I've owned Lurchers all my adult life, am currently Lurcherless, sadly. Found you when I web searched for another sighthound mixes/Lurchers and have enjoyed your blog every since. I have always been fascinated with the Salukis and Afghan Hounds, contrary to the Lurcher folk as a whole who pretty much think the two are useless due to lack of brains. Wishing you'd throw a little Border Collie into the Halfghans and stir me up a Lurcher pup :-)
Lu LeJeune - 12 years ago
I've seen your posts for awhile on various dog lists that we both belong to--Walt's pet law and pet dogs L lists, and the canine genetics L list--and I'm particularly interested in your blog for several reasons. First because back in the 70's I owned and showed and bred, for a very little while, Afghan Hounds. And then for a decade in the '80's and early '90 we had three Salukis.
However, I'm most interested in your cross breeding experiments, and let me explain why. When I wanted to have my own breeding kennel in my retirement here in Florida, I knew from experience that there was absolutely no pet market in either of those two sight hound breeds, no matter how much that I personally liked them. And being a retired teacher with a rather limited retirement income, I needed to breed litters that would at the very least help pay for their upkeep, although I knew better than to ever expect to make any real profit from a tiny breeding kennel.
So I went back to the breed of my childhood--Amer Cockers--as I thought that I was quite familiar with that breed, as my Mother owned and bred them from about 1934 to 1958, when she finally gave them up because she said that the show breeders were turning them into "hairy little bulldogs."
However, with my Cocker litters I had a LOT more newborn losses than I had ever had with my Afghan litters, which sent me searching for answers on various dog lists. And I finally decided to do some experimenting with little "designer" cross breeds for the pet market, and like a lot of other more "commercial" type breeders--as opposed to hobby/show breeders--discovered that having some genetic diversity in my litters made all of the difference in my newborn survival rates.
I had the same dams, same house, same dog crates, same dog kennels and same dog yards, and the same vet care for both types of litters over the years. But the difference between losing roughly 12% of my newborn purebred pups in the first week in my 25 litters of Cockers, but only losing less than 1% of my "designer mixed litters" at the same age, HAD to come from the greater genetic diversity behind my 27 mixed litters before I stopped breeding for good.
And despite being on the receiving end of a LOT of negativity from quite a few purebred hobby/show breeders, I never looked back with my mixed breeding, as it became more and more obvious to me that there MUST be something significantly wrong with the immune systems of my newborn purebred Amer Cocker litters. And I eventually found that my little mixes were actually easier to place into pet homes than my purebred Amer Cockers, as the American pet buying public loves their little "Benji" looking "designer mutts," and could not care less what the dog fancy thinks.
So I'm quite interested in reading about other breeders who have done their own cross breeding experiments--especially with the sight hounds, which I have always thought were the epitome of both toughness and grace in the dog world.
Lu LeJeune
NorthCentral Florida
David Cunningham - 12 years ago
Jess,
I enjoy all your blogs; you have a sharp (and dangerous) humor that helps bring out a point. Your intimate relationship with your dogs is obvious, and on more of a parallel to my own, unlike so many AKC (and other registry) breeders. I believe that if we can breed a better dog by crossbreeding, to hell with all the registries and pride in a closed pedigree. Keep up the good work.
I've owned Lurchers all my adult life, am currently Lurcherless, sadly. Found you when I web searched for another sighthound mixes/Lurchers and have enjoyed your blog every since. I have always been fascinated with the Salukis and Afghan Hounds, contrary to the Lurcher folk as a whole who pretty much think the two are useless due to lack of brains. Wishing you'd throw a little Border Collie into the Halfghans and stir me up a Lurcher pup :-)
I've seen your posts for awhile on various dog lists that we both belong to--Walt's pet law and pet dogs L lists, and the canine genetics L list--and I'm particularly interested in your blog for several reasons. First because back in the 70's I owned and showed and bred, for a very little while, Afghan Hounds. And then for a decade in the '80's and early '90 we had three Salukis.
However, I'm most interested in your cross breeding experiments, and let me explain why. When I wanted to have my own breeding kennel in my retirement here in Florida, I knew from experience that there was absolutely no pet market in either of those two sight hound breeds, no matter how much that I personally liked them. And being a retired teacher with a rather limited retirement income, I needed to breed litters that would at the very least help pay for their upkeep, although I knew better than to ever expect to make any real profit from a tiny breeding kennel.
So I went back to the breed of my childhood--Amer Cockers--as I thought that I was quite familiar with that breed, as my Mother owned and bred them from about 1934 to 1958, when she finally gave them up because she said that the show breeders were turning them into "hairy little bulldogs."
However, with my Cocker litters I had a LOT more newborn losses than I had ever had with my Afghan litters, which sent me searching for answers on various dog lists. And I finally decided to do some experimenting with little "designer" cross breeds for the pet market, and like a lot of other more "commercial" type breeders--as opposed to hobby/show breeders--discovered that having some genetic diversity in my litters made all of the difference in my newborn survival rates.
I had the same dams, same house, same dog crates, same dog kennels and same dog yards, and the same vet care for both types of litters over the years. But the difference between losing roughly 12% of my newborn purebred pups in the first week in my 25 litters of Cockers, but only losing less than 1% of my "designer mixed litters" at the same age, HAD to come from the greater genetic diversity behind my 27 mixed litters before I stopped breeding for good.
And despite being on the receiving end of a LOT of negativity from quite a few purebred hobby/show breeders, I never looked back with my mixed breeding, as it became more and more obvious to me that there MUST be something significantly wrong with the immune systems of my newborn purebred Amer Cocker litters. And I eventually found that my little mixes were actually easier to place into pet homes than my purebred Amer Cockers, as the American pet buying public loves their little "Benji" looking "designer mutts," and could not care less what the dog fancy thinks.
So I'm quite interested in reading about other breeders who have done their own cross breeding experiments--especially with the sight hounds, which I have always thought were the epitome of both toughness and grace in the dog world.
Lu LeJeune
NorthCentral Florida
Jess,
I enjoy all your blogs; you have a sharp (and dangerous) humor that helps bring out a point. Your intimate relationship with your dogs is obvious, and on more of a parallel to my own, unlike so many AKC (and other registry) breeders. I believe that if we can breed a better dog by crossbreeding, to hell with all the registries and pride in a closed pedigree. Keep up the good work.