O' Tie that Binds

Here is a video of the first squirrel Oliver treed that I got for him.

I failed him on his first 2 trees and let the squirrel get to a hole.

They are staying close to the den trees and going there fast. But I

did get this one and took his picture with it which I will post tomorrow.

I am going to try to call Oliver--Tie and I am changing his name. I have

an Opal-Spud cross female named Olive Oyl and I call her Ollie so this

is too confusing and I have decided to call Oliver..."O' Tie That Binds". He

is tied to my Feists in the past and the ones I plan to breed. I will probably

use him with Bandit instead of Shooter. He is more in line with Bandit and

the gene pool will be a better close selection to get a sameness in the litter.

Dogs not close in genetics will produce an outcross of pups--if they have 6

pups usually two will be bigger than the parents, two will be smaller and two

about the size of the parents. Since genetics also controls the treeing ability

you don't have as good as odds in getting 6 good squirrel dogs in an outcross

as you do with line breeding. I believe in breeding lines and Betty studies the

lines to make our picks. Anyway I am hoping that Tie can bind my past dogs

to future great squirrel dogs. Some dogs seem to not throw the genetics of

treeing very well and they may be great dogs. I don't understand all there is

to know about genetics but I am smart enough to try to do what works for me.

Crossing the same dogs over and over in a pedigree will get you a minature

breed and I don't do this. If I had 2 dogs named Dirt and Sal and I crossed them

and then I always crossed their pups without other dogs being crossed in the

size of the dogs would get smaller and their bad genes would show up more.

So full brother and sister crosses on both sides of the pedigree is not for me. It is

just too close and the genes you don't want will show up more and more. Lesson

1 in squirrel dog breeding is over and if you read all of this thanks for listening to

an old squirrel hunter ramble on about his beliefs and ideas!