What is your Definition of a Line?

[tanza]

Prune was an outstanding lovely dog…

[sharronhurlbut]

So you would say that temperment is passed down in some like nice fronts or ear sets?

[tanza]

@sharronhurlbut:

So you would say that temperment is passed down in some like nice fronts or ear sets?

Nope… can have terrible fronts and/or ear sets.... since that is conformation... temperament is temperament .... can come in Basenjis that do not have correct conformation.. or ones that do.... but in breeding you have to consider all... health and temperament at the top of the list... and then you figure in conformation... it comes as a package when you are breeding correctly.. IMO...

[sharronhurlbut]

Ok, I said it wrong, I understand you can correct ear set or physical "whatever" with adding a new line to help…but with a bad temperment...does that also correct? Or is it likely to be passed on by breeding a bad temperment b to one who is mellow?

[sharronhurlbut]

Heavens, that is even worse.
I am asking, with a bad temperment but correct b, can you mellow the pups out by adding a correct and sweet line to it?

[lvoss]

Just like some dogs are prepotent for a certain physical trait they can also be prepotent for their temperament, good or bad. So if you breed a dog with an iffy temperament to a good temperament it could go either way. But the problem is that the bad temperament could pop up in later generations even if it is not in that generation.

[sharronhurlbut]

Resessive trait then?

[YodelDogs]

Temperament is partially inherited and partially created through how the dog is raised.

Sharon, if I understood your question, you are asking if you can soften a strong tempered line by crossing to a mellow line. Yes and no. Crossing extremes such as a very dominant animal to a very laid back animal will not give you a litter of "middle of the road" pups. You will get all areas of the spectrum. For example, my foundation bitch Keiko was a headstrong pain in the butt. Not aggressive or dominant, just headstrong and determined. I bred her to a male Hawk who was calm tempered and had many easy going relatives. I had two total pain in the butt pups, one leaning towards pain in the butt, and two easy to live with pups. I took the easy to live with bitch and bred her to a Kenset male Hans. Hans had many generations of selective breeding for mellow temperament behind him. Linebreeding on the easier to live with dogs has helped to set this type of temperament in my dogs but they are still Basenjis and can be a handful at times.

[lvoss]

@sharronhurlbut:

Resessive trait then?

It is more complex, temperament is a combination of several traits. So it sort of depends on how it all comes together.

Like the Kenset temperaments are mellow and I am very happy with my my Kenset descendants but Nicky has never really liked his crate, in talking with Andrea I think that Querk is much the same. I think this is may be inherited, both Nicky and Querk have Prune as a common ancestor. And yet Rally, Nicky's niece has always loved her crate so it isn't all the descendants who have it.

[sharronhurlbut]

Thank you, yes, that that was what I was asking.
Ok, next uneducated question…if you have a mean, but show b, and breed him to mellow, mellow, mellow, is there ever a point where the recessive doesn't show up? say 3 or 5 generations later...
Or can it always show up..

[lvoss]

The thing with a recessive trait is that it "hide" for many generations and then crop up. Also because temperament is influenced by socialization, good socialization can help with some issues so that it can be difficult to assess exactly what you have genetically.

[sharronhurlbut]

Thank you, that is what I was asking and had a tough job of it.
I appreicate you all being kind to me re this subject.

[nomrbddgs]

@Quercus:

Yes, particularly with Querk…great ear shape and set, nice shaped head, lots and lots of wrinkle. There is a lot of other lines mixed in there with him...but I aways thought I could see a lot of the Prune in him.

Yes, I'm finding the head has consistently come through.

[nomrbddgs]

@Quercus:

Yes, particularly with Querk…great ear shape and set, nice shaped head, lots and lots of wrinkle. There is a lot of other lines mixed in there with him...but I aways thought I could see a lot of the Prune in him.

Yes, I'm finding the head has consistently come through. When I first started showing Shadow up in Canada, I had one judge say to me afterwards that this type of head is being lost and that it was nice to see that type of head again.

[nomrbddgs]

@lvoss:

It is more complex, temperament is a combination of several traits. So it sort of depends on how it all comes together.

Like the Kenset temperaments are mellow and I am very happy with my my Kenset descendants but Nicky has never really liked his crate, in talking with Andrea I think that Querk is much the same. I think this is may be inherited, both Nicky and Querk have Prune as a common ancestor. And yet Rally, Nicky's niece has always loved her crate so it isn't all the descendants who have it.

Sugar and Shadow are the same line and come down from the same, especially as Nicky, line. However, Sugar is much worse in the crate than Shadow.

[Quercus]

Temperament is not inherited in a simple pattern. As everyone has mentioned environment has a huge impact on inherited temperament. Some things that can effect a dog's temperament that probably are hard wired are prey drive, arousal threshold and ability to problem solve. Generally in Basenjis all of these things are high…which is what makes them more difficult to live with, but there is variation within the breed too.

With our six dogs, three are from one line, and three from another...I can see which behavior(s) have been passed down thru their lines. One group is very closely related...the other group two are closely related and the other individual in that group is fairly outcrossed.

I could go on and on about my observations, but most folks would be totally bored

[Kebasmom]

I'm not a breeder but I was just wondering about the body thing. What I meant was were the earlier basenjis stockier?

[tanza]

@Kebasmom:

I'm not a breeder but I was just wondering about the body thing. What I meant was were the earlier basenjis stockier?

Really depends on the bloodlines… some lines are... some are not... if you look at some of the pictures of very early Basenjis, you will see both body types...

[lvoss]

It can also vary greatly by region.

[YodelDogs]

@lvoss:

Like the Kenset temperaments are mellow and I am very happy with my my Kenset descendants but Nicky has never really liked his crate, in talking with Andrea I think that Querk is much the same. I think this is may be inherited, both Nicky and Querk have Prune as a common ancestor.

I don't think I would blame Prune on the crate issues with Nicky but rather his grand-dam Keiko. Keiko panicked in a crate and I feel she was claustrophobic. As such, she was completely uncrateable her entire lifetime. Since Keiko is behind everything I have ever bred, a difficult crater will pop up here and there. The odd thing here is that some of the dogs I have placed as older puppies/young adults will crate just fine in my home but then when they change homes they become problem craters. I do not know why this happens.