Making the Best Better Than Before
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CH Boondox Panama Jack ROMO
What kind of Dachshunds do I breed when I start thinking about showing my own line of animals and use them to propagate those Boondox dogs that always represented me in the Show Ring? First of all, start out with the best bitch you can muster up and then get it FINISHED. The reason a good breeder starts out with a bitch is because that female is the one who produces that next litter of the dogs that you take into the Show Ring and we want to have the BEST bitch that you can so you don’t have to pick a dozen or so things to change to make your dogs competitive, because you want them to start at the top of the line and not down towards the middle of the pack in the Ring, so pick out something important that you need to change like neckset, more shoulder angulation further back on the body, more forechest, withers further back on the body, fix the front or rear and get better movement. Those are BIG things that need to change FAST and, when you make progress there, you start getting attention as someone who sees problems and is thinking about them.
CH Karlstadt’s Lionel ROMO
At that point, when I was starting to breed back in the late ’70s, I had three breeding quality bitches and they were a Harvest daughter who was typy, but had a not-very-good rear, my first Champion Smooth who, again, was very typy, but needed a better neckset which would give her more shoulder angulation and a lot more forechest, and a longhair bitch who again was typy and had a great front and rear, but did have a break in her tail. I, of course, picked out the Harvest daughter and bred her and fixed the rear with that one breeding. I picked out the typy puppies that had good rears and wound up with a multiple Specialty Winner and Group winner and saw that these problems CAN be fixed in one generation. I did this by breeding that very typy bitch from great producing lines to a Top Stud Dog who was from a Top Producing family who was great tempered, healthy in conformation and loved everyone they saw. Then, I just picked out the best-fronted dogs with good rears and that problem was solved. You have to KEEP what you already had and add that better rear and the job was done.
CH Boondox Anka v Zencor
This is the same method that I used for producing better dogs to always give me (and you) great puppies to show and WIN with, but this is not the method for you to use to find a 1/2 brother to your middling girl and wind up with a litter full of so-so puppies. Anyone can do that, but this is for breeding the BEST bitch, close to perfection, because we want there to be few faults so you can work on those to make great progress in that next generation. Never think that this is for one breeding, think about where the next few generations are going and always try to keep what we had and never lose a fault that we already had corrected.
CH Boondox Fern Fahne
The showing and finishing of the bitch should tell you if you are well on your way to where you want your puppies to be for the next few generations and breeding a better Dachshund is where you want to change the bitch and her offspring and carry those changes down the line. I know there will be several places that need help, but, as a new breeder, you have to start somewhere and you should try, at least at first, to keep those first changes as something you can keep track of easily. Hopefully, you have started with a bitch whose good points show up early and will be there while the new hopeful grows up and matures. Sometimes, we have good points that SAY they are there and we can see them on that young puppy, but disappear completely as that puppy matures. Do not EVER keep these dogs and bitches as they really hold you back and you will always check to see if that neckset, great tail and great rear is still where it should be. Do not waste your time on dogs who do not show what they are actually producing and keep it present all through that dog/bitch’s life. That is the part of the goal you use in picking out the next generation to make your best puppies even better . . .and hope they stay that way.
CH Boondox Cha Cha
The next litter I was planning needed help with the Gera-bred bitch’s outline with the neckset coming out futher down the bitch’s topline and set at a higher angle which should give that bitch greater shoulder angulation and a neckset which leads to an upheadedness that was not there in the bitch or her brothers and sisters. That was my goal and so I bred her, a Lionel daughter, to CH Moffet’s Harvest ROMX’s older brother, CH Moffet’s Georgi ROMX who was intensely linebred on the great Gera dogs and was from a kennel that had that upheadedness that I was really wanting in my next generation. To see the great fronts that were produced in that litter made me very proud. Remember, these dogs I bred to were all great specimens of Dachshunds, being fantastc in conformation and style as well as being strong in health and temperament. They had to be VERY strong in what I wanted to change, because I needed to get the corrections I wanted in that one breeding so I could move on to the generaton after this one as that next generation is always what a true breeder is looking for. You wanted each parent to be almost perfect (as that basically was what we all should be breeding for) to produce that more perfect Dachshund. The Dachshund sire you pick to father that next litter should be just as strong in helping get the trait you need to improve your Boondox puppies and passing that good trait onto other bitches that are bred to him or to other great dogs. Always remember that when you are breeding, it is not to just get the beautiful puppies that you want, but you are also gathering the next building blocks needed to go on to those next upcoming Boondox generations, which should ALWAYS be what you are thinking about.
CH Boondox All Aglow L ROMX
Anyway, I got that well set-back neckset and upheaded look from that second Smooth Boondox breeding that I did and from these dogs, who had the “look” that I had to have, were what I used to breed to pass these traits on to the next generations. I have to add that when you choose which bitches to use, make sure that they are strong in all the places they need to be such as movement, style, conformation (which includes great fronts and well laidback neckset) as well as fronts, rears and welll-arched necks or you will be starting from scratch again with each litter. That is why you get the best you can and keep making small changes to her to keep her puppies getting better with every generation. I know this is a lot to keep thinking of, but it is all necessary to have the best Dachshunds. You can never stop using the things you have added to your Dachshund line or it is just starting over and over again with each new breeding, instead of using all that you gained with from the dog you bred to. That next litter is always going to be what you are remembered for, so it should always be better than anything that you have produced before.
For my second Dachshund litter, I had a bitch that Dee sent me (as well as her niece) and they were both very typy and totally sound and from top producing lines. I was not interested in Longhairs until I got them, but their correctness really captured my eye and I wanted to see if I could have a little success in that area of Dachshunds, too. The first one was Lardi, my foundation long, who was so very typy and correct made me want to breed her to a great LH Dachshund who was very correct and was beautiful to look at. My bitch had a great rear (as she was a CH Han-Jo’s Ulyssis granddaughter) so I bred her to Ully’s father, CH B’s Javelin de Bayard ROMO, and got a whole litter full of top Show Quality LH Dachshunds with great rears, including the next year’s WB and BW at DCA as well as her brother who was WD and BW the day before that DCA back in ’80. Needless to say, I was really feeling great about where this breeding was taking me and so repeated the breeding and got more Specialty winners and DCA winners and became someone who did bring good ones to the DCA National Show weekend. I am sure that with that success in the whelping box, many people would sort of start using the dogs they bred for their great bitches, but, fortunately, I was someone who always had their eye on what was going to happen farther down the line, so I repeated the litter and got even better Dachshunds such as a Group and Specialty winner and another stunning bitch who was one of the best I would have for several years.
CH Boonodx Ipsy Pipsy ROMX
Some people wanted to know through the years what we needed to make the best Dachsunds the HEALTHIEST BEST Dachshunds there were. Since I started breeding in the ’70s, there have been no tests for the two problems that I did not want to pass on to the next Boondox generations and that was Disc Disease and epilepsy who both were passed on without warning and could shut down a line any time they appeared. Since I had lost a bitch to epilepsy and her whole line already, I knew that would take care of the problem. Since there were no tests that showed it was behind my dogs, I decided then that any dog that produced it was taken out of my line as I did not wat to put that in new pet owners’ hands. That was a bitter pill to swallow, but it would, at least, stop me from passing on anything with that problem and, since it showed up early, I would not breed to any dog less than five year old as by then he would have been ill or reprodued it somehow. This worked for me and,while sad, it did make me breed healthier dogs. As for disc disease, I felt the same rules applied and, if the dog was over five years old and still good in the back and neck, I felt I could use him. Both these rules made my line sort of free from these two powerful diseases. The other problem, to me, was the spookiness that showed up which made the dogs unshowable and which made many people work overtime calming puppies down or NEVER calming them down at all. I did NOT want that and so decided to not worry about finishing them all who were good enough. I just decided to place the affected dogs and make them happier as well as making me a LOT happier. Those were the health rules that I used since the ’70s and they made me always ready to breed more and better Dachshunds.
CH Boondox Yorktown L ROMX
I might as well mention here is that I always looked for great producing sires that came from the best producing lines AND were healthy. I personally never bred to any dog that I whelped during my first ten years of breeding, because I did not want to go off on tangents caused by what they produced (or DIDN’T) produce. During this time I had several WDs at DCA and liked them a lot, but I was set on using the big time producers with PROVEN records that had a style to uphold and to set the type and movement that I needed in my line. However, when a certain dog was born here and EVERYONE wanted to use him, I certainly, after a little while, said yes. The way he produced did indeed change my breeding style and that was because I had been breeding to these original great dogs and had already gotten everything I wanted and the ability to pass it on to the forthcoming puppies.
CH Gerolf das Zwerglein L ROMO
Another thing that showed up was the front which I had to have and, although Lardi’s niece was one which I liked a lot, but I did not like her front at all, so I chose to breed her to Javelin with the perfect front and, later, to Gerolf who again had a flawless front as well, and she produced most puppies with fronts I liked and so I used those great fronted bitches when they were old enough to breed after they were finished. Now, these were the first ones I bred to from a bitch with less good shoulders and so I wondered how they would pass on to the next generation and, in doing so, I did see where some of the problems came from. All the others I had raised had the great neckset and shoulder assembly already which made them, with that front and shoulder assembly, move briskly around the ring and cover the ground quickly in a smooth and easy manner, but, with some of the new ones, with great shoulders, they did not cover ground in such an easy way of going, while others did that with no coaching, but completely naturally. This made me keep the ones with the great shoulders and fast movement and place the ones with the great well laidback sholders WITHOUT the faster movement as that slower motion was not what I wanted to have in my next upcoming generations. I realize that many people do not like to be so scientific in looking at this movement, but I really wanted to find out what causes this change and perhaps makes me add another quality to pick and choose from. I wondered why that occurred and I soon decided that this movement was caused by ANOTHER gene that caused the smoother movement and that had another set of genes to work with. With the shoulders that I wanted with the length and placement so correctly, I said that quality was a recessive that both parents had to pass on and, when one of them was from one with long movement and the other parent had short movement, how was that gene passed on. Again, I hate to get all scientific, but these are things you really have to figure out when you hopefully want to do this for a lot more generations. This bitch with the poor shoulders, but with great eye catching movement, had to have the great movement gene on both sides of her pedigree and that would make it another recessive gene which was hard to pass on, but which, if established in your line, was always going to be there when you bred to another with that long, ground-covering motion. My goal when seeing these two genes with beautiful shoulder layback AND great body moving progress was to keep that dog and have the shoulders AND the movement for the offspring that either the dog or bitch produced. In my mind, I felt that these two genes must be recessive and so, knowing this, I, from then on, ONLY bred to the goood fronts that were so important to me as I NEVER wanted to lose this shoulder angulation, neckset and fast movement from my line that I was showing. If you look at my pictures from then on,you can see that every picture shows that all the dogs I showed had the great front and faster movement that I really loved to present in the Show Ring. I look at the pictures and I can see that I am slowly making improvements as I go along and, I hate to say it, ALWAYS keep every thing you have changed in your line or you start heading backwards in the way you breed when we all should always be moving ahead with the quality we have. I hope that this is not to scientific but it really was the way I looked at breeding the best Dachshunds that I could.
CH Boondox Emma v Walmar L ROMO
In looking back at the front movement and angulation, I was going to breed to a Top Smooth producer who was just starting to win a lot and so then, while we were at a Specialty, I was sending a bitch back home for the dog’s owners to breed to that new Special. My friend, Wally Jones of Walmar Dachshunds, was there and so he stooped down to go over the dog’s front and reached to where the shoulders SHOULD have been and found the shoulders were not there and were several inches in front of the neckset which is where we wanted those shoulders to actually be. Now, this dog had beautiful, smooth motion and moved, to my eye anyway,perfectly with easy ground-covering movement, and that surely did make me wonder why he moved that way with the shoulders being so wrong. That is when I decided that the next thing I needed to understand was why the dogs moved so correctly when the structure that made them move was so incorrect and so I soon discovered that the correct movement WAS another gene that was recessive and, when the dog moved correctly, it did have two good moving genes and it could ONLY pass that correct movement on to that ever looming next generation if bred to another great moving dog who covered the ground easily and soundly and so I always bred that way because that was exactly what I wanted in my next Boondox litter. Having the correct structure and the correct movement as recessive really made it easy to lock in that perfect (to my mind) structure and was another reason I always did have the correct front structure and movement in all the dogs I showed. As far as the bitch I bred to the new young Special, I wound up placing the whole litter as pets , but I did get some of that new Special’s more correct offspring to breed to for my next litters.
CH Rose Farms Essence v Boondox L ROMO
I also ran into that same problem afterI bred to a longhair bitch that did not have the correct front, but was pretty near perfect in every other way. She produced puppies that ALL moved correctly, but they were not built so perfectly and I wanted perfection in whatever I presented in the Show Ring. One of her grandchildren was a Top Special that everyone liked and he was a huge Winner. I did breed an almost perfect bitch to him and got the look that I wanted, but he also sired a couple more that were NOT what I wanted and so I decided not to use him again as that front (which he did have) was not what I wanted to reproduce. One of his close relatives DID have the look that I liked and so I wound up using him very often which always produced the shoulder placement and movement that I required. You can say that I was picky and I would have to agree with you, but, by being picky, I kept my Boondox Standard up to where I wanted it.
CH Rose Farms Hannelore Boondox L ROMX
Anyway, the next thing I wanted was to have a that nice oval shaped chest with a nice long body which was a little fuller when it joined the regular body. Again, I was using Java and Gerolf and they did indeed set me up for always finding that quality in each litter and, while I didn’t get the number of Champions that I once did,I managed to get the dogs that were really there for me to have the look that, to me, was what I wanted them to have. Java, the older dog with the great body always produced the look, but, when I bred to Gerolf, I got it all back in spades as each litter was so full of themselves with that look that demanded attention and Dachshund style that they made all the people whose opinion I wanted to always find them and put them up. I certainly discovered this when I started using PJ at stud as he was a prepotent Gerolf grandson of what I felt at the time had THE look that I wanted all my Boondox offspring to have and, whenever he was bred, he managed to get better than himself in every litter he sired and I soon decided that look came down from the great CH Gerolf das Zwrglein L ROMO. Again, with these puppies to breed to, your great front and body was ALWAYS there for you to build on.
CH Boondox Polo L ROMX
From then on, you can build with this correct structure (and REMEMBER you are the ones who has this structure to keep OR throw away and I will remind you to always keep that structure which is what makes a good Dachsund a GREAT Dachshund) and you can then concentrate on the smaller items which you can add at your leisure and these smaller things are what we remember about the ones who we look at and say how great they are or just pass right over them.Each picture you publish sets your type and we want that type to always be getting better and better with each generation and that is why I always comment on people that I can see are actually working on type and I want them to know what people are looking at and WHAT they are looking for.
CH Boondox Fiona L ROM
Now, not to be condescending, some people just do not understand what I am talking about with these hints as they really do not have a clue as to which body part I am referring to and, to be honest, we ALL should know what I am talking about fixing. After I comment, people write and say they have great shoulders and angulation and, when you see what they think that looks like on their own dogs, you just shudder because they have no idea what that actually means. At this point in time, I get people writing me and telling me why my dogs had poor fronts and were set too far forward and probably that is why I am so picky in that, with the structure I had, none of mine could move anyway. As most people know, I am sharing this to teach others about how to breed better Dachshunds and, trust me, the ones that could not move were far back in the lineup when I first started showing Dachshunds. I never argue about my dogs qualities as I no longer show and what these exhibitors think frankly has no bearing on me whenI am writing to teach other people what they should be breeding for and to be winners in the show ring under judges who really know what quality looks and feels like. I just hope I hit a few people who get it and that these hints do help them. If you are unsure, ask me what the parts I am referring to as these parts (that you CAN change) make the best ones even better and I just hope that I do hit a few exhibitors before they , indeed, know everything. I am always willing to talk Dachshunds and love to discuss structure and how to make it better with every litter that you produce. I have spent a large portion of my life breeding Dachshunds and I have finished about 275 AKC Champions, many All Breed BIS winners, many DCA winners and Specialty winners, a whole lot of Group placers, the Top Longhair sire around the world and so very many ROM/ROMX/ROMO winners that I lose count of them, so I sort of know where my level is in the Breed. My purpose now is to really help you and to make your dogs better so that anyone who truly knows what a good Dachshund is can find it in the Show Ring. Breeding better dogs is what I have truly believed in for all these years and for far too long to stop now.