Knowledge vs accomplishment

[Wise]

Over the years I've seen some guys who were not the most knowledgeable Dogmen but had more success/luck than some I've seen that seriously claim to know this and that. Then again I think sometimes the humans take too much credit from the dog itself. And in my opinion your knowledge don't really shine until you've shown start to finish, from raising the pup to schooling it to campaigning to aftercare to selective breeding and then some! Lots of us are great shapers or great handlers or great breeders but the complete package coupled with a line of dogs that speak for themselves is far and few in between.

[FrostyPaws]

You have to take into account what that person is knowledgeable about. Some men have a knack for doing one thing moreso than others. Some guys can breed quality dogs year in and year out and have never shown any dogs or maybe only a handful considering the years they've put in. Some can show dogs and win a lot more than they lose, but yet, they can't process the ability on how to breed quality dogs. Some guys can do a little of both, and then there are some guys that can do a lot of both.

To ME, the ability to raise, school, and show a dog is the easy part. The hard part for damn near everyone is being objective enough to make the RIGHT choice when it comes to breeding dogs. Too many men are subjective in their thinking. Then you have to factor in what exactly each individual is breeding for. Some guys only want to breed show quality dogs and winners. Some guys will breed anything just to have something. Some guys want to breed the gamest dogs they have. Breeding dogs is about what you, the individual, are trying to accomplish. If you want to be a breeder, then you'll have to breed dogs and put them with people who are knowledgeable in schooling dogs right and showing them correctly. If you wanna show dogs, then find someone who knows how to breed quality dogs and try to to work with them, if at all possible. If you want to do both, you'll have to learn from both sides of the fence. You'll have to become astute at what it is you're trying to accomplish. You'll have to try and leave your prejudices aside. The ability to see the larger picture is very important for the long haul in breeding and showing your own dogs. You need to keep all your dogs, go through them, and show the ones you think are worth it. Lastly, you need to see enough dogs of every caliber to actually KNOW what a quality dog is.

Do you want to show dogs, or do you actually want to have show dogs? There's a big difference.

[Wise]

Well said my friend! I believe that if you end up with a dog worthy of being shown Ur almost gonna end up with a show dog. Most of the ones that end up being successful dogs are the ones built like show dogs (most of the time) being that one has to be built for the task. Only thing is it don't work the other way around, just because my dog is put together right don't mean he'll be match worthy. See me, I don't feel that my knowledge of after care is extensive enough to be matching em so I just stick to what I know, shaping and an occasional breeding, something good comes out I call u and we hook into somebody and their dog is history!

[Wise]

But back to my point being I see guys all the time with no true wining record or ROM's and they just seem to everything but can't help themselves with all that knowledge. They still end up talking about other people's dogs as if it was their doing.

[realpitsnobull]

Everyone has there own style in the end its all about his or her happiness. Some peps love the action,some peps love the $$, some peps love just having trill dogs and like you said put them in the right hands is the hard part but no one is perfect you do the best you can with the dog and the handler in mind .

[Officially Retired]

In the end, wanting competitive bulldogs isn't just about "your happiness," it's about understanding what it takes to win

Understanding what it takes to win has a lot to do with a basic knack, yes, but it also has to do with experience. When I started out, I knew what a good game dog looked like right away, but I had absolutely no idea on conditioning and calling a dog's weight right. Consequently, I put some very good dogs in there in poor shape, and at weights they never should have been at, and so they lost.

However, what I did get good instruction on early on was how to breed dogs properly ... and that (combined with the fact I knew what a good dog looked like) allowed me very quickly to breed dogs that were soon winning wherever they got off the plane. The first dogs I bred were breaking even, but after a few generations it became an anomaly when they lost. In other words, back in the early 90s my dogs were winning just over 50% of the time (57%), which is just over 5x out of every 10x they got matched ... but by the year 2000 ... and on up until today the have been winning 87% of the time (or just about 9x out of every 10x they get matched), and again that has been all over the world, in whosever hands they get in. So I went from breeding dogs that "broke even" with the best in the world ... to breeding dogs that kicked ass over the best in the world 9x out of 10, thus improving the line I started with. Because, again, this progression was from dogs of my breeding that all traced back to the original dogs I bought and bred back in 1990.

Therefore, although I stopped competing, I was able to continuously succeed as a breeder because I understood the Cajun Rules as well as the basic rules of fighting, which is "Protect yourself at all times."

To me, any dog that didn't have a high degree of athleticism + the sense to keep itself from "getting bit back" was a loser dog to me. A lot of people may "be happy" watching 2 dogs "swap it out," but the reality is such dogs are stupid palookas and not World Class animals in my book. A World Class dog does all the biting without getting bit much in return. Even if he's a killer, to my way of thinking a truly good killer is still killing in such a way as to position himself out of harm's way.

After having schooled dogs with people from coast-to-coast, and getting feedback from several hundred matches, it is my firm conviction that most people accept dogs that aren't really all that athletic or bright ... they're mainly "rough and predictable" ... and they're not too game, either. Because that's another thing I have always enjoyed more than the average guy in dogs is some f***ing incredibly game dogs. 9.5x out of 10, if any match with one of my dogs goes over the hour mark, it's the Vise-Grip dog that's going to win on the scratching. Very rarely do my dogs ever lose a scratching contest ... which, essentially is what a Cajun Rules contest is ... and that has been proven time-and-time-again.

So winning consistently isn't just about "you being happy," it's about really knowing fighting strategy in general. It may "make you happy" to watch one-dimensional stifle dogs driving for the back end, but I promise you will never achieve a 9x/10 win record choosing dogs of this style to continuously breed for. You may get an occasional ace that can make that work, but you will be losing (and counting to 10) more often than winning. Further, producing dogs that win consistently goes beyond knowing what a winning style looks like, it's also about selecting the right dogs (and family) that display this winning style to breed together, and then continuously making the right choices as to how to sustain (and improve upon) the gene pool you're working with to keep it that way (or improve upon it).

Jack

[evolutionkennels]

In the end, wanting competitive bulldogs isn't just about "your happiness," it's about understanding what it takes to win

Understanding what it takes to win has a lot to do with a basic knack, yes, but it also has to do with experience. When I started out, I knew what a good game dog looked like right away, but I had absolutely no idea on conditioning and calling a dog's weight right. Consequently, I put some very good dogs in there in poor shape, and at weights they never should have been at, and so they lost.I

However, what I did get good instruction on early on was how to breed dogs properly ... and that (combined with the fact I knew what a good dog looked like) allowed me very quickly to breed dogs that were soon winning wherever they got off the plane. The first dogs I bred were breaking even, but after a few generations it became an anomaly when they lost. In other words, back in the early 90s my dogs were winning just over 50% of the time (57%), which is just over 5x out of every 10x they got matched ... but by the year 2000 ... and on up until today the have been winning 87% of the time (or just about 9x out of every 10x they get matched), and again that has been all over the world, in whosever hands they get in. So I went from breeding dogs that "broke even" with the best in the world ... to breeding dogs that kicked ass over the best in the world 9x out of 10, thus improving the line I started with. Because, again, this progression was from dogs of my breeding that all traced back to the original dogs I bought and bred back in 1990.

Therefore, although I stopped competing, I was able to continuously succeed as a breeder because I understood the Cajun Rules as well as the basic rules of fighting, which is "Protect yourself at all times."

To me, any dog that didn't have a high degree of athleticism + the sense to keep itself from "getting bit back" was a loser dog to me. A lot of people may "be happy" watching 2 dogs "swap it out," but the reality is such dogs are stupid palookas and not World Class animals in my book. A World Class dog does all the biting without getting bit much in return. Even if he's a killer, to my way of thinking a truly good killer is still killing in such a way as to position himself out of harm's way.

After having schooled dogs with people from coast-to-coast, and getting feedback from several hundred matches, it is my firm conviction that most people accept dogs that aren't really all that athletic or bright ... they're mainly "rough and predictable" ... and they're not too game, either. Because that's another thing I have always enjoyed more than the average guy in dogs is some f***ing incredibly game dogs. 9.5x out of 10, if any match with one of my dogs goes over the hour mark, it's the Vise-Grip dog that's going to win on the scratching. Very rarely do my dogs ever lose a scratching contest ... which, essentially is what a Cajun Rules contest is ... and that has been proven time-and-time-again.

So winning consistently isn't just about "you being happy," it's about really knowing fighting strategy in general. It may "make you happy" to watch one-dimensional stifle dogs driving for the back end, but I promise you will never achieve a 9x/10 win record choosing dogs of this style to continuously breed for. You may get an occasional ace that can make that work, but you will be losing (and counting to 10) more often than winning. Further, producing dogs that win consistently goes beyond knowing what a winning style looks like, it's also about selecting the right dogs (and family) that display this winning style to breed together, and then continuously making the right choices as to how to sustain (and improve upon) the gene pool you're working with to keep it that way (or improve upon it).

Jack

[Officially Retired]

[realpitsnobull]

Hey with stats like that I am not a hater you the man good info !