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Posted by DRAGONSLAYER
on September 6, 2009, 11:46 pm, in reply to "Re: PLANNED BREEDING Part 3"
166.164.78.16
TEMPERAMENT AND MENTALITY NOT SACRIFICED
If any of my readers are Obedience enthusiasts, and not particularly concerned with structural perfection, they may feel that no consideration was given to intelligence and trainability in the building of this strain. Nothing could be further form the truth.
Because the abbreviations for German training degrees would be confusing to those in breeds which did not originate in that country, I purposely omitted them when giving the names and CONFORMATION titles of the three sires upon which the strain was founded. Each of them, however, had received, prior to his importation, one or more training degrees showing he had passed the necessary tests to "graduate." As I now remember it, all three had been awarded the PH. (Polizeihund-Police Dog) degree, which signifies much more than our U.D.T.
The crux of the above dissertation on mental attributes is this: Qualities of the mind, as well as physical characteristics, are subject to the same laws of heredity. My strain became well known not only because of it members' structural superiority but because of their exceptional trainability in Obedience work as well. One member became top-scoring dog, all breeds, in the United States for two successive years prior to his retirement. It should be stated that I take no credit for this, having neither bred nor trained the dog. The sire of this "dual Champion" (both a bench show and an obedience trial title holder) was a son of Pfeffer, one of my foundation studs, while his dam (one of my world-famous "D" six Champion German Shepherd Dog litter) was so closely linebred on both Pfeffer and Arras as to be considered by some geneticists as inbred.
The belief, and some uninformed breeders' contention, that inbreeding and linebreeding per se will cause either physical or mental deterioration is a fallacy many times proven. Consider the breeding of the above dog as just one example of many that could be cited.
Inbreeding and linebreeding cannot be looked upon as a way to bring NEW characteristics into a breed but, as Humphrey states, " . . . is a source of never ending combinations of racial characters in new individuals, producing variations which are COMPARATIVELY SLIGHT EXCEPT WHEN THE TWO PARENTS ARE FROM WIDELY SEPARATED LINES."
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“It’s always easier to do things the wrong way, but it’s always best to do them the right way.”
CleoMae Dungy