What is the best way to breed a few good pups every year if you don't want to take the time or don't have a large enough kennel to develop your own family?
By Ralph Gillum, BraceBeagling Columnist
January 20, 2003



Probably the simplest and most effective way would be to buy into someone else’s successful producing family that runs the way you would like your dogs to run. Needless to say, the initial bitch should be the very best one that you can possibly get and just as importantly, possess the family traits. If you are getting a female pup, be sure she is from a good running and producing bitch and sire that are also strong in the family traits. You would have an excellent chance of getting some good pups from this type bitch if you breed back into her family. You should line breed or inbreed on the most suitable males in the family. Try to maintain a good relationship with the breeder and ask his recommendation as to the best breeding for your bitch. This way you can take advantage of information that the breeder has learned over the course of years as he developed his family.

You may decide to buy a bitch from a good producing family but want to breed her outside her family. This presents a considerably greater challenge as you have more choices and decisions to make and less opportunity to get input from the breeder. This approach requires a great deal of research into the male’s background. In this situation, I would recommend that you try to identify and breed to males that possess similar running traits even though they are not out of your bitch’s family. This way you would be inbreeding these traits as you would be breeding similar genes. Since all our brace beagles go back to a number of common ancestors, it stands to reason that the same genes that cause a certain running trait in your bitch would be the same genes that cause the trait in a male that is not related to her on paper. You would be doubling up similar genes so they become genetically pure or homozygous for these traits just as they would if you stacked them up by inbreeding close relatives. The difficulty with this is that it becomes more of a challenge to know the genetic makeup of an unrelated male, especially one not inbred or line bred. In this case, your best bet would be a male that has already demonstrated that he possesses the desired genes by having dominated his offspring for these traits. If your mating succeeds in producing good pups, you then must decide how to proceed. You can breed back into her family, breed back to the male’s side or try another outcross to a compatible male.

Another way to get some good pups is to get a good bitch or bitch pup from a producing bitchline that runs the way you like. Try to get your bitch from a bitch that runs similar to others in her bitchline and has already shown that she can produce. It is even better if you can get a bitch from a bitchline that is on the ascendancy. By this I mean one that each generation seems to be even better producers than the last. This is a better bet than a bitch from a line that is on the decline. Again, you can get valuable breeding information by asking the breeder for his recommendation for the best crosses for your bitch. If you do not have access to the breeder’s advice, study his past crosses to try to determine what has worked in the past. You can then try to carry forward following his pattern of breeding. Another alternative would be to breed back into the bitchline. This way you could do some foundation family breeding using the better sires that have contributed to the bitchline.

You may want to breed up from the bitches you currently own or start with a good bitch you can acquire that is not line bred. In this case, you need to do an honest evaluation of each bitch. You can make a list of each bitch’s strengths and weaknesses. Then decide which bitch or bitches has enough of the overall traits you value to have a decent chance of producing pups close to the caliber you want. Check to see if they are closely related to any successful families that you could breed back into. If not, look over their pedigrees to see if there are any outstanding males in their pedigrees that they could be line breed on. Look for one that possessed the same desirable running traits your bitch has. Next, try to locate a good male who is also line bred on the same dog. Then, if this male and your bitch compensate for each other’s weaknesses, make the mating. If no such male is available, your next best option is to find a male with similar running traits and line breed these traits.

You can always try the old “Breed the best to the best” method. In some cases it does produce good pups. However, my observation has been that it works best when you start out with a producing inbred bitch. Such a bitch will sometimes have such a concentration of good genes it may take several generations for the reproducibility to run out. Of course, the more indiscriminate the breeding the faster it will vanish from your kennel. I believe all of the above breeding approaches are better than the “Breed the best to the best” method as you have a better chance of stacking up similar genes for the running traits you desire. This stacking up or inbreeding of these traits is what enhances the reproducibility of your kennel.

After deciding which breeding approach you want to pursue and obtaining your foundation stock, you need to decide on the specific sires for each of your matings. Select a sire that is strong in the traits you value. In all cases, you must pay attention to the strengths and weaknesses so you can compliment strengths and compensate for weaknesses. If a good producing half brother is available that fits the above criteria, breed to him. The half brother/half sister matings seem to work better than most crosses. After you start your pups, keep the best bitches and repeat the process. This will give you a better than average chance of getting good pups as well as having bitches that in turn will produce some good ones in the next generation.