BigGameHoundsmen.com

For the original question.........................word of mouth and demand. I have noticed that some people have a really good line of dogs and they want to make the $ and other guys have a really good line of dogs and they are more concerned about making the pups affordable, but making sure they go to the right hands. In the end a pup is worth as much as someone will pay for it.

Drew

drew, you couldnt have said it better.later Andy

drew wrote:For the original question.........................word of mouth and demand. I have noticed that some people have a really good line of dogs and they want to make the $ and other guys have a really good line of dogs and they are more concerned about making the pups affordable, but making sure they go to the right hands. In the end a pup is worth as much as someone will pay for it.

Drew

Drew- I agree with you except for the part about a pup being worth what someone will pay for it. Just because someone will pay 5, 6, 7, 8, 900 or whatever $, DOES NOT mean the pup is worth that, it simply means it is worth that to them and that's all that matters when you boil it down.

I guess a better question is what is the person getting the pup worth, and I'm not talking about bank accounts. After all the pup can't raise, train and hunt it's self.

Take care.

Mason- I agree with what you said. In my opinion, one of the main reasons that people like Del Cameron can sell a pup for 8 or 9 hundred is because he has done a good job of building a great reputation and a name for himself. It's not so much the dog, but the fact that the dog was bought strait from Del.

you said "I guess a better question is what is the person getting the pup worth?"

And that is why i really like the guys who are going the extra mile and trying to put good dogs in the hands of good people at a reasonable price...

We all know that you can take a dog that has outstanding potential and breeding and put that dog in the wrong hands and it might as well be a cul.

Drew

drew wrote:We all know that you can take a dog that has outstanding potential and breeding and put that dog in the wrong hands and it might as well be a cul.

Drew

Boy you said it there. Then you have some idiot that think because he has what he thinks is the greatest breeding, that his pups have no choice but to be great, in anyones hand.

I think I just read the other day where liontracker is getting a 1,000.00 a pup out of two un hunted parents. He must realy be living right.

There is a BIG difference in the quality of a pup that came from a serious knowledgable breeder, and a pup that came from a guy who has a couple of decent hounds and decided to breed them to get some pup's.
It is pretty much common knowledge among knowledgeable BREEDERS that a dog will not reproduce themself, but generally they will reproduce the average of what his/her litter was. That is why knowledgeable successful breeders like Dave Dean, Del Cameron, Joe House, Lester Nance, Lee Logan, and others line breed along with inbreeding. These are used to purify the gene pool and maintain desired traits, and get rid of non desireable traits.

Put another way. if you were selling super star brand marbles (in our case a big game hound ). problem is you can only find jar's of super star brand marbles with all different colors in them, and it is tough to find jars with just the red, green, blue, and white, colors ( in our case traits ). The demand is for red, green, blue and white colored Super star brand marbles ( in our case cold nosed, smart, natural, gritty big game bred hounds).
If you were in the marbel business when you add more marbles to your inventory, why would you just add a bunch of worthless colors ( Traits ) you don't want and can't sell as opposed to picking out and purifying your inventory to just the desired red, green, blue, and white marbles ( Traits ) everyone is looking for?
Then when adding jars of marbles to your inventory, by only adding (with dogs line/inbreeding) the desired colored marbles( Traits ), and by removing the undesireable colored marbles ( traits ), after awhile you will have purified your selection to just red, green, blue, and white colored marbles.

When word get's around that you carry the Super star brand marbles in jars of red, green, blue, and white colored marbles, and since these are the colors ( traits ) everyone is looking for, the logical conclusion to anyone who seriously wanted or was looking for Super star brand marbles in red, green, blue, and white would be for them to come to you, because you have refined your selection, and that is all you sell.
You are charging 2 dollars a jar for your marbles , and other stores charge a dollar per jar. You only have and sell the red, green, blue, and white colored Super star brand marbles.
Everyong else sell's the super star brand marbles only in jars with all different color's of marbles in them.
Say you need to get 10 sets of Red, green, blue, and white colored marbles in the Super star brand. If you go to someone else who has not refined there selection to buy the Super star brand of marbles at 1 dollar a jar, but then you have to buy and sort thru 15 jars to get the 10 sets of red, green blue, and white marbles you need.

However, if they only have to buy 5 jars of marbles from you to get the same 10 sets of red, green, blue, and white marbles. Even though they had to pay double the price per jar from you they saved 5 dollars in the long run because they did not have to buy and go thru as many jars of marbles to get the same 10 sets of red, green, blue, and white Super star brand marbles.

I know breeding dogs is not like selling marbles, but the refining process is the same in theory.
The knowledgable breeders who have refined there hounds gene pool through line breeding and inbreeding. Then weeded out the undesireable traits and kept the desireable traits, and line/inbreed those traits for generations are going to produce a far higher average of pup's that consistently have the desired traits we are looking for.

Same as the marble theory, if you have two guy's selling marbles and one guy refined his selection down to only having the desireable color's of red, green, blue and white marbles in the jar, and the other guy is selling jars of marble's that are all mixed up color's' of all kinds. If you only want red, green, blue, and white colored marbles which jar do you think is going to consistently produce red, green, blue, and white marbles no matter how many times you reach in and grab a handfull of marbles ?

Buying pup's from a knowledgable breeder who has line/inbred and refined his gene pool to the point of producing litters where the majority of pup's have these desired traits, is no different than buying your marbles from the guy who has refined his color selection of marbles. You may have to pay a little higher price, but the odds of you getting what you are looking for are far greater than they are going with someone who is not a knowledgeable breeder, and is just breeding dog to produce pup's.

I agree that a well bred pup must be placed in the right trainer's hands, hunted, and worked with to get the pup finished out to his full ability and potential. I also have seen through experience that alot of dog's with inferier breeding can be hunted hard and slowly turn into a decent dog. But these dogs will never reproduce outstanding natural trail hounds consistently. The thing is no matter how good of a mechanic someone is they can no possible way produce a Bently out of box of V W parts. No matter how knowledgable of a mechanic he is, or how hard he tries and works at it the parts, or in our case traits, are just are not there to produce a bently.

A knowledgeable, dedicated and serious breeder will provide you with all the parts you need, but you still need to make sure that pup is handled and worked right.

Festus; excellent post.

Talking about puppies, what I hate to see is the ads in the local "NICKLE" advertising somebodys accidental crossed up junk for sale to the local market for a cheap price.

It gets hounds into the hands of someone who might otherwise not had them, which creates more local hunters hunting more junk; and etc.

"""should be good biggame hounds""" LOL

A good hunter won't hurt a sorry hound, but a sorry hunter can sure ruin a good hound.

Festus,

How does hybrid vigor factor into your jar of marbles. In my opinion that is the joker in the deck.

If it were easy, anyone could do it.

Bill

Good Call Bill. What do you do when someone has the "super" marble that just plain out produces the carefully selected and refined ones.

I always find this stuff amusing. Extremely bright and gifted people with PHDs can't isolate genes and completely nail down reproducing animals with exact replication. If they could everyone would have the cookie cutter best of what's out there. So what are the odds that any of of us 40-hour week job, average joes could do it. Not good.

Get pups from good dogs and spin the wheel, give them a chance and see if they cut it. If they do, go back to the well and spin again.

Some of the best advice I ever got was "They are just Dogs", keep that in mind. There is a lot of hype, mystery, smoke and BS involved. When you boil it down, there is still a track, a critter that made it, and a dude with a dog trying to figure it out. Those really good dog guys have a knack of NOT screwing up the dogs by doing something stupid and also knowing how to HELP the dogs out when they need it. Besides, you'll never know if someone's Super-Dog could have figured out the track, unless they were there on the same track.

My last point. I've seen this time and again. Good dogs don't come in bunches. The only way to keep good dogs around is to sort through the junk (no matter what the line). I don't have a lot of faith in crosses where the parents aren't fully hunted and evaluated. And even then I'm leery, pups are always a gamble. I also don't have faith when there are 15 litters on the ground. Because really, are the best two prospects being put together. Probably NOT. Many times guys with a good reputation get that glimmer of green in there eye and their "line" starts to spiral downward. It then get's accelerated by other guys trying to cash in on it and pretty soon it's nothing better or worse than anything else.

Like Bill said, if it were easy any old hunyuck with a coupole long eared dogs could do it.

Bill,
Highbred vigor definately has its place in a serious breeding program. In my oppinion the time to use hybred vigor, is when you need to improve on a trait in your line breeding. However, in my opinion you have to be very very carefull about the dog you choose for your high vigor outcross. That dog needs to come from a line/inbred breeding program, most of the pup's in his litter must show the trait you are looking to improve upon, and his parent's and grand parent's along with most of there litter mates must show that trait. Also all of these dogs must have reasonably good conformation, and no genetic health issues. When you find a dog that fills these requirements then and only then should you consider him for your high bred vigor outcross. Once you make that cross you MUST keep the whole litter of pup's, hunt them, and finish them out to see if the majority of the pup's in your high bred vigor cross show the trait you are looking for. If the litter proves itself out then you have to take your high bred Vigor and breed it back into your line/inbreeding program.

Nolte,
Your "super" marble is just that a freak of nature and not the norm. Another thing why would anyone breed a dog that has not been hunted?
I agree with both of you seriously breeding dogs is not easy and takes tremendus determination and dedication. If you can only hunt week ends, in my opinion, you have no business trying to refine, improve, and fix traits in a breed of dog's. You are right you simply do not have the time it will require to do it.
A good hunting dog is much different than a good reproducing dog in my opinion. With a hunting or any performance dog, what matters is can that dog consistently do the job he is asked to do. He can't rely on his littermates or parent's or there parent's and litter mates. He has to stand on his own ability. With a dog that will reproduce consistently, you not only have to have the ability and performance dog, but he has to come from a long line of line of line/inbreeding of those kind of dogs. I never said all pup's will turn out to be good dog's, but the dog from a proven line of line/inbreeding will allways out produce the one " good" dog with a bankrupt back ground.

That is a proven fact.


There are only a handfull of guy's that I know of that I would consider Breeders. Jeff Allen is at the top of the list. Jeff is a very knowledgeable houndsmen, hunt's about every day of the year and is a very hard to please and demanding breeder.

If the "super" marbles were 4 aces and you could stack the deck, it would look like this>

1. Terrell Shelly bred - 100yrs of linebred, back through Ben Lilly to Louisianna
2. Mike Leonard/Jeff Allen bred - 100 yrs of linebred, back through Goswick to Louisianna
3. Dakota Gascon Saintongeoius - 150 yrs of linebred, coldest and most conformationaly
correct for SW, French Biggamehound
4. Pics and peds of old Lee bro's, Goswick,Green hounds, some with pure GS in them.

Antee up!

liontracker wrote:If the "super" marbles were 4 aces and you could stack the deck, it would look like this>

1. Terrell Shelly bred - 100yrs of linebred, back through Ben Lilly to Louisianna
2. Mike Leonard/Jeff Allen bred - 100 yrs of linebred, back through Goswick to Louisianna
3. Dakota Gascon Saintongeoius - 150 yrs of linebred, coldest and most conformationaly
correct for SW, French Biggamehound
4. Pics and peds of old Lee bro's, Goswick,Green hounds, some with pure GS in them.

Antee up!

That is all your opinion . Until you hunt the dogs, none of that means anything .

This is some funny stuff though!

Rockcreek wrote:

liontracker wrote:If the "super" marbles were 4 aces and you could stack the deck, it would look like this>

1. Terrell Shelly bred - 100yrs of linebred, back through Ben Lilly to Louisianna
2. Mike Leonard/Jeff Allen bred - 100 yrs of linebred, back through Goswick to Louisianna
3. Dakota Gascon Saintongeoius - 150 yrs of linebred, coldest and most conformationaly
correct for SW, French Biggamehound
4. Pics and peds of old Lee bro's, Goswick,Green hounds, some with pure GS in them.

Antee up!

That is all your opinion . Until you hunt the dogs, none of that means anything .

This is some funny stuff though!

You mean to tell me that listening to A dog on the cell phone or winding a barn cat doesn't count?