogs and they developed their eye for great dogs and they bred them by instints being line bred inbred and even outcrossed.

[Reuben]

I am sure back then it was trial and error but no need to reinvent the wheel of making mistakes when it is now documented...more than likely the idea with breeding brother to sister or mother to son was believed that it made lunatic and crazy dogs...the reality probably was that the inbreeding went too far and they ran into the dead ends of inbreeding depression...

I believe the best way to develop a line quickly is to inbred at the beginning and then line breed and turn a few generations over quickly as well...once that is done then slow it down to keep from going too soon to where one must outcross with the new blood...new blood means bringing in traits that will surprise you maybe for the good but probably not as much as the negative...when your putting out 80 to 100 percent above average dogs it is hard to bring in some fresh blood...

but getting back to the pitbull history...I only know one man and he was a hard core game dog man...he went all over North America and South America with his dogs back when it was not illegal...I thought I knew my dog meds and what not until I met him...He was a nutrition guru as well as a physical trainer of game dogs not to mention all the meds required for PM and for recuperating a dog that needed care...

[TexasHogDogs]

Yup noting wrong with modern day genetics they have come a long long way for sure .

Well I tell ya done had me a 18 pack and feeling pretty good .  I tell ya I was brought up the old school way the School of Hard Knocks and its all I know weather it is right are wrong who knows but it has worked in the past and it still works today.  You know what man ,  we bred 100's of dogs we inbred familes of dogs just to see what would happen and how everything worked and in the end we found out that if you sure nuff want to know what kind of family you got after all your line and inbreeding .  You go do yourself a full Bro x Sis breeding and if it turns out great your line of dogs is right in the wheel house if it turns out like the stinky stuff on chicken number 2 then you will know were you are at in your line of dogs .  Bro and sis breeding back then was more are less used as a gauge to see were the family of dogs were.  When they bred Eli Jr x Brendy it was some of the best dogs to ever come out of a brother sister breeding those dogs bit like alligators and were worse than hell on wheels .    Like a old time dog breeder once said Bert Sorrells  the Test of a dog is the family the test of a family is time and bro let me tell you those Eli Jr x Brendy dogs stood the test of time .  The bite that those dogs had and the gentic make up carried on for years and years and more years and still today in lines that people have kept that stuff straight and culled .  Everybody thinks the Nigger Toby dogs got their mouth from the Zebo dog but that is far far from the truth if you look at the bottom side of the Nigger Toby dog it is bro x sis bred Eli jr X Brendy and what were they they were Dibo dogs with some Corvino in them now if you look at the Zebo dogs what were they they were old time Dibo dogs so what they done is they took and they back crossed it .  They bred Zebo   who was old time Dibo in the back to Pepper who was bro x sis bred Eli Jr  x Brendy who was noting more than Dibo / Corvino .  So they back crossed and look what came out of it great great dogs .  If  you look at what Earl Tudor done in his life time he was the matster of disaster he only wanted dogs that were like Mike Tyson take you out and take you out in a hurry bad assed dogs .  Earl bred best to best and the badest to the bad and he done it for years on end and he was almost unbeatable .  Then as Earl died dogmen took his dogs and they family bred these dogs and they made families of these dogs.  The real families of these dogs still carry on what Earl built in his years with the best to best breedings .  YOu can still take real famiies of these dogs and still see the Earl Tudor in them 30 years later .

The same thing can happen in the hog dogs of today .     

[TexasHogDogs]

Its just the oppsite of what most men think.  Most think that the family carrys the outcross LOL but I can tell you from years of breeding along with some of the best bulldog breeders n the world  that the outcross carrys the family !  I don't care what kind of family dogs you have after years of breeding family you have got to cross and you breed to the wrong outcross you get chicken chit dogs that the sorriest dog men would cull and the families are never the same , you breed that family of dogs to the correct outcross and you watch what happens .  That outcross will carry your family blood making great dogs for the next upteen years and not only that other people  can build families of dogs off of that outcross .

Try it .  It don't make no difference how good your family has been over the years once they are inbred stale and you have taken it to the last level of family breeding if you don't know what crosses with that family of dogs you might as well scrap it .  This is why you make crosses along the way with this cross and that cross to find out what crosses best with your family of dogs so that when that time comes that you have inbred and linebred yourself into a corner and went as far as you can go you now have the cross that will break that familys blood out and refresh it and make it whole again and then and only then can you go back to family breeding .

Just me man , again to each his on and there is no wrong way .

[MrsLouisianaHogDog]

Whew! SPEAKIN THE TRUTH!!!!! Lovely write up TexasHogDogs!

[Rocking Y]

This has to be one of my favorite discussions yet if not #1

[Amokabs]

MAN! Great responses! And a wealth of knowledge. This thread needs to be a sticky.

[redriverslim]

Its just the oppsite of what most men think.  Most think that the family carrys the outcross LOL but I can tell you from years of breeding along with some of the best bulldog breeders n the world  that the outcross carrys the family !  I don't care what kind of family dogs you have after years of breeding family you have got to cross and you breed to the wrong outcross you get chicken chit dogs that the sorriest dog men would cull and the families are never the same , you breed that family of dogs to the correct outcross and you watch what happens .  That outcross will carry your family blood making great dogs for the next upteen years and not only that other people  can build families of dogs off of that outcross .

Try it .  It don't make no difference how good your family has been over the years once they are inbred stale and you have taken it to the last level of family breeding if you don't know what crosses with that family of dogs you might as well scrap it .  This is why you make crosses along the way with this cross and that cross to find out what crosses best with your family of dogs so that when that time comes that you have inbred and linebred yourself into a corner and went as far as you can go you now have the cross that will break that familys blood out and refresh it and make it whole again and then and only then can you go back to family breeding .

Just me man , again to each his on and there is no wrong way .

This is EXACTLY right.  You line breed / family breed until the desired traits you are breeding for, start to diminish.  At that point you make your outcross, and then go back into the family again.  This is if you are trying to perpetuate a "line" of dogs.  Bulldog men know that there are some lines that cross together well and some that don't.  It don't mean that any of the lines are necessarily better than the others, it just means that time has proven that certain lines will cross better together.  I tried to breed lines together for years (and had good dogs) and the results were not that great.  It seems to me that the best crosses I ever made were just breeding the best to the best.  An old dog buddy of mine, Cecil Pond would say . . "Son, just breed the best male on the yard to the best female on the yard, then go in the house and pull out the pedigrees and see what you just did".   

[halfbreed]

   some one a few post back talked about all this info being lost when the old timers are gone . you couldn't be farther off the mark .  all these breeders of bulldogs and game fowl have left their info in the form of knowledge that has been passed on in books and is still being taught to geneticist at the college level today . the American game fowl breeders worked hard and long figuring this stuff out and keeping records . of course most fowl breeders had dogs and horses as well these practices they used were heavily documented and preserved .  a good read on genetics and breeding is [ the scientific breeding of game fowl ] by Floyd Gurley in it, it contains an 8 generation pedigree of Boudreaux's blind billy plus co-effiancy charts for the dog as well . so this info is out there but it gets deep and takes some studying to understand it   lol .

[Reuben]

   some one a few post back talked about all this info being lost when the old timers are gone . you couldn't be farther off the mark .  all these breeders of bulldogs and game fowl have left their info in the form of knowledge that has been passed on in books and is still being taught to geneticist at the college level today . the American game fowl breeders worked hard and long figuring this stuff out and keeping records . of course most fowl breeders had dogs and horses as well these practices they used were heavily documented and preserved .  a good read on genetics and breeding is [ the scientific breeding of game fowl ] by Floyd Gurley in it, it contains an 8 generation pedigree of Boudreaux's blind billy plus co-effiancy charts for the dog as well . so this info is out there but it gets deep and takes some studying to understand it   lol .

10-4 on that...it is written and it can get complicated and confusing...so the best policy when breeding dogs is to breed the best to the best from within a family/line of dogs...the best defense is a good offense when breeding dogs...

[Reuben]

I am willing to bet that those breeders were reading the older books on genetics as well...some learning's from the books and some from the school of hard knocks...

[COA]

Thanks for all the history & knowledge. It's like opening up a stratton book or agdt. No expert but have seen a all red come out of 2 black dogs then that red dog throw a all red when bred to a black bitch. I havent bred many dogs. Maybe just luck, these were snooty/eli dogs. Have 2 bulldogs now that I run. I'm jot pedigree guy the dogs I have r bred how the dogmen I got them from say. Male isa 10 yri old tight Joe black dog 48# bulldog & gyp is 2 yr old 46# leggy runner out of fatty blood.
Male came to my yard @ age of 2 already seen some yardmates so I just locked him away until I built some bond with him. Has hit a few pups thru the years that were brought home but not a fight crazy. Been all over hell & bak thru divorce lol so he seen other yards.Started hunting him with my buddy found out he don't like bmc's that hackle up so had to put the brakes on that. Been runnin my female with my buddies pack since she was 6 months she is socialized to say the least. No problems to this point. Knock on wood. Least hunting bulldog I've ever seen ha but I kinda like it! Hits the ear fights it a bit tho. These 2 r at the house with 2 black & tan c pit ,healer crosses. No problems & let me tell u its not a lazy yard! Took me long time have this problem! Really tho these dogs r off the chain. They work out ther difference with my supervision pecking order is in place & workin good. Truthfully never thought b possible. I always tell people the men I got these dogs from wouldn't want them back!But anyways guys I love the bulldogs talk & thanks agai

[TexasHogDogs]

Joe Black threw some very nice dogs still know a lot that have them.  I bet those dogs that were black dogs and then threw a red here and there were Eli type of dogs.   We use to see that when breeding straight black Eli type of dogs and the  black blooded dogs.  A lot of the old time Eli breeders waited for it to happen then they would keep the Red dog and use as a stud type of dog and use him as a back cross for the black dogs  .  We all narrowed it down to that the Red dogs gene pool was a throwback and went straight back to the Dibo gene pool itself .  Those Red dogs would make some very good producers for the people that knew .