Could working lines of various breeds be introduced to try to combat exaggerations and produce a more "middle of the road" type? Not just thinking GSDs here, but I have seen various working types (bloodhounds, bassets, clumbers etc) in the past few days that look far less exaggerated than the show types and who look an awful lot healthier too.

What happens when we change some of theses breeds , working for less exaggeration and so on, what happens to diversity then, we will be isolated in breeding A.B. OR c, we have no influence on the rest of the world and their breeding regimes.

W e talk of introducing new genes all the time, to add diversity and new blood, but who is going to want to (after breeding for less exaggeration) go and bring in new blood from abroad when the new blood will be an example of what you are breeding away from.

Some breeds have small gene pools as it is, will we be in danger of reducing the gene pool even more,

Looking a the Neo at Crufts, I was impressed by less exaggeration than I expected, so we have to reduce it more, where do we go for "new blood" to help widen the gene pool , if you look to the country of origin, it is far more extreme than what we see here.

I wonder if by fixing some thing, we open a door for many other problems to sneak in.

Are there really no healthier examples of the breeds available or just no healthier examples of the breeds in the top show kennels? Wouldn't selection for puppies showing healthier traits, which at the moment are very likely discounted as prospective show dogs, speed up the process?

This is absolutely true and my main concern for the Neos. The Italian dogs are far more jowly and wrinkled than the UK dogs - so where will they get their new blood from? They are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I thought Doowneerg Usi the best neo dog was OTT..

you cant type m-astini ..lol
I did have an image but it will not allow a post due to the above word..

Isn't the point to introduce healthy new genes though? What advantage would there be to introduce genes from other parts of the World if the breeding stock remained just as unhealthy??

Where are you going to get these healthy new genes from if not other parts of the world

If a breeder or breed club work to eradicate a trait in a bred, at some point you will have to bring in new blood from abroad , if you have just spent the last x amount of years working for less wrinkle, you are not going to go to X,Y,Z that breeds what you are trying to get way from, so what are you left with your own gene pool, that has become even more bottle necked.

Hearing that a DDB died yesterday.....can anyone confirm ?

I know that one collapsed on his way out of the NEC yesterday. A friend saw it go down and was most disturbed by it. She was asking all last night if anyone knew what happened to the dog after it was rushed to the vets