SPORTS do not generally produce good offspring. Sport is a term many breeders no longer use, but is a usefull idea. A sport is the odd good dog in a litter that is otherwise uneven. It is traditionally the occassional decent dog found in a litter from an unlikely backgroud and breeding. Usually such dogs are the fortuitous result of a mixed litter from a casual breeding, & the people who breed to the dog are the ones who pay the price for his mixed-up, casual pedigree & genetic background. But sports can come about from breeding "paper" not dogs; from trying to breed "up," from blind line-breeding, or any convenience or accidental breeding. A sport is a dog by definition, almost, who is unable to reproduce himself, for all his good looks. Very uneven litters & errratic littermate traits result and are certainly not helpful to a breeding program & make it hard to track both good and bad traits with any likely success. Sports can play another negative role in the breed if they become famous showdogs (or just popular sires for any reason). Not only are they breed despite the fact they are indifferent sires, their every mediocre relative is used with great enthusiasm as the family is all thought consistently "good" (instead of seen for the inconsistent lot they really are). Breeding "paper" instead of dogs has a consistently poor result, but breeding dogs who cannot reproduce themselves should be recognised as a poor practice as well.

Great & consistent bloodlines have been built on good, consistent dogs bred by knowledgeable breeders. Purebred domestic species are based on concentrating family traits, so like dogs must somehow be bred together. Knowledge is the key here; knowing in depth what you are breeding. Buyers shouldn't reward those who breed casually, indifferently, or for superficial traits. And please don't condemn breeders who have the courage to aknowledge the faults in their dogs & their bloodlines (or who try to elicit information & public discussion of the same). All bloodlines carry along faults, not just the ones where the faults are seen & reported. Again, the situation now is too often one where people breed without knowledge, producing affecteds and carriers & just not knowing it, as they don't keep adequate records, do enough homework, etc. Just ask yourself how this can be preferable to accumulating information than can only benefit the breed? Who exactly benefits from all this ignorance? Surely not the dogs, the potential breeding partners left in ignorance, or the potential puppy buyers. For the breeds to benefit from the control of genetic disease we need to do what most Code of Ethics demand: keep up with news in genetics & have an in-depth knowledge of the dogs we are using. This means understanding the basics of inheritance & knowing how to apply them for good results in your breeding practices. This means marking pedigrees with more than color and titles. This means accepting that most diseases we now struggle with have a genetic component & treating such situations conservatively AND rationally. We need to educate ourselves, to stop reacting violently to the notion of genetic disease & start treating it with a more sophisticated and realistic view. We need to not just learn as we go, but read before we breed, & bone up on the basics before we start creating lives.