First of all I am not intending to breed but this question came up in discussion with a friend who doesn't breed either so I thought I'd ask for opinions here. Say you had a dog with many breed virtues but one fault say too long in the  leg. If you decided that one fault did not out weigh many virtues and you were going to breed.

Would you a) Find a mate with correct legnth of leg (and close to standard in other ways too)
B) Find a mate which was short in the leg to balance it out.

My friend and I think option A  as with B you would surely get long short and correct but be storing up trouble in future generations as if people didn't know what was behind they would only look at what they could see but not know what was genetically there.

After that little lot it's probably just as well I don't ever intend to breed

Anne 

Always chose a dog as near to the breed standard as possible.  Structural defects are very hard to correct!

When selecting a stud dog the first thing you need to be is completly honest with yourself about you bitches faults.
When selecting a stud dog you want him as close the breed standard as possible and ensure he doesnt double up on your bitches faults.
It is always worth not only looking at the stud but at his parents,siblings and off spring where possible.
natural you must also ensure he has acceptable results for all the breeds reccomended health tests :)

Definitely find a dog with the correct length of leg, rather than a different structural fault to add to the list of genes the pups will inherit!
:)

Yes option A as then you should get correct leg length to slightly longer up to the faulty leg length.  Also I would take into account the parents of the dog with the fault, did they too have the fault, and waht about littermates.  This particular kind of trait I wouldn't really term a fault as often you actually need one end of the scale to the other to keep most of the breed within the middle, be this size, coat colour etc.

What I mean with htis is say you wnat a medium shade in your breeds colour, and the dogs are tending to get darker/lighter or larger/smaller, without the opposite to help balance it out a trait may change completely and the less exageragted form be irrecoverable.