Crosses

[Dan Newcombe 58]

I have always been curious why people breed dogs that are from different areas of expertise?

 

I can see the logic of crossing a cocker and a springer as long as it is for the right reasons, to put a dog with the working style you like to a bitch of a style you like. You will end up with a spaniel whatever way the cross goes and both types worj in the same way. Therefore you get a flushing dog!

 

However you will not end up with a dog that is better than either parent as you are basically going back in time to a period when the two breeds were not seperate.

 

the thing that i dont really understand is crossing different types of dogs eg

Springer x Lab

GWP x Lab

GWP x Springer

etc

 

The GWP sees to be popular at the moment.

 

I cant really see what any of these crosses brings to the shooting field that the pure dog does not.

 

If you want a picking up dog, then a lab (golden retriever etc) would be the choice.

If you want a wide ranging pointer that will also pick up then you are looking at a HPR

If you want an all rounder for flushing and retrieving then you are looking at a spaniel

 

For example if i want a dog that will flush and retrieve and i go for a Spaniel x Lab, there is a chance that i get a lab mentality and size that doesnt want to go in the bushes (which is more than half the job). People who have labs 'that hunt like spaniels' ahve never seen a good spaniel hunt in my experience of seeing these dogs

 

Also there are relatively few and specialist occasions where you need a HPR in this country so why cross with a Lab or a Spaniel?

 

Im not slagging these breeding choices off, im just curious why people do them when there are no shortage of dogs of the same breed as studs. What do you gain?

 

Dan

[waidmann 105]

i think the aim is to go for working ability and sometimes for the look of the dog( gwp etc). defficiancies like hip,eyes,elbows which tend to be uncommon in their crosses.

some will be accidental matings,most i suspect are not.

Edited January 5, 2010 by waidmann

[Dan Newcombe 58]

Thats what im talking about, the deliberate crosses.

 

And even more so when they are charging good money for them.

 

A lady near me crossed a springer to a nice lab. She told me that it was because her lab was too well bred and 'too pure a lab' to cross with another lab (didnt believe me when i told her this was rubbish). She was selling the pups at £350 a go.

 

Apparently a few gamekeepers bought them (despite neither of the parents being working dogs). You always hear about someone who saw the cross and it was working well but you never hear about the straight cocker, lab, springer (of which there would be 10 x the number on the same shoot) working well. I have also become sceptical about a lot of so called good dogs because i went to a shoot the other day with apparently some field trial standard spaniels and would not have had them as a gift, running riot pegging birds 50 yards away.

 

I was told that the breeders on the continent were very wary of exporting Bavarians etc to us because they feel that we are irresponsible as breeders and do not put enough effort into finding a sire, meerely settling for whats on the doorstep.

 

I personally feel that they have been proved right because no sooner had the deer trailing hounds arrived in the country, people were crossing them (Bav to Hanoverian) for no comprehndable reason. The dogs that come from this are no worse than their parents but certainly no better and with such a small number of dogs surely there is a reason to breed carefully and buid up numbers?

 

I know that peolpe will say that crossing dogs is the way that we have what we have today, but in the world of gundogs and hounds (lurchers is slightly different)do we really think that we can improve or make a breed that is better than we already have by crossing a lab to a spaniel or a GWP to a lab or spaniel?

 

Why not take some time and find a good, unrelated, pure bred dog to put with your own which has proved itself working and continue the line? Its not much harder than using any old thing

[waidmann 105]

the bavarians will not sell their hounds to just anyone in germany. you must prove that you have the right to follow up on "high game" ( not roe deer) on a very large area.

 

the hannover and bavaria are always being crossed over there too, due to a very tight breeding pool and to controll the size etc.i know a few breeders of these dogs over there who now refuse to join or have left the clubs/organisations.

as such a bad example of the point you are trying to make.