[Matt McKenzie]

Here's the situation: I have a nice 4-year-old bitch that has her HRCH and has easily passed the only 2 Master tests she's entered. We will probably finish up her MH title this fall, since the test season is about over around here. She has a nice pedigree, a great training attitude, lots of drive without being crazy, good conformation and movement and is very watery. She marks well, is not vocal, is pretty birdy and has a great on/off switch. In general, she's pretty close to my ideal.
Anyway, I've been kicking around the idea of breeding her for quite some time. Her sire is FC AFC RSK's Smooth Sailing and her dam is a couple of generations removed from Kate's Rascal and Pic's Pied Piper.
I really like what I've seen from the Cruise, Patton, Ford, Izzie family of dogs and have been looking at doing a line breeding to a son of one of these or possibly breeding to a Maxx son from a different dam.
So I've been kicking tires for quite a while now and looking at all FC and AFC dogs, but I think I finally found the ideal match for the bitch. He's a Patton son, has great conformation and movement, good training attitude and personality, great marker, etc. etc. The "problem" is that he is a young dog just finishing up his Master title and running some quals.
I'm breeding to keep a pup for myself and I have a couple of friends that will probably want a pup (one for sure), but I'm afraid that I could wind up with more pups than I can place in good working homes without a "name" stud with an FC or AFC title.
I'm not trying to make money here. I just want to breed a nice litter of pups that can be competitive in HT or possibly FT, I want a pup for myself and I would want as many as possible to go to homes where they can hunt or play the games.
So is it worth the risk to breed to an unknown dog or do I just keep looking for the perfect "titled" dog?
And please assume that I'm not a complete idiot and let's not waste bandwidth asking about health clearances. I wouldn't breed without them.

 

[Latisha]

Matt, I would say since the primary goal is to keep a pup for yourself, then you should breed to the stud YOU like the best, not which one will sell puppies the fastest. Which male out there is the best complement to your female that is strong in the traits you desire, but also strong in the areas your female needs improvement on? Breed to the male which is the most likely to give you the puppy you are looking for. You may not be able to place them all in HT homes, but there are plenty of good homes out there that just want a nice well-bred pet or hunting dog.

Latisha

 

[Ken Archer]

Matt,

I was wondering if you would get any feedback on your question. The answer depends on whether you want to be a breeder or a multiplier. The impression I get is that the "breeding program" of most people is to breed a FC-AFC bitch to a FC-AFC stud and hope that they get at least one good FT prospect out of the litter. If it is a good litter then the following repeat breedings are much sought after. Looking for complementary dogs in both conformation and pedigree is foreign to most ways of thinking and line breeding has become a lost art. Like you, I only raise a litter when I want to keep a pup out of it. I would suggest that you find the most complementary stud dog for you bitch and let the chips fall where they may.

Here is my problem. All I have are field-bred Labs, but the 1975 show champion in my avatar is my goal as far as conformation is concerned. I am probably about 1 or 2, maybe 3, generations away from achieving that goal. I am 67 years old. If I wait to breed only proven (titled) dogs at 5-6 years of age, I'll be in my mid-80s before I see a third generation. And by the time I decide I want to breed back to one of those dogs in a line breeding program, it will be too old to breed. Therefore, out of necessity, I have to turn the genetic crank every 2 years as soon as I can get OFAs done and get a good handle on their field capabilities. So far I am getting closer to my conformation goal without giving up any of the field capabilities. Thank god there are a few good looking field-bred stud dogs left. The most difficult part of the process is finding and identifying them.