Agility is so much more fun than conformation (at least my dogs seem to think so). I have swamp collies. One of my current ones is dumb as a stump the other is too smart for me! And they're half sisters. Go figure. I wonder if they'll find the gene(s) for some of the abilities. That would be interesting, but I wonder what it would do to the *art* of dog breeding?
susie
Wish I knew then what I knew now, she's a natural born mother, perfect temperament, perfect health, immensely talented in agility and also a good bird dog (that's despite the ignorance of her handler). But we might run into some surprises because she's the product of a profound out-cross. Her parents being from different branches of the Lab tree have ZERO common ancestors back as far as we can trace. When I bred Siamese cats, that kind of breeding always resulted in tremendous variation within the litter that persisted for a generation or two. It was certainly the case with Shelley's litter - they ran the gamut from couch-potato show Lab to my wild girl, and everything in between, and in size and appearance there's just as much variation. I met one of Shelley's full brothers (different litter) at a hunt club training day, and he looks EXACTLY like a show Lab - he's like a double cube, 2 inches taller than the Shell and probably 30 pounds heavier, with a head like a concrete block.
You're right about the "art" of breeding for abilities or looks - lots of times you don't know why you know what you know . . . I don't think there's any money in carrying this research that far though.