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question about Linebreeding dogs ???

If you have one dog show up 8 times in 6 generations is that a lot? Would you guys tend to believe that dog would have a great deal of influence in that pedigree?

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Sheep,

I'm a firm believer that the close the dog is in the pedigree, the more influence that it has...and just because a dog is repeated in the pedigree does not mean that it will have a whole lot of influence. Prepotency and filial degeneration come into play in a pedigree....

Prepotency can best be defined as the unusual ability of an individual or strain to transmit its characteristics to its offspring due to dominant genes. Genes contain DNA. DNA serve as the basis of heredity. Without getting scientific, genes transmit hereditary characters by specifying the structure of genetic material. It is what people are referring to when they say he’s a chip off the old block or the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, etc. Let’s say a child who was separated from his father at an early age meets his dad when he’s twenty years old. The twenty year old notices that both him and his dad have quiet dispositions and frequently smile. These can be said to be inherited traits. These tendencies come from genes containing DNA which predisposed them to have quiet, amiable dispositions.



Filial Degeneration can best be explained as the tendency of an individual of a line to revert to the average of that line. What exactly does this mean? Well a good illustration of this would be if a family of three generations of short, unattractive people gave birth to a daughter who grew to be both tall and pretty. Filial Degeneration would dictate that this tall pretty girl would probably give birth to short, unattractive children. This is due to the fact that the preponderance of her genes contain DNA coded with the short unattractive blueprint.



Now, knowing that an individual of a line has a tendency to revert to the average of it’s line gives us something to work with. We can strive to establish a line of high performance prepotent dogs. How, you ask? Well if we start with proven dogs, breed youngsters from them and cull severely(by cull severely I simply mean to NEVER breed them), we will be left with proven dogs who are bred from proven dogs. The dogs remaining in the breeding pool, after the culling process, are those that inherited the desirable characteristics/genes from their parents. With each generation bred and culled you are narrowing your gene pool.



What you are doing in effect is increasing the probability of future youngsters inheriting the genes responsible for the desirable characteristics of your foundation pairs. A dog receives 50% of its genes from it’s sire and 50% from it’s dam. When you breed from a pair of winners versus a pair of winless dogs, you increase the likelihood of producing winners greatly. Lets break it down. Say you place 20 balls, 4 red, 4 blue, 4 green, 4 yellow and 4 black in a bag. Now, you can reach into this bag and extract two balls at a time. Red balls are the designated desirable balls. Two reds win. One red with any other color also wins. Two of any other color, or combination of colors, other than red lose. Now if after every draw you throw away the non-red balls and place the red ones back in the bag, you are increasing the probability of getting a red ball with each subsequent draw. After every draw and disposal of the non-red balls you are increasing the percentage of red balls to the total amount of balls. Eventually you will be left with all red balls and each and every draw will be a desirable draw. Now substitute red balls with desirable genes and substitute draws with youngsters. If you cull the losers (non-red balls) and only put the winners (red balls) back in your kennel, you are increasing the probability of getting desirable genes passed on to future youngsters. The name of the game is limiting the gene pool.



In the world of coon hound breeding, we have hung our hats on breeding a winner to a winner. We breed our desirable male, to our desirable female, unrelated as they may be. We take the desirable offspring out of that cross, and we breed them to a desirable dog from another line. The very best we can do is to revert to “average”. We are not removing the non-red balls from the bag! We may have just as many red balls as when we started, but we have just as many non-red balls as well.



By making use of filial degeneration, and selective breeding dogs with only the desirable characteristics of their parents, over time you will increase the level of “average”. If in one case average is characterized by 50% of the pups from any single cross making good dogs, and with selective breeding, and making use of filial degeneration, you raise the level of average to 90% of any litter being good dogs, you are well on your way.

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Joe Newlin
UKC Cur Advocate
Home of Oak Ridge Kennels

So Joe, basically what your saying is the only way this particular dog would be a huge impact is if and only if the dog is up close in the pedigree OR if maybe the dog has "prepotency" and has very dominant genes?

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and

Baldwin's Blue Texas


In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-- Mark Twain

Kinda...he would have to be prepotent AND up close....

Not one or the other.

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Joe Newlin
UKC Cur Advocate
Home of Oak Ridge Kennels

quote:

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Originally posted by Oak Ridge
Kinda...he would have to be prepotent AND up close....

Not one or the other.

---

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and

Baldwin's Blue Texas


In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-- Mark Twain

quote:

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Originally posted by smokey7
So Joe, basically what your saying is the only way this particular dog would be a huge impact is if and only if the dog is up close in the pedigree OR if maybe the dog has "prepotency" and has very dominant genes?

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In my example above, I used 20 balls....of five different colors. If each of the colors represented a "line", then you would have to do a lot of selection do reduce the gene pool enough for any one dog to have a great deal of impact.

In a six generation pedigree, you would have 64 ancestors...minus the 7 "repeats".... for 57 different "colors" of balls out of 64 ancestors....

An animal can ONLY inherit 50% of its genetics from a single parent....prepotency is the ability to influence the EXPRESSION of that genetic code.

So if the dog that is repeated 8 times in a six generation pedigree was NOT a prepotent reproducer, that reproduced prepotency...then it's lost in the second generation....

__________________
Joe Newlin
UKC Cur Advocate
Home of Oak Ridge Kennels

While were talking about breeding dogs i got a question. I will allways wonder what went wrong with a breeding i done about 6 or 7 years ago. How could it be that you breed a good male dog to a good female dog and you personally kept up with 4 out of the 7 puppies and not one of those 4 took hardly any good traits after either the moma dog or the sire? The moma dog was a good natured, hard hunting, track driveing, accurate locating coon dog. The sire dog was a good natured, track driving, coon dog, grand nite champion. Heres what we got..........

1. male puppy. Hunted good. Ran a track good. Treed good and stayed treed good. Fought anything that walked by. Had absolutly nothing to do with being tree possesive at all. As soon as his feet hit the ground from the taligate he was allready giveing a low growl and if another dog walked close by it was on. Just naturally mean. Period.

2. male puppy. Hunted good. Ran a track good. Had a good nature and disposition. If hunted by himself He would get treed but his limit was about 2 to 5 minutes. After that he was off running track again. With another dog he would never split tree at all and he would almost allways just tree with the other dogs after they allready treed. Never would stay at the tree more than a couple minutes. No stay power at all.

3. Female puppy. Scared. Shy. Not intrested in hunting or in coons whatsoever. Yard dog. thats it.

4. Female puppy. Same as above female. Nothing. No hunting or trailing or treeing desire whatsoever. Nothing.

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Home of.........

Baldwin's Blue Princess

and

Baldwin's Blue Texas


In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-- Mark Twain

most likely the dog will take the dominant traits passed on from ANY of his ancestors. . . . . . . IT can be 30 years back or his direct parents. . . . . . .but a dog being in the ped that many times will have an affect on this dog

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Joe has done an excellent job of explaining linebreeding. Jason, for your question, I have learned the hard way. If a dog has any traits you don't like despite how many good ones they have, it is the bad traits they pass on.

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Larry Atherton

Aim small miss small

Sheep,

What you got is a perfect example of filial degeneration...or the reversion to the average of a mating......

__________________
Joe Newlin
UKC Cur Advocate
Home of Oak Ridge Kennels

quote:

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Originally posted by Oak Ridge
Sheep,

What you got is a perfect example of filial degeneration...or the reversion to the average of a mating......

---

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Home of.........

Baldwin's Blue Princess

and

Baldwin's Blue Texas


In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-- Mark Twain

I'm with Joe, but on a more

layman's level. I'm currently hunting the 10 and soon to be 11th generation of dogs I first started with back in the early early 80's. The more I bred and tried different crosses, I found out the following:
These are not prioritized and some of it is to develop a dog I like to hunt. They are not for everyone. It is what I like to hunt.
Here is the type of dog I breed for.
smart, loud, gamy, beautiful, cat footed and must meet all breed standards when showing. I also prefer full blanket back and red headed. Clean white with no ticks.
1. Breed balance to balance if you can.
2. Line breeding is best, but you need to know what you're doing before doing this.
3. Inbreeding doesn't work in the long run. There are exceptions to the rule, but I've seen the gene pool lessen in latter years and crosses later.
4.The characteristics of a particular dog seems to almost diminish after the 3rd generation. Color seems to carry on, but some particular characteristics seem to almost disappear. That's why I try to breed to a dog with the exact same characteristics I like and when I do, I always end up with what I like. I'm never without a coondog from my crosses unless something gets killed and I have to go looking for a brother or sister or close relative of some of my dogs. One cross later, I'm back to what I'm looking for. I'm showing and hunting three generations of my dogs right now at the same time and all three fit the exact list I listed above.
smart, loud, good looking, and are really easy to train and most are born straight if you know how to start them right.

Hope this helps with your question. Joe hit the nail on the head, but if I can help with a more hands on approach, pm me and I will send you my number. I love discussing genetics. ..

Re: I'm with Joe, but on a more

quote:

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Originally posted by cripple creek
The characteristics of a particular dog seems to almost diminish after the 3rd generation.

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i really like this thread.

__________________
Jason Lippard

This is a good thread!
Need to talk with Dave Dean,Ed Mead or somone else that really knows from experiance. Someone with years of breeding with success.

Two Toes on here could tell you too!

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Bryan J.

SAVE THE COON, HUNT WITH A HOUND!

Thanks for all the replys yall. I've only been coonhunting and raising dogs fors 13 years but when it comes to breeding i've learned a couple things myself. Just a couple. LOL. One thing is that it seems that the very best stud dogs out there that really seem to be powerfull and dominant reproducers are wonderfull if there on a 3 generation pedigree ONE time. The dogs seem to take after him and be strong track dogs and strong tree dogs and everything is balanced and wonderfull. These same fantastic reproducers, ........ you put that dog on a pedigree TWO OR THREE times up close, and you got problems. All the balance is gone and all the brains are gone. The good traits flew out the window while all these bad traits that you didn't even know were there are now surfaceing and causeing major problems. Thats just what I've noticed anyway.

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Home of.........

Baldwin's Blue Princess

and

Baldwin's Blue Texas


In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-- Mark Twain

This is something that really sparks my interest. I have always loved soaking up information from houndsmen about breeding and hunting. Several years ago i starting learning about linebreeding from an old foxhunter i grew up hunting with named Hunter Kennedy. Mr. Hunter believed in this linebreeding theory whole-heartidly. He has tried for the last 40-50 years to hunt a breed hounds that went back to his first dogs. Im not sure that it was to "better the breed" or come up with a more "consistent" litter, but more to just keep some connection to his first good dogs. His has raised dogs all over the spectrum. From way above average to just good enough to keep you from shooting them.

I had a litter born today that are linebred on the stuff i started hunting with and have always fall back on. Not many world beaters from it, but it seems that dogs going back to the original cross seem to make good coondogs and reproduce well when bred back to this breeding or when making an outcross.

It does seem like some of the people who are linebreeding now are using it like a sales gimick just as much as the ones with the quintessential All-Grand cross. I have seen some line-breedings turn out awesome, but i think when compared to any other out-breeding they both give you about the same odds of getting a nice litter. I dont think it gives us as much consistency as we would like to believe. I think it is just a way of us breeding to keep a dog or line that we really like in what we are currently hunting. Much like ole Mr. Hunter was doing.

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I used a lot of words to define a very simple principle.

The simple fact is that very few folks that decide to mate two dogs have really done the work to "select" a breeding.

Line breeding, Inbreeding, or outcrossing....if all of us had the resources to do the actual selection....if we all know where the red balls were, and which crosses in our dogs history were "good" crosses, or red ball to red ball....and if we were knowledgeable and strong enough to at least cull from the breeding population all the "non red ball" dogs...then and only then will we really see an increase in success in our breeding programs.

Breeding success starts with SELECTION. We all have our own criteria about what a "winner" is....that's why we have so many different opinions on breeding.

One thing remains constant....filial degeneration will always drive our breeding attempts to "average"...the only think left to do is to raise the level of "average" .

__________________
Joe Newlin
UKC Cur Advocate
Home of Oak Ridge Kennels

quote:

---

Originally posted by smokey7
Thanks for all the replys yall. I've only been coonhunting and raising dogs fors 13 years but when it comes to breeding i've learned a couple things myself. Just a couple. LOL. One thing is that it seems that the very best stud dogs out there that really seem to be powerfull and dominant reproducers are wonderfull if there on a 3 generation pedigree ONE time. The dogs seem to take after him and be strong track dogs and strong tree dogs and everything is balanced and wonderfull. These same fantastic reproducers, ........ you put that dog on a pedigree TWO OR THREE times up close, and you got problems. All the balance is gone and all the brains are gone. The good traits flew out the window while all these bad traits that you didn't even know were there are now surfaceing and causeing major problems. Thats just what I've noticed anyway.

---

__________________
Joe Newlin
UKC Cur Advocate
Home of Oak Ridge Kennels

quote:

---

Originally posted by Oak Ridge
We breed our desirable male, to our desirable female, unrelated as they may be. We take the desirable offspring out of that cross, and we breed them to a desirable dog from another line. The very best we can do is to revert to “average”.

---

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if it aint broke, fix it till it is...

quote:

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Originally posted by Oak Ridge
Sheep,

The reality is that it's not the line breeding that is the culprit....it is poor selection..or paper breeding. We are a culture of "more is better", so if we pile one ancestor on a lopsided pedigree, then it has to be good right?

Nope...filial degeneration....the reversion to average. Don't get caught up in the "big name" dogs...but rather the names of the dogs you don't recognize, for they are the ones that are responsible for 50% of the genetic pool...and it WILL revert to the average of the cross.

That "super stud" when crossed on a less than average female, will produce average to below average pups...which are in turn bred to average to below average stock.....and in a matter of three generations, they are average to below.....but still being bred because they are "Line bred on ole so and so".....

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__________________
Home of.........

Baldwin's Blue Princess

and

Baldwin's Blue Texas


In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
-- Mark Twain

quote:

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Originally posted by Big Bawler
just an honest question...
where are we supposed to get the second half of our cross from if we are only certain we have removed the "off color" balls from our line? inbreed? or go looking for another line to outcross with which we are also certain there has been removal of the off color balls? would this also raise the level of average?

brad

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Joe Newlin
UKC Cur Advocate
Home of Oak Ridge Kennels

Good Subject

Very good and interesting thread.

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my question is this,
why are there a small handfull of breeders that just seem to have some kind of sixth sense when it comes to makeing good crosses?

Ive known 1 particular walker breeder for 20 yrs who seems to be able to make outcrosses on his line of dogs and almost always has an entire litter of above average pups. He then keeps a female from that litter and either crosses it back to his foundation stock or he may make another outcross before comming back to it. Then he may make a half bro/sis cross or has been know to cross a full bro/sis.
I am fairly certain that he has no education in the field of genetics(or anything else for that matter) and is just as lost as i am when yall start useing those genetic terms, and would roll on the floor laughing if i tried to explain the red ball green ball theory to him.

Im not at all saying you guys dont know what your talking about, obviously you do, but it just seems to me that a select few have a god given gift of knowing what cross will work or not regardless if its linebreeding,inbreeding, or total outcrosses.