[SANDYSAND]

Advantages of Linebreeding

Now let’s turn to linebreeding and talk about its advantages and disadvantages. First the advantages:

1. The main purpose of linebreeding is to perpetuate the characteristics of a great individual. The generations of Beagles come and go very quickly. Linebreeding is a way of “keeping that great one around” a little longer, even after he’s dead and gone. Linebreeding is choosing which ancestors shall influence your line in the future, and which ancestor shall have a diminished effect. This system of breeding puts you, the breeder more in control.

2. Not only perpetuating certain characteristics, but actually improving yours is also possible. The upgrading of your stock can be done with judicious linebreeding. What actually happens is that the pedigree is narrowed to a few closely related lines of descent. This “purifies” the pedigree and enables the breeder to have a little more control on the outcome of a mating. As Brackett puts it (on page 3 of his book) “It discourages variability and reduces it to a minimum.” I usually say that the “pulls” are more often going in the same direction.

3. Another advantage of linebreeding is that results can be more easily predicted. The breeder can thus do more than mate a bitch and hope for good results. He can expect a greater percentage of good hounds to come from the mating.

Disadvantages of Linebreeding

The disadvantages of linebreeding would be conversely:

1. If the “great individual” you are perpetuating has some bad traits, they will also be perpetuated, perhaps even magnified. Thus it is possible to strive for one set of good characteristics surfacing that you did not know where there. So you had better know all you can about that great one you are trying to perpetuate.

2. Another disadvantage of linebreeding is that it simply may not work. Some lines just do not perpetuate well. They tend to be “swallowed up” by whatever they are bred to. You have to be prepared for this, although it happens in only a few cases.

3. Finally, linebreeding (and inbreeding) necessitates “selection” or culling out of undesirables, which many breeders just will not do. They become “kennel blind” and can see no wrong in their hounds, or they fall in love with every one they own and cannot part with them. (I will have more to say on this subject later in a separate article.)

If you decide to practice linebreeding, you may want to breed your bitch to two different sons of a great stud that is dead, or you may want to breed a grandson back to a great brood bitch of yours (to perpetuate her blood), or a granddaughter back to a grandfather, etc. These are common examples of linebreeding.

The pedigrees of old-time hounds had certain males reoccurring in them two or three times or more as the breeders the influence they were having on the breed and practiced linebreeding. I could name a famous stud in each past decade that appears in most Beagle pedigrees, somewhere more than once. (I won’t be that specific though.) Now, with the resurgence in popularity of the “gundog” or “rabbit hunting” Beagle (away from the brace or non-hunting Beagle), there is a conscious effort to back to some of the more traditional bloodlines and forget contemporary strains. Here again, there may be some linebreeding going on to accomplish this.

Linebreeding is choosing which ancestors shall have their influence conserved and spread and which ancestors shall be allowed to diminish in importance with each generation. Different breeders may have different ideas as to what hounds shall be carried on into the future and what hounds shall not. That’s probably good. That way the breed doesn’t completely evolve to one or two popular bloodlines.