Re: Mixing breeds: Doberman - Boxer
- From: Liisa Sarakontu <lsarakon@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 19:12:35 +0000 (UTC)
"Diosmaya" <diosmaya@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:1123172811.996339.314060@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
> 1.- Does it matter who is the dam and who is the sire? I would assume
> the litter would be the same regardless, right?
It doesn't affect the look, but as pups learn stuff from their dams, the
future temperament depends partially just the genes, and partially how the
dam behaves. (But I don't know if there is a big difference between Boxer
and Dobie dams.)
> 2.- Will the litter be homogenuous? (i.e. would all the puppies look
> more or less the same,
Certainly YES, which surprises most people. There will naturally be some
variation, but no more than inside one normal breed. They would all be
masked sables with lop ears and sabre or curled tail. Boxer/Dobie size,
heaviness halfway between these breeds (or slightly closer to Boxer), not
long muzzle but not very short muzzle either. They would be very close to
Rhodesian Ridgebacks or lighter Pit Bulls. If you use a brindle Boxer, you
can get brindle pups and if you use a flashy Boxer, about half of the pups
will have some white. But if you use just fawn (genetically sable) and non-
flashy Boxers, you get just solid or nearly solid sable/fawn pups. There
will probably be more variation in temperament.
> 3.- If I were to have 4 dogs (2 Doberman and 2 Boxers) and cross breed
> them to have 2 mixed litters and then two puppies of these two litters
> breed again...would the resulting puppies have the same characteristics
> or would I notice any difference from the two original litters?
In the next generation you will get anything from "nearly Boxer" to "nearly
Doberman"; light and heavy dogs, short and long muzzles, tanpoints and not
just tans, browns, blues, lilacs, non-masked dogs, varying amount of white
and so on. The temperament will vary too. But you will also get some dogs
which look very much like F1 generation.
> 4.- What would it take to creat a new "breed" of Boxman (the
> combination)...what is the process? Is inbreeding the only way? (I
Heavy inbreeding is the quickest way to get certain looks, but it is not
the way to create healthy, nice dogs which can be used for something. Don't
do inbreeding unless you are working on a very rare dog population (Boxers,
Dobies or their mixes are not) or there is a rare, valuable trait which has
to be saved. But as long as you are working with purebred dogs, there is no
way to avoid all inbreeding. Like there can't be a Boxer or Doberman litter
without inbreeding; both breeds come from such small amount of foundation
dogs and so they all are rather closely related to each others.
> I mean, if I start with say 128 Doberman and 128 Boxers and have 128
> litters and then breed the first generation (64 pairs) and then the
> next 32 and then the next 16...and then keep at least this (wider
> genetic pool) how long...till you have a new "breed"? Or does it not
> work like that?
The more foundation dogs you have, the better. But as Boxers and Dobies
exist all over the world, you can always add more "new blood" to your mix
later and so you can start with a lower amount of dogs, something like 8-10
from each breeds. Naturally they all have to have healthy hips, eyes,
elbows and they have to be free of whatever typical diseases these two
breeds have (epilepsy? von Willebrand? that pancreas stuff?)
Let's say you have 10 of each breed, and they have better be not closely
related to each others. No siblings, no parent-offspring but something like
second cousins are ok at this point. That means 10 litters in the 1st year,
your F1 generation. First you have to keep ALL of the pups except runts,
and this means something like 50-75 large dogs. Naturally you don't keep
all of them at home, but you have to find good surrogate homes for most of
them. You keep in contact with all of them, test them and check how they
are developing. Don't just look at them, these are working dogs! You have
to take care that every one of them is trained to at least lower levels of
obedience (or tracking or schutzhund or whatever you want).
You cull (not necessarily kill, but just take away from your breeding
program) most of them when you find out that they are not what you need.
You should keep one male and one female from every breeding. You might do
the original cross again next year (but with different sire-dam combos) to
get more of these F1 dogs. Best F1 dogs will look exactly what you are
aiming to, so if you pay attention to looks, you can write the show
standard already according to this generation. But they don't breed true
yet!
After the F1 generation has matured and they are something like 3 years old
and you really know, which ones are worth it, you do the F2 generation. You
have now (at least) 10 + 10 F1 dogs, and this means you can easily make 10
non-related pairings. Again you get 60-100 pups. This time you get much
more variation than in F1 generation, and so it is now necessary to do more
breedings next year to find enough "typical" ones. And again you find
surrogate homes for all, evaluate them, cull and end up with at least 10 +
10 best ones. If there are more good ones, please keep them too.
Again, repeat the breeding program with F2 parents to get the F3
generation and again choose the best. F3 generation isn't going to be as
variable as F2, if you have chosen the parents very carefully. There will
anyway be rather much variation here too.
Now you can do freer breeding. Your main breeding stock are the best of
the F3 dogs, but you can use some carefully chosen F1 and F2 dogs too, if
you want.
You might start claiming that you have a "new breed" somewhere during the
F3/F4 generation, when you have produced at least 500 pups. 1000 pups are
more like it, all with health checks and some kind of evaluation. But it
will still take generations until this dog population will breed as true as
purebred Boxers or Dobermans.
As long as you keep "open breed book" (probably not possible in AKC, but
possible in FCI), you can add new blood any time. Not too soon, but any
time after the F3 generation has matured. When there is a totally
exceptional Boxer whose genes you want to add to your mix, just find a nice
Doberman and breed it with the good Boxer. And then breed the best of the
resulting pups with your dogs, no matter which generation but F3 or later
would be best. The resulting pups are "purebreds".
In theory it would work something like that. Also add bankrupt, complaining
neighbors, difficult surrogate homes and your deteriorating mental
and physical health to the soup. Rather hard work, it would be much easier
with fruit flies than large dogs... Or even with chicken, you can keep them
in groups of 20 and they are still happy and you can even eat all the non-
wanted ones.
But another thought:
As the F1 generation is so homozygous, why keep breeding on after that? If
the "Boxman" mix is somehow clearly better than either foundation breed,
you could actually keep on repeating the F1 cross again and again, and just
spay all the resulting pups. No F2 generation ever. This means you won't
ever have a "breed" but just a F1 cross, but does that matter?
Doing the F1 cross is a good way to create high quality chicken or pigs.
Just make sure that the parent breeds still exist as totally pure.
Liisa
(A friend of mine breeds Boxers under the name Boxmann. I don't think that
she would appreciate your mixed breed "Boxmans"...)
.
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