24/07/2026
Read and digest.
choosing stud dogs 😬
Not which stud dog is the best, because that question is almost impossible to answer without first asking another question, best for what? Colour, lives close by, cheap, Because breeding decisions are not made in a vacuum. They are made by people with different goals, different experiences, different types of bi***es, different ideas of what they want to produce and different qualities they are trying to improve or preserve and different levels of care and passion. And yet, I think we sometimes forget that when we look at somebody else’s choices.
We see a stud dog being used and our first reaction can often be based on our own priorities. We look at that dog and think, “That isn’t the dog I would have chosen.” But perhaps the more interesting question is, “Why did they choose him?” Because those two questions are very different and the latter will generally give you your answer, whether that shines the person in a good light or bad
The conversation around stud dogs today often becomes focused on what we can see immediately. The titles, the awards, dogs that have proven themselves in competition, names that appear repeatedly in successful pedigrees, dogs that have already earned their reputation.
And there is absolutely a reason those things matter. A dog does not reach the highest levels of competition by accident. It requires ability, trainability, temperament, consistency and a handler who can develop those qualities and bring them out when it matters. A dog that repeatedly performs under pressure has demonstrated something important, and those achievements deserve respect.
But I think there is a question worth asking. Are we sometimes confusing what a dog has already demonstrated with everything that dog has to offer?
Because when we look at titles, we are looking backwards. We are looking at history, we are looking at what has already happened, now that information is valuable, it gives us evidence, it tells us what a dog has been capable of achieving in a particular environment, with a particular handler, under a particular set of pressures.
But breeding is not only about looking backwards.
Breeding is also about looking forwards.
It is about making decisions based on what we believe a dog can contribute to the future. It is about understanding genetics, temperament, natural ability and the qualities that may not yet have had the opportunity to fully reveal themselves.
If we only ever choose dogs because they have already proven themselves, then we are always following behind. We are choosing the dogs whose potential has already been recognised.
But every influential dog that exists today was once an unproven dog. Every great producer was once a dog that somebody had to make a decision about before the wider world knew what that dog would become.
Somebody had to look beyond what was already visible. Somebody had to ask a different question. Not just, “What has this dog achieved?” But, “What could this dog contribute?”
And I think that is where breeding becomes far more complicated, for some 😅 than simply reading a results sheet.
Because a stud dog is not just the achievements beside its name. A stud dog is genetics, it is temperament, natural ability, trainability, It is the qualities that dog carries and passes on, the things that may not immediately stand out when looking at a list of awards but become obvious when you understand the dog as an individual.
It is also the circumstances around that dog.
Because we often talk about dogs as though they exist separately from everything around them. We see a dog and decide what that dog is.
But how much of what we see belongs to the dog itself, and how much belongs to the opportunity that dog has been given?
A dog can only demonstrate what somebody asks it to demonstrate. It can only develop within the environment it is placed in, it can only be judged through the partnership it has with its handler, the training it receives, the expectations placed upon it and the opportunities available to it.
That does not mean every untested dog is secretly a world class dog waiting to be discovered, Of course not. Some dogs simply do not have the qualities required to perform at the highest level.
But the opposite is also true.
The absence of achievement does not automatically prove the absence of ability.
And I think this is where we need to be careful about the judgements we make.
How many dogs have been dismissed because they were considered too much, too hot, not enough, unproven or unsuitable? And how much of that judgement was actually about the dog? How much was about the circumstances surrounding that dog?
Because sometimes we forget that what we see is not necessarily the full story.
The horse world has a story that I think demonstrates this perfectly.
Not because it proves that titles/breeding or achievements do not matter, because they absolutely do
It’s story of Seabiscuit.
Seabiscuit was not a horse with questionable breeding who came from nowhere. He was bred from exceptional bloodlines. His sire was Hard Tack, a son of the legendary Man o’ War, and he carried expectations from the moment he was born.
But early in his career, Seabiscuit did not become the horse people expected him to be. He raced frequently as a young horse and, although he won races, he was not viewed as the exceptional athlete his pedigree suggested he should become. Compared with the expectations placed upon him, he was considered disappointing.
Eventually, he was sold for a relatively modest amount of money, and people had already formed their opinion of what sort of horse he was.
Then his circumstances changed.
Charles Howard bought him, and trainer Tom Smith approached him differently. He did not see a horse that had failed. He saw a horse that had not yet been fully understood.
He recognised his temperament, he recognised his personality, and he recognised that some of the qualities other people had dismissed were actually part of what made Seabiscuit special.
The horse did not suddenly gain ability, that ability was already there.
What changed was that someone created the circumstances where that ability could finally be expressed.
And Seabiscuit went on to become one of the most famous racehorses in American history, defeating Triple Crown winner War Admiral and becoming a symbol of what can happen when potential meets the right opportunity.
The lesson is not that everyone before him was wrong. The lesson is that people had only seen part of the picture.
And I think anyone who has spent enough time around dogs has seen their own version of this. A dog that one person finds difficult and another person understands. A dog that appears average until somebody changes the way they train it. A dog that starts to shine because somebody finally works with the individual in front of them rather than the dog they expected to have.
Equally, we have all seen dogs that look exceptional in one situation but struggle when the demands change, the handler changes or the pressure increases.
Because the dog is only one part of the equation.
And this brings us back to choosing stud dogs.
When we choose a stud dog, we are not simply choosing the dog with the most impressive record.
We are making a decision about the future.
We are asking what qualities we want to preserve, what qualities we want to improve and what qualities we believe will complement the bitch in front of us.
Sometimes that means choosing the obvious dog. Sometimes the obvious dog is obvious for a very good reason.
But if everyone only ever chose what was already proven, where would the next exceptional dogs come from?
At some point, somebody has to recognise something before everybody else can see it.
Somebody has to look beyond what is already written down.
Not because titles are irrelevant, they are not.
But because titles tell us what has already happened.They are evidence of the past.
Breeding requires us to make decisions about the future.
One example that always comes to mind for me is Wilson, Fyrish Mischief Maker.
Wilson did not have the type of trial record that would make him the obvious choice if somebody was simply selecting from a list of achievements.
But Roddy Forbes knew the dog.
He had seen him work. He understood his qualities. He knew what he liked about him and what he believed he could contribute.
He was not ignoring performance. Wilson did have test wins/awards, he was trialed he had a best marker at a trial and I believe a guns choice 😅
But He was looking beyond performance alone.
That decision produced Carnochway Catchy, an Open Field Trial award Winner, and another field trial winning male from the same litter. Catchy then went on to produce Rocky, a Field Trial Champion and Championship winner, along with many other successful trial dogs.
The importance of that is not that somebody ignored titles.
The importance is that somebody looked at the whole picture.
They considered what was already known, but they also considered what might become possible.
And perhaps that is the difficult part of breeding.
We like certainty, We like things that can be measured. We like proven names and successful records because they give us confidence that we are making the right decision.
But breeding has never been completely predictable.
If it was, every great dog would have been obvious from the beginning. Every influential sire would have been recognised before he produced anything. Every exceptional producer would have arrived with a guarantee attached.
But that is not how it works.
Sometimes the dog everyone wants is exactly the right dog.
Sometimes the dog everyone overlooked becomes the one people spend years trying to replicate.
And perhaps that is where experience matters most.
Not in believing you have all the answers, but in understanding that there are still questions worth asking.
Because we are constantly making decisions with incomplete information. We are looking at the dogs in front of us and trying to understand not only what they have shown us, but what they may be capable of showing us in the right circumstances.
That does not mean ignoring evidence. It does not mean every unproven dog is some hidden masterpiece waiting to be discovered, because sometimes a dog simply is not what we hoped it would be.
But it does mean being careful about confusing what we know with everything there is to know.
Because every dog we now consider exceptional was once a dog before the recognition arrived. Before the titles, the reputation, before everyone agreed that this was the dog worth using.
At some point, somebody had to see something before the rest of the world could see it.
And maybe that is what we should remember when we look at other people’s breeding choices.
Not to blindly agree with them. Not to assume every choice will be the right one. But to ask ourselves whether we are judging the whole dog, or simply the part of the dog that we have been shown.
Because breeding has never been about finding a crystal ball. Nobody gets to know exactly what will come next.
It is about gathering the evidence, respecting what has already been proven, understanding what sits beneath the surface, and having enough experience to recognise that sometimes the most important qualities are the ones that have not yet had their moment.
The dogs that shape the future of a breed are not always the ones that were obvious from the beginning.
Sometimes they are the ones that somebody took the time to understand before everybody else caught up
