Post by frank on Jun 20, 2009 8:28:30 GMT
This discussion originated in the "links" topic Real Staffords!
Crossbreeding! Neill my friend you really hit a button here with me, people who know me know you did.
Lets say I have a line of fightingdogs and I match these dogs to anything on four legs. And they are good, but I need a outcross. First of all I would look for a line of the best fightingdogs in my league. And from that line I would go for the best producing dog alive at that moment with the best built pedigree with as less as possible questionmarks in it.
As winning(and not preserving a type or breed) is my main goal I would not care what breed of dogs this outcross is, as long as I think that this breeding and this blood can help me to reach my goal WINNING!
We have seen trough history of the dogs in Ireland/England that crosses where made for combat. We have seen Grand Champions who where Stafford x Pitbull crosses, we have seen good working dogs out of Stafford x EBT crosses (with Stormer as one of the better known examples, and also Beany I was always said to be a cross). And even crosses with Wheatons and Bedlingtons where made, but for combat these crosses did not really come up to scratch for obvious reasons.
All the crosses above had a purpose for the line of work they where created for. To be honest, if I was really looking for a fightingdogs, a dog that had to do combat for me and win, I would have bought me a Pitbull. As we all know the Pitbull is the fightingdog that stands above all other breeds in generall including our Staffords.
Now back to our dogs. We have Staffords or English Bull Terriers. Our dogs do not fulfill their original jobs anymore, so making them better as a fightingdog is not possible. The only thing we can do is preserving the breed as original and as healthy as possible. Not change standards if it suits us better as our types change because of shows. If that does happen the only thing we can do is try to go back to basics and breed the types back. Only reason that a standard should be changed is if health of a dog population is at risk because of that same standard. For the rest that first standard is a Holy sacrament. DO NOT CHANGE!
Then we come back to the crosses Neill is aiming about. Crossing for a type of dog, for a shape, for sport. I can understand this from his point of view. But if somebody makes a cross like this, they should not call it Stafford of English Bull Terrier anymore.
Some people say, but Staffords are/where created out of crosses in the past, it was a type of dog. They are right. But we must not forget that the selection to breed with those crosses was hard. There was a lot of culling involved, just to select the best of those crosses to get our breeds. We can never compare this with crosses made for sport, this is a complete different selection. So if somebody makes a cross, please do not call it a Stafford.
Frank
Crossbreeding! Neill my friend you really hit a button here with me, people who know me know you did.
Lets say I have a line of fightingdogs and I match these dogs to anything on four legs. And they are good, but I need a outcross. First of all I would look for a line of the best fightingdogs in my league. And from that line I would go for the best producing dog alive at that moment with the best built pedigree with as less as possible questionmarks in it.
As winning(and not preserving a type or breed) is my main goal I would not care what breed of dogs this outcross is, as long as I think that this breeding and this blood can help me to reach my goal WINNING!
We have seen trough history of the dogs in Ireland/England that crosses where made for combat. We have seen Grand Champions who where Stafford x Pitbull crosses, we have seen good working dogs out of Stafford x EBT crosses (with Stormer as one of the better known examples, and also Beany I was always said to be a cross). And even crosses with Wheatons and Bedlingtons where made, but for combat these crosses did not really come up to scratch for obvious reasons.
All the crosses above had a purpose for the line of work they where created for. To be honest, if I was really looking for a fightingdogs, a dog that had to do combat for me and win, I would have bought me a Pitbull. As we all know the Pitbull is the fightingdog that stands above all other breeds in generall including our Staffords.
Now back to our dogs. We have Staffords or English Bull Terriers. Our dogs do not fulfill their original jobs anymore, so making them better as a fightingdog is not possible. The only thing we can do is preserving the breed as original and as healthy as possible. Not change standards if it suits us better as our types change because of shows. If that does happen the only thing we can do is try to go back to basics and breed the types back. Only reason that a standard should be changed is if health of a dog population is at risk because of that same standard. For the rest that first standard is a Holy sacrament. DO NOT CHANGE!
Then we come back to the crosses Neill is aiming about. Crossing for a type of dog, for a shape, for sport. I can understand this from his point of view. But if somebody makes a cross like this, they should not call it Stafford of English Bull Terrier anymore.
Some people say, but Staffords are/where created out of crosses in the past, it was a type of dog. They are right. But we must not forget that the selection to breed with those crosses was hard. There was a lot of culling involved, just to select the best of those crosses to get our breeds. We can never compare this with crosses made for sport, this is a complete different selection. So if somebody makes a cross, please do not call it a Stafford.
Frank
Would we not use the best in our breeding programmes if they did not fit the standard? That would be pretty stubburn surely 
especially the bible, and therefore i want to question the bible of line breeding, inbreeding and the idea that this is the best way to reproduce winning animals. If im wrong so be it but i want to research this.I am however not sufficent enough at genetics yet and am trying to take it in as we speak. There is a very good article written in the magazine called 'PIT BULLETIN' june/july1994. Its written by Stephen Collier, and is Titled 'Breeding better bulldogs'. Im not sure how legal it is to scan and past it up here, but hey might just stick it up tomorow! 
