Originally Posted by MISTER
YES: Gameness is the essence of the breed, and dogs who show it to the extreme are deserving.
NO: The DOY title should only be about performance.
Jack I think this totally contradicts what seems to be your breeding practices and by no means do I assume to know what you believe, but one would think, according to all you have written and posted, that you would get better dogs over time from selective breeding that what you started with.
If this is halfway accurate, then over the course of 100 years of competition and breeding (selectively) then the breed would improve.
Mouth alone is something that has improved. The dogs with the ability to end a fight in one bite are many more now than they use to be. If this is true, and it is, then other abilities have improved as well.
I will respectfully disagree yourself and Sta8541. I believe the top tier of bulldogs today are better than the top tier of times long gone. More importantly, I believe the average bulldog today is in a faster lane than the average dogs of long ago.
JMO - great topic and quality discussion.
I'm not kidding anyone, much less myself. You are right about "legends" of yesterday destroying "some dogs of today". However, there are just "some dogs" that could beat "legends" of yesterday. I know good ones are where you find them. Learned that in my first Stratton book years ago. However, there are better today than yesterday. My opinion.
You know, Jessie Owens is a legend of yesterday.He ran in the 10.3's.
I routinely see High School Kids of today run in the sub 10.5's EVERY year and about every other year, I see multiple 10.3's at the State Meet. Multiple High School BOYS that would routinely beat a WORLD CLASS LEGEND. The examples and proof is everywhere.
Hey No Quarter, I can see why you'd say that, so let me clarify what I mean.
My linebreeding practices aren't making "better dogs today" than what I had yesterday ... what they're doing is creating what I like in a dog to be able to replicate itself reliably and consistently.
All of this work I have done hasn't created "way better dogs" than the best dogs I had, what isolating my gene pool has done is ensure my ability to get that kind of ability, again and again.
Freak ability is something that comes and goes.
There has never been an ace that only produces aces.
There has never been a "consistently ace" bloodline.
There are aces that come out of nowhere (shit) on a RARE occasion ... and there are aces that come out of "general excellence" on a more frequent (but still not every) occasion.
My linebreeding efforts have not created "otherworldy" dogs that are better than yesterday's dogs ... my efforts have simply created reliable and consistent excellence, that will be more dependable than from a hodgepodge of unrelated shit.
Hope this clarifies
Jack
These kids also start younger, have better training, better nutrition, better shoes, better track, etc. ... (e.g., I believe Jesse Owens ran his time on cinders ...)
I love these arguments where kids try to "prove" that today's athletes (2 footed or 4 footed) are "better" than the legends of yesteryear. Such a thing can never, ever be truly proven to a certainty. All that has improved, as has been stated, is nutrition, training methods, etc. But the basic genetic material? No. So of course it begs the question what would Jesse Owens or whoever do w/today's technology? Again, impossible to state, but if you're a betting man (& I am)...
Damn sure I bet Jesse Owens would smoke those "routine High School kids" all day every day till he got bored of doing it.
You said that. And I said that there are just some "legends" of yesterday that could beat "some dogs" of today. There are better yesterday than today too. You're entitled to your opinion. I am also entitled to mine. Aces are aces, period. Era doesn't matter a whit.
And if I gave Jesse Owens the exact same shoes, track surfaces, nutrition, coaching, & training methods, then turned him loose on your high schoolers, he would leave them a shambles in his wake. You are giving all those edges to the youngsters, none of which have a whit to do w/ability. Cite whatever examples & alleged "proof" you like & the response is always & forever the same. Legends are legends & can beat anything at any time; that's why they're legends. You shouldn't punish an athlete for the era he/she played or fought in. Your opinion is your own; mine is mine.
Are we doing a separate poll for kennels of the year? We get a few nominations goin.
Jack, point noted. And for the record, I do agree with that. Great clarification.
To clarify my point, to a further extent, I believe there is more ability in dogs of today than yesterday. Specifically mouth. There are dogs out there taking the entire face off of hogs and it is a more frequent occurrence than it ever was before. Dogs taking the entire front legs off of hogs. This happens frequently while I don't hear too much about that kind of thing going on in the past. To be consistent, I believe there are more curs now than ever before as well due to specificity to breeding to ability too much (mouth specifically).
But your point, noted, appreciated and I agree.
Cite whatever examples & alleged "proof" you like & the response is always & forever the same. Legends are legends & can beat anything at any time; that's why they're legends. You shouldn't punish an athlete for the era he/she played or fought in. Your opinion is your own; mine is mine.
Look at what you said above Sta8. You said that "legends can beat anything at any time; that's why they're legends" and then you go on to state "you shouldn't punish an athlete for the era he/she played or fought in"
Which is it? Can they beat anyone any time or just the ones they competed against in their era? Personally, I get your "legend" qualification. I get that they are a legend b/c of what they did in the time they did it in. However, that does not guarantee they would make the starting line up TODAY or in another era. I won't hold their era against them but I won't say they could have done the same in a different era. If we can all agree a dog could not or would not make the same strides in different hands, keep, a different weight, etc. then how in the world do we qualify that animal as making the grade in a completely different day and age?
Legends truly are legends b/c of what they did, against who they did it against and how and when they did it. However, as magnificent as they are/were in their era, nothing guarantees they would do the same against a different opponent in a different day and age.
Honestly, I think we are all on about 9 out of 10 the same pages, but just a few critical differences. Oh yeah, I ain't no fucking kid either pops!
I think every dogman thrives for gameness in their bulldogs genes. also to base DOY on just performance would be quite unfair due to the fact that some of the gamest bulldogs get over looked on a regular basis.
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