SWOSUMike

I only read the checklist, but I disagreed with a lot of it. There is more to breeding than pure bloodlines and championships, and the list of things they seem to think you "must" be willing to do may have some "good things" to do, but they are by no means all going to be "musts." They seem to have based the checklist on pure bred dogs with showing in mind, and that is not always ideal for sportsmen. I hunt squirrel dogs, and these dogs usually are mountain curs or feists, both of which have developed into "breeds" per se, but they come from such broad gene pools that the thought of one being a "show champion" in the way that most people think of them is absurd. But one thing they are for sureis HUNTING DOGS! They are not AKC dogs (and hopefully never will be), but they have their respective registries with breed standards. From what I know, these "breeds" don't have many healthproblems that are recurring in their breeds, and it is very common to cross the different strains and squirrel dog breeds with great success. And you might be hard pressed to find breeds of dogs that are as consistent as squirrel dogs as curs and feists. Sure there are plenty of good squirrel dogs, but curs and feists are consistently squirrel dogs and they are regularly crossed with each other with the end result of more good squirrel dogs. There are a lot of people out there who think they need to tell others exactly how things need to be done and that they are wrong if they do things differently. I am not saying this web site is that way, but I do think this mentality exists quite frequently in the dog world. A lot of it is with good intentions and definitely good advice. But in the end it is nobody's call except the owner of the dog. I will probably breed one or both of my squirrel dogs in a year or so if they show me what i want in a squirrel dog, but I may not breed them to each other just because I have a male and a female. I will look for the best match up for my gyp (that's my disclaimer to make clear that I as an individual don't plan to breed irresponsibly); however, I will not let somebody tell me what I "must" do before breeding, etc. That is my call. I am glad to consider advice and all the factors that play in, but I don't think it is somebody else's call as to how I should go about breeding my own dog in my own backyard. I certainly don't think I should have to wait for only a champion show dog.That hardly exists intheworld of squirrel dogs where the focus is breeding healthyMEAT dogs.Thereare some bench champions, but the focus is on performance usually (hopefully). I will breed a healthy squirrel dog to a healthy squirrel dog that match each other genetically and in hunting style, looking to weed out negative traits by not breeding such dogs. That may mean mixing dogs that are not pure bred for the purpose of getting what I want in a hunting dog. That is not a bad thing, either. I think it is a good thing. But my dogs are not AKC dogs and neither is their breed.