It's funny how sometimes you read things, and they don't mean much to you then, but when you see them again they really sink in
I remember when I first started out, seeing full-page Bert Sorrells ads in the magazines, and they always had the same quote:
"The test of a Dog is the Show; the test of a Family is Time.
Selective breeding has Set this Family."
~ Bert Sorrells
These words sounded just like a slogan to me when I first started.
However, now, as somebody who has put in his own quarter-century into building his own line of dogs,
No truer, better, more succinct words were EVER spoken about the realities of breeding dogs.
Another great quote that I always liked came from Jesse Rods:
"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten."
~ Jesse Rods
Those were under his Whitefoot stud ads, back in the day, and they always rang true to me. When I was starting out, I *never* went to bubble-gum breeders to try to get my best stock. I went straight to the best breeders I could [visited Wildside, bought Hollingsworth's Truman from Lester Hughes, bought Rio from Pat Patrick, bought Hollingsworth's Miss Trinx from a retard (but who was bred by a family breeder), bought Coca Cola from a friend (who got her from Patrick), bred to Hollingsworth's Bull, bred to Mason's Ch Hammer, bred to Gonzalez' No Regrets, and then pretty much interbred my own stock for 20+ years ... and produced dogs that won all over the world.]
I did not form my foundation by buying mix-bred mutts from people breeding the first dogs they ever got, no sir. I either bought from top breeders, bought the dogs I wanted from people who bought them from top breeders, or bred to Champions/studs bred by top breeders. And I paid top $$ for most of what I got ... and the results "stood the test of time."
Good quotes; good practices; good results
Jack