Yes, I wish we all had the time, money and patience to keep papered dogs. I have so much respect for those that have. It is a long hard road to keep a papered line and selectively breed it just for bobcat. It is so much quicker and cheaper to outcross. It is so amazing that Finney Clay knows exactly what he will get in each litter of his dogs. They have been papered forever. But what a long time getting to where he is for bobcat.slowandeasy wrote:so the old papered dogs mean something to the ones that pay attention to a bloodine and then line breed it for years. a little of topic but it was nice hearing about one of the oldtimers. take care!
Ray Mears dogs were papered, of course, and it would be hard to find a West Coast Walker dog, including the high dollar bobcat dogs, that did not have some of his influence. They were combination dogs though, and guys like me did not have the patience to keep the papers and selectively breed them specifically for bobcat. He always tried to encourage me to keep combination dogs. There are a ton of really good reasons for it. One of them is simply financial, and a pretty strong reason, since bobcat hunting is so darn expensive.
Ray had 40 dogs. Every single one of them was at his place for a genetic reason. Each of them played a part in his breeding strategy. That was the old style of frozen semen: keep the dogs alive. He had a huge shed just for dog food. He had a totally white cat he kept in there. He trained that cat to mouse just as slick as he trained a hunting dog. The cat would never try to come out when the door was opened. He knew better. He was raised that way, and knew his role and performed flawlessly.
But you can see what I am talking about with the expense to a breeder of papered dogs. They must slowly and carefully move them toward the goal a generation at a time. Generation by generation they move them away from what they were originally bred for and toward the very specific needs of a bobcat dog. Finney Clay does not keep 40 dogs, but if you start adding up those dogs and pups he has farmed out to top hunters, he probably does. They all play a part in his breeding program. It is a beautiful thing. Each dog is completely and fully tested.
It is so extremely expensive to maintain and develop a pure bred papered line of bobcat dogs. Those few who have done it have my utmost respect. "Respect" is not even the right word, I don't have a word that goes deep enough.
We all rely so heavily on the work of others. There is no way to know how much money and time and people actually figured into this one pure bred treeing walker puppy I could buy for a couple hundred bucks. If I went back a couple hundred years at least, I would have to guess that at least a couple million dollars went into the development of this little bugger. It is a privilege to own something I had to give so little for and others had to give so much for.
catch ya later.
i just know after 47 years what i expect of a hound know matter what i put it down on. but i have learned never to say never 
take care!
