Breeding lines

How do you know if your dog has a good breeding line? What makes a good breeding line? Is it all the health checks and if they were workers, would it be the work that they do? Is breeding line the right term? lol. Im really not sure

im not sure if this is in the right forum, but im sure someone will move it if not.

A dog from a 'good' breeding line will have proven ancestors, so parents, grand parents, great grandparents, etc., that have excelled in their field. Your breed (Springers) has a defined 'split' between dogs that are bred for show and work. So a dog that comes from a good breeding line will have lots of 'CH's (show champions) or 'FTCH's (field trial champions) behind it.

I forgot to say that most dogs are actually pet bred, so don't strictly come under either catagory of show or working bred. Pet bred dogs often have the odd show or field trial champion scattered in the latter generations of their pedigree.

ah right, so would it say on the KC cert that i have if they have FTCH's?

Yes. The names are usually red (as apposed to black) if the dog is a champion.

So they will look like: FTCH Dog of Woofville

What does it all mean though, really?

Woody has a long line of FTCH on both sides but was bred from a pet as a pet.

The same with a couple of my girls. Particularly my Bambi. Her KC Pedigree is absolutely brimming with Champs but her Mum was not shown. This is why I say that I don't believe only show dogs should be bred (as some think). Woody is pretty damn perfect and Bambi the same.

We were more interested in the temperament of dam and sire than what he looked like and what his history was.

I guess FTCH means he's going to be quick a bright spark (which he really is) but that's only because those dogs have been involved in field trials. You can be a clever pet (as we can prove ;o)

I think it is more than just having champions in their lines. Many champions are overused at stud etc...so it isn't always an indication of quality. I think if you want to know about the lines you really need to chat to people in the breed and learn as much as you can that way. Just because there are champions doesn't mean you have a good dog. A good breeder won't necessarily go for the 'champions' they will go for a healthy dog, with healthy ancestors...with excellent, proven temperaments...with looks that will compliment their lines.

Just because a dog has champions in it's pedigree...doesn't make it worthy breeding stock IMO. In order to be quality breeding stock it should either do well at shows or in what it was bred to do...it is not enough that it has champions in its lines.

We've got quite a lot of well-known kennel affixes, and plenty of red names in the pedigrees here...

What pleased me most was a Boxer owner (and former shower) who, without looking at the pedigree was able to tell me which lines the boys had in them - in terms of which were the 'looks' and which were the 'personality' lines

She was spot on as well!