Dog Breed Picture Sitemap

Introduction - The breeding of domestic animals is one of the most fascinating of human activities and of all the domestic animals, the breeding to type of purebred dogs is perhaps most satisfying. There are several reasons why this should be true, the first and best of which is that of all the animals the dog is recognized to have been the first brought under domestication and its attachment to man and man's attachment to the dog are closer bonds than exist between man and any of the other animal species. Man has utilized the dog and made him part of his work and his play.

01. Creative Arts - The impulse to create which is so urgent an attribute of the human spirit can and does find its release in the breeding of dogs. In his ability to ordain the existence of a new organism and to order what it shall be like, the breeder realizes a power that is but little short of godlike.

02. Reproduction - It might seem that what occurs when two unisexual mammals copulate is too well known to require restatement in a book for adults, especially for adults who are actual or potential breeders of dogs or other domestic livestock. The outward aspects of the sexual act are fairly well known and, even if they were not known, would be of but little consequence. But there is an incomprehensible lack of information on the part of the public about the fundamental reproductive processes: the basic and functional sex cells, their origin, their structure, how they unite and how the new organism develops. Even that part of the public whose particular business it is to utilize such knowledge in the breeding of animals is all too often deficient in such information.

03. Pre-Natal Life - In the former chapter we left the ripe ova in the oviducts, or Fallopian tubes, of the bitch awaiting fertilization by the spermatozoa from the male dog. If the spermatozoa fail to ascend into the oviduct within a few days of the deposit of the ova, they lose their vigor and perish. (In the original edition of this book it is written that the sperm "pine and die of loneliness." A "pining" sperm would be a sight to see. P.O.) Let us assume, however, that the bitch has been mated to a dog of vigorous fertility and that we are ready to note what occurs.

04. Genetics - The year 1866 brought the announcement of a scientific discovery comparable in its import and implications to Copernicus' theory of the sun as the center of our universe, to Newton's law of gravity, and to Darwin's theory of biological evolution. Indeed, it is perhaps due to the concern of the world of biology with the then new Darwinian doctrine that this other, at least equally great and far reaching revelation, was so neglected as to be forgotten. That revelation is known today as the science of genetics embodying the laws of Mendelian inheritance.

05. Chromosomes - We have seen in the chapter on Mendelism that the various traits of plants and animals are carried as unit characters from one generation to another. We know that the determining factors are carried in the gametes (the sperm and the ovum) which unite to form the zygote of the new organism. But what are these determining factors and how are they carried in the gametes to register themselves in the new organism?

06. Neo-Mendelism - When Gregor Mendel in 1866 published his laws that revolutionized the science of genetics, he was unaware that all the physical attributes an organism is heir to are transmissible from generation to generation in consonance with those laws. The great mass of evidence accumulated since the rediscovery of Mendelism in 1900 all points to the conclusion that every trait of every part of every organism is the result of the presence of the gene for some Mendelian factor or its allelomorph. The single possible exception so far observed is in the color of certain plants, the leaves of which are green, white, or mottled.

07. Mendelism - Even if one does not discredit the Mendelian findings of heredity, even if one accepts them and assumes their truth, how may the knowledge be applied, how may it guide a practical breeder to the production of better dogs?

The theory of the chromosomes and genes, the Mendelian laws, the results of the twentieth century work that has been based upon those laws; none of these require further proof.

08. Determination Of Sex - Breeders of dogs would like to have a method by which they could so influence the sex of the puppies whelped by their bitches that they should be able to obtain within the litter a preponderance or a totality of the sex preferred. Such a method has not yet been developed. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that at some future date animal breeders will be able to produce only males or only females, as they choose, from any mating. That time is not yet.

09. Sterility + Impotence - Dogs, as a lot, show little variation in their sexual functions, and the breeder's difficulty in inducing them to reproduce is rare. In the event of either sterility or impotence in a dog, the counsel of a competent veterinarian is indicated. Though he may or may not be able to remedy or alleviate the condition, all such are by no means hopeless.

10. Out Breeding - Among dog breeders, wherever two or three are gathered together, there is likely to arise a discussion of inbreeding, line breeding, and out breeding and of their respective merits and dangers. When the interest is so great and the convictions are so dogmatic (no pun intended!), it is surprising that opinions are not based upon sounder information.

11. The Pedigree - The word "pedigree" is derived from the French pied de gris, which translated means "crane's foot." Its use is due to the fancied resemblance to the long, spreading toes of the crane of the manner in which the lines of names diverge to record the ancestry of an animal.

The term "family tree" expresses the implied idea even better than does "crane's foot," for the generations of ancestry branch out from the individual as do the branches of a tree from a trunk.

12. What You Want - Few people are able to achieve exactly what they want. Anybody can know what he wants, although only a small percentage of the men who breed dogs and call themselves dog breeders really do know what they want or recognize the approximation when they approach to perfection. Even to themselves many breeders will not acknowledge their failure when they fall short of their objective.

13. Heredity - The rearing of puppies and the care of dogs after their maturity, their feeding, housing, exercising, training, grooming, and exhibition, are all outside the province of this book, which seeks to discuss only the breeding of better dogs as a creative art. It is true that the breeder of dogs usually functions also as their keeper and caretaker but it is only with the breeding aspect of his task that we are here concerned.

14. Not True - Even until the end of the nineteenth century mothers were wont to suspend around the neck of their offspring cloth bags of stinking asafetida in the mistaken belief that it was a preventive of infection. Indeed, the amulet may have been so malodorous as to keep at a safe distance persons who might otherwise have come into closer contact with its wearer and so may have served its prophylactic purpose. The vile substance in itself certainly had no efficacy in the protection of children from disease. Any other means of rendering the child offensive enough to keep him at sneeze-length from others would have served as well.

15. Brood Bitch - All the facts of science are of but little use until they can be and are applied to human activity. The sciences have advanced much more rapidly than has the practical utilization of the wonders which they have revealed to us. This is especially true of the breeding of domestic animals. In the breeding of dogs, which for so many of its exponents has been a sport or a pastime rather than a business or vocation, the lag is somewhat more marked than in breeding of other animals which have a recognizably greater economic value.

16. Stud Dog - The small breeder who owns a single stud dog, unless it be one of those so-called "pillars of the breed" around which a strain may be built and upon which his whole breeding program may be predicated, is unfortunate. Pride in his own dog and in the dog's potency in stud, together with a fear that possible patrons of his dog will believe that he lacks confidence in his dog's merit as a sire, prompts him to use the dog on all of his own bitches without regard to his suitability for any of them.

17. Summary, - We will attempt in this chapter to summarize the latest findings from genetic researches on the subjects of color breeding and heritable diseases and defects. After that, we will close with a few words of caution for the novice breeder who wishes to use genetic principles in his efforts to improve the breed or strain of his choice.

18. Conclusion - The art of breeding fine dogs, like the other arts, is long. It requires a never-failing interest, a devotion to the ideal toward which one works, and a persistent study of the methods by which that ideal may be approximated.

A single book is only a stone cast into the still pond of the subject to set up an ever widening wave of inquiry which it may require a whole library to satisfy. This book is intended to be that stone.

Glossary - This glossary is not, and is not intended to be, a dictionary of biological terms. The words and phrases here defined are only such as are used in the text of this book and such as may not be familiar to many readers. At the first use of a term in this text its meaning is explained. The glossary is intended for readers who have not perused the whole text or who have forgotten the definition of a term in their first encounter with it.

Bibliography - Ackerman, Irving C. The Complete Fox Terrier. New York. 1938. The Wire-Haired Foxterrier. New York. 1927.

Ackerman, Irving C. and Kyle Onstott. Your Dog as a Hobby. New York. 1940.

Advances in Genetics. New York. Vol. 1-7. 1947-1956.

Ahmed, I. A. "Cytological analysis of chromosome behavior in three breeds of dogs." Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh. Series B., Vol. 61. 107-118. 1941.

THE END