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Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom  Now we're hearing that show breeders believe "yes, it's fine to breed out-of-standard as long as you're breeding TO standard and know your lines" |
I'm not a breeder, so breeders please correct me if I am wrong. My understanding is that all purebred dogs have faults, even the champions. It is just a question of how many faults they have and which ones. So if you limit breeding to only those dogs that meet the standard perfectly, you will never have any dogs that are good enough to breed.
A female that is slightly large, and out of standard in that respect, might have some really outstanding traits that should be passed on to her progeny, and might be very consistent in producing pups that DO meet the size standard, especially when paired with the appropriate male. It is a matter of trying to combine the right pair so that, hopefully, their offspring will have all of the strengths of the dam and sire, and the pups will inherit the best genes and traits of each. Successive generations and very selective breeding can, if carefully chosen, eliminate or decrease the incidence of a fault in future offspring, thereby improving the breed.
In figuring out how to choose the right pair to correct faults ..... well that is way over my head.