Hi all, I hope you can help me. I own this really nice show female that was just given to me. she came from Germany. Iam thinking about breeding her to a very nice working male. I need to know if this is a good idea. everyone keeps telling me you need to breed a show dog to working lines from time to time to get better drive.is this right or wrong?

You must ask yourself, ‘Why do I want to breed this female?’. What is the goal of this breeding? And the long-term implications of perpetuating this type of breeding? What qualities does she have that are going to reflect in her pups and what can she contribute to the improvement of the breed? Why do you want to breed to a particular male, what is he going to bring to the table? The list of questions should go on & on.

Making a general statement about breeding a Show-line female to a Working-line male to improve drive isn’t really valid. If you have to breed her to a Working-line male to improve drive, simply b/c she’s a Show-line dog, should you breed her at all? This type of combination is not what miraculously produces a Universal Sieger/Siegren. Often these types of combinations produce dogs that are too ‘ugly’ to show and lack sufficient drive/nerve to work. I personally feel this type of combination has to be done VERY carefully and with some very specific, long-term goals in mind (2-3 generations down the road).

There are a number of good breeders here in America & Canada, not the least of which would be Ed, Molly Graf, Ivan Balabanov, and others…that you could learn a great deal from. Talk to them, look at what they do…and what they don’t do. Don’t breed just for the heck of it, there are plenty of less-than-desirable dogs already out there.

Search this forum and you'll find a lot of good advice, probably better stated than the way I put it, too.