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Hi

I'm in a number of breeds where I'm working on colours and traits.

It seems to me that when you breed a good dog to a good dog over time that the traits will improve. Or you can breed a dog with good feet (for example) to a top SOP dog and the feet will get better over time.

Colours? I am in breeds with a lot of recessive colours, so if I breed colour x (recessive) to colour y (dominant) then all I do is lose the colours.

Comments are sought.

I have the same dilemma in couple of my breeds. If I tend to compete in shows with the breed, then I go for SOP.
Where I don't really care about the breed showing, I stick to color breeding disregarding SOP for the time being.

With 1 breed, I got enough genetics in colors that I want, that now I can concentrate on increasing SOP and do it with the rare colors I was breeding. It just takes longer & a lot of patience.

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Last edited by Diasonia on 2/21/2019 10:12:56 AM

Recessives are like building block... and you always have to take a step back to get forward.

Your recessive colors are not lost, they are just hiding.. you have to breed to another dog with recessives for the colors to show. Lots of backbreeding and line breeding. It takes much longer to get there, but it is certainly possible!

Typically when I do color breeding, then I am more focused on producing the desired color rather than SOP. I figure once I get to the point where I can consistently produce my color, then I will worry about traits and SOP. As it was already stated, you didn't lose your color. It's simply hiding. You first have to breed a dog of your desired color to a dog with a higher SOP. When I did this in Malamutes I was trying to breed up the blue and white dogs. I found 5 females that were blue and white. Then, I bred them to studs that were of current SOP. I made sure to choose different studs so as not to get the COI too high. Then, I picked a male and female pup from each of those 5 litters. Then, I waited 30 days until each of those pups were of breeding age.

Now I have a group of pups that all have a mother who is blue and white. The next thing I did was breed those female pups to males from my different litters. I didn't get any improvement in SOPs from these pairings, but I did get some pups in the color I wanted. I kept only the pups with the color I wanted.

I repeated this process several times and little by little I began seeing improvement in SOP in the color that I was working with.

It takes a long time to do and at times it can be discouraging, but eventually you will end up with your desired color and desired SOP.

I guess I wrote a small novel here. lol I hope it helps.

-Serenity

When I do color breeding, I breed a visible to a modern sop. Then I breed two of those together. Keep a visible, breed that back to modern. You need at least two visible bitches in each generation to breed to two different modern studs.