PEDIGREE REVISITED

Pedigree dogs are dogs with a known documented ancestral lineage up to the fourth generation at least. These are the only kind of dogs that can be confirmed as pure breeds. You can only speculate the purity of non pedigree dogs based on genotype and immediate parents. If you have a disease, your physician might attempt to ascertain if that disease is common in your family. They can only go as far as grandparents, after which if they couldn't find, would have to conclude that the cause of the disease is environmental, or you are the very first carrier. For dogs, a disease, trait, temperament, structure, genotype, phenotype, etc can skip 6 generations and be passed to the 7th. Breeders with pedigree dogs to a very large degree can curtail this negative genes, through the study of the dogs in the pedigree of their dogs, informing them on how to get a near perfect breeding pair. The breeder with this pedigree can also work hard to improve and develop the good genes- good structure, health, and temperament, using the same information to create better dogs in the offspring. The goal of every breeder should be to achieve a better son/daughter than the father/mother. Someone who breeds non pedigree dogs breeds dogs blindly. But with breeding pedigree you join those who are working tirelessly to produce dogs that would truly conform to the breed standard of their breed. You also could be given the opportunity to create your own bloodline (another topic for another day).