I think there may be a good NI breeder!! General Chat

If anyone looking for an N.I goes through the web sites and tries to research the breed, it clearly states what the faults are, so would'nt be advantageous to a breed to keep breeding faults of any kind, can you not take a step back and just for one moment imagine the dissapointment of some owners who with the best interest and research think they are buying a to TYPE n.i and end up with something that looks like a tri colour rough collie cross, nothing against tri colour rough collie crosses mind, but its not what I paid 700 quid for...

But surely Becky all dogs must adhere to standard and health to bring anything to a breed!

The only time I think it is acceptable to breed from such dogs those that dont adhere to standard or health)

Would be if the breed is numerically small an on the endangered list.

Not sure where Dawn has slated any dogs that dont adhere to standard..

She has stated facts NOT slated the dogs.

It is also a good job many see it the way she does... dont you think, or we would see the demise of many a breed.. if everyone decided standard was not important.


And for the record, I dont have a long coat/solid colour prejudice , I have known many long coated GSD , along with white Boxers, I love them all...

But if they dont adhere to standard, they should not be added to the breedign programme.

As you pointed out yourself, they show up anyway so why go out of the way to purposely breed them.

YES to me it DOES matter about coat length and colour! When breeding PEDIGREE dogs, the aim is to produce dogs as near to the breed sandard as possible, physically and mentally, not to produce unrecognised colours and coat lengths specifically.

Please find me anywhere where I have "attacked" a long coat or coloured dog because of those reasons, otherwise apologise for your outburst which has no foundation.

Well I will be in the minority here then as I personally wouldn't discard a dog that had a slightly higher than average score (in my breed*) as long as it excelled in all other areas. Obviously you would also take into consideration the scores of its relatives but if they were all low scoring then I wouldn't be put off by the fact that this individual dog had a slightly higher than average score.

I do think the number of dogs this scenario should apply to would be very small, but having seen this situation occur in my own breed I do honestly feel the breed would be worse off if if this particular individual's genes had been excluded from the gene pool.

* I have stated 'in my breed' as I own a breed with a hip score of 13. If the average score had been much higher then I wouldn't be of the same opinion.

I agree with you here.

When you are looking to breed a dog/bitch you need to look at both the negative qualities AND the positive qualities. Taking a dog/bitch out of a breeding program cos he/she has some negative qualities, can be more detrimental to the breed than keeping it in, cos you could be denying the breed of the positive qualities of that dog/bitch. This is more so of a breed with a shallow gene pool, breeding is not as black and white as some people believe, it needs to be done by taking EVERYTHING into account and weighing up these qualities, before the decision can be made. This is how I see it, we all have our own veiws and opp's

I guess the issue is this: When going against a breed standard, one person's views on what is acceptable and anothers are different. It depends on why a person is breeding in the first place, what they aim to achieve from breeding and individual morals and ethics, or a lack of, come into it.

However IMO someone who might breed from a dog who has a hip score that is slightly above breed average (when the breed average is reasonably low) does not mean that they lack morals and ethics IF they know what they are doing and are performing the mating for the benefit of the breed.

Hi Greyhawk, my post wasn't specific to hip scores xxxxx

owl.

My issue with this breeder in question is not colour or coat length(I think this should be the last thought when it comes to breeding) it is the fact that said dog has higher than average hip score. And it really annoys me when people say that others are 'against' them because of coat length or colour to get away from bad health results. It gives the rest of us a bad name. The only problem I have is health results regardless coat.

Exactly

That's okay if no dogs further down the line suffer because of it ...

I think some people are obsessed and feel as though they are on a cruscade.

At the end of the day, there are lots of breeds out there and it would seem that the NI and Ute - from what has been said - are not 100% healthy - and if so, there is no benefit over the other breeds.

I cannot see any reason at all to risk health problems in order to continue breeding these dogs.

Yes I couldn't agree more.

As I said, breeding is not as black and white as some believe, there is much more to it, most of which is beyond some peoples understanding

That is one of the problems Marie, IMHO, people seem all to quick to breed, seemingly thinking it is simply about putting a male and a female together, perhaps the dogs are hip scored and have low scores, but sadly, that isn't necessarily enough:-(

Nes this is what I have been saying, breeding is not as simple as putting that bitch to that dog, there is much more to it than that. Unfortunately, not everyone can grasp this or understand all the ins and outs of the bigger picture of breeding.

So maybe you can explain the bigger picture to those who obviously dont grasp the fact , that using a dog with a health defect as in a high hip score is beneficial to a breed!!

Would you like to point out to me where I have said using a dog with "a high hip score is beneficial to a breed" This is not what I have said or what I was trying to say, so please do not twist my words!

You didn`t , I did;-)

I was using it as an example to emphasize your statement

Surely when breeding any dog the purpose is to breed to the best of your ability in producing the best examples of the breed.

You stated that people dont understand the reasons for breeding and that you should not discard any dog from the breeding programme..(not word for word)

My point was , that as you seem to understand the practice of breeding, you could enlighten us as to what makes good breeding stock.

As from my own point of view, although I have not bred , I have many friends who do.. and all have the same goal in mind they breed to produce as good , healthy, and to type of dogs as possible.

And you cant do that if you are using defect dogs.. be them from health/ wrong coat type/colour.

Obviously experienced breeders will and can use dog who are not quiet up to conformation , but they will have yrs of experience and know bloodlines to enable a medico dog produce better ones.


But I dont need to be told, I dont understand, simply because I dont agree with breeding from dogs that dont add up to standard or suffer from health issues.

Any dog regardless of breed that falls down in either health or type , should be left out of the breeding programme regardless of temperament.

Specially in numerically large gene pools

No I didn't, and as you are clearly intent on twisting my words, I will leave you to it. I have better things to do with my time

ETA - I was not meaning a numerically large gene pool, I am talking about a numerically SMALL gene pool, which alters things a lot.