Genetics Simplified

If you are considering either breeding your bitch, or purchasing a puppy, a good rule of thumb is to either see as many of the dogs ancestors as possible, or scrutinise photo's of ancestors, if you personally would not want any of the ancestors, for any reason, then think again, for the chances are they will show up in your pup, or pups if you breed.

Which is where registration plays a helpful part

Fair point Lel,

HD That's one of the good things about keeping old books of your breed and club year books with all those old photographs. I have some lovely old Schnauzer books with photographs of the first imports from America from which most of our breed is decended I was left the books when someone died, I only wish I had asked her for all the old pedigrees going back to 1930s too

For anyone starting out in dogs I would say ebay is a good place to look for old books.

Those must be very interesting Mini,

Luckily with staffys too there are a lot of pics and pedigree info available through a number of websites and the staffy annuals and magazines
I love looking through them and seeing all the old names (but then I am a litle addicted I think)

Good post HD. Personally, I would hope that most people would do this (whether they are going for a registered or non registered dog). Sometimes I think a lot is just down to common sense, though I guess a LOT of people buying dogs lack this lol. I have always said if people did a wee bit more research and spent a bit more time researching the type of dog they want, various lines, health problems & breeders etc rather than jumping the gun & buying the first thing then there would be a lot less problems & problem dogs too.

Laura

Luckily I have also been able to see a lot of the dogs in Cassy's pedigree both her parents and other relatives at shows, there is one good website in particular that has lots of her ancestors in the gallery (www.staffordtribute.com) and I have a book at home and a few magazines with some of her relatives featured too so it's nice to be able to look back see where she came from.

If you look at my last post in Dog Tales Laura, you will see the common sense used by me, when I purchased The Warrior, my first Stafford.

That's a great site Laura for old stories, and points in the history of our breed.