scatter bred v's line bred

[Officially Retired]

There will not be much uniformity with scatter breeding.

True.

If you just bred best to best are you always going to get hybrid vigour?
If you are just breeding best to best there will be no hybrid vigor.
They will not really be hybrids after the first and second cross IMO

If there is no regard for consistency, you may (or may not) get hybrid vigor, but you can't do so dependably.

Just because there is a "cross" doesn't mean anything meaningful will obtain as far as "vigor" goes. Some of the lamest bums I have ever seen were "straight crosses"

Some of the best, strongest, most intelligent, and most intense animals I have ever seen have been INbred ... on the right dogs

You want to concentrate the gene pool and then provide an outcross when necessary.
the new blood into your gene pool is what will provide the hybrid vigor.

If you inbreed on the right dogs, you will not need a cross

This doesn't mean the damage is done though just cuz your good dog is outcrossed to hell.
You can build uniformity and get what you are looking for threw selective breeding.
Your numbers just wont be the same at first... or maybe they will.

True, some outcrosses just "click" ... and they work well in high-percentage ... and when "that" happens, you have the makings of a whole new potential bloodline and breeding effort

Its no telling if a dog will produce himself or not regardless of what the paper says.

The only way to tell if a dog can produce is to breed it ... and to breed it enough different ways to see if there is a pattern and dependable prepotency that can be established ... which means the young have to be allowed to mature and be evaluated. This process can take up to 5 years to bloom, and many people make their decisions too quickly, either way, based on just the first few pups. Only enough variety, and the light of Time's perspective, can say for sure.

Its a gamble either way, your odds are just better with different scenarios.

I hear this all the time and, well, if breeding is "just a gamble" ... then scatterbreeding is playing with an unknown deck in someone else's house ... while linebreeding on the right dogs is stacking your own deck and counting your own cards in familiar territory

Jack