"Improving the breed"

Often quoted, rarely explained.

What do you mean when you say "improving the breed" ?

Maybe intent to maintain or improve the breed.

It largely means taking the whole breed into account, and having knowledge of the bloodlines (or relying on help from those who have this) so that any intended mating has the best chance of producing healthy (body and mind) typical breed examples with at least some likely to be an improvement on any of the parents minor failings.

This will mean the aim to have a long term commitment to the individuals bred and the breed.

For me it's along term and breeders would look to try to improve a whole host of things.....

Temperament- A well tempered line of dogs who would live happily in today's family's.
Health- looking to improve and lower hip and elbow scores, eradicate genetic disorders via rigorously tested stock and eventually thus improving the longevity of the breed.
Type-  the fashion for corseness is creeping in with over exaggeration becoming the norm, so select dogs who don't have this (Iv found the less exaggerated tend to be the dogs who are passing the health tests).
Diversity- improving and opening up the closely bred lines by the use of selected imported stock.
Working ability if this is why you have selected your breed of choice and is why your breeding.

We have a recommended, health focused breeding protocol suggested to us for "Improving the Breed" by scientists working towards reducing and hopefully eliminating serious inherited diseases.

Breeding from individuals over 2.5years heart and eye clear with ALL the grandparents similarly clear but over 5 years at time of planned mating.
Not the easiest thing to achieve especially if you factor in the MRI screening too....very few compliant litters around.

The type/ temperament thing would be great but we have to make sure....in MY breed that they are healthy first and foremost...
All my bitches have won green cards so I'm lucky to have the former but the main push is the latter.
THAT will be improving my breed.

Improving the breed should also mean taking the entire UK, or in numerically smaller breed cases, the EU population of the breed into account when doing any mating. For example we only have 55 silken windhounds in the UK, therefore when breeding you need to consider the impact on the wider gene pool, So doing a repeat mating would rarely be a good idea as we need to maintain gene diversity.

Although we only have 55 silkens in the UK I had my bitch neutered, I would have had no problem selling any pups she produced, but she has a conformation fault that can be hard to breed out (10 to 2 front), she has many fine qualities too but imagine if she had 8 pups and 4 had the same front, then you have 7% of silkens in the UK with the problem, and in the next generation that percentage could increase as even the ones not showing the fault can pass it on. She is a very keen racer but she isn't very fast so there wasn't even an argument for breeding on performance grounds. She has a lovely temperament, great with kids and is very pretty, she is MDR1 and CEA clear, for most pet owners that would be enough to justify a litter but is that good for the breed? I don't think so.

If only the very best dogs in the country where bred from we would have no rescue problems, people would be waiting for pups in their chosen breed and happy to take any that needed rehomed.

To find out which dogs should be bred from requires competition of some sort, all owners can be a little blind to the faults in their own precious pets so we need independent assessment to help us. Whether that is on the race track, in the show ring, an agility ring, gundog trials - whatever area we are breeding for we need to prove the dog is worthy of being bred.

Being a great pet, the best pet in the world, is not a good enough achievement to warrant being bred from. Ideally only those dogs who achieve in the show ring and a performance field, and who are also of great temperament and brilliant pets and who have passed all breed related health tests would be bred from. I've had a few male dogs who have had these qualities and I've been happy to have them used at stud, happy in the knowledge that they are contributing in a positive way to their breed.