Great Greyhounds Of The Past – Foxden Flamingo

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146 – The Annual, 2025-26

By Amy Fernandez 

Regardless of the breed, the same allegation crops up every time purebred dog haters lay out their case by citing the genetic bottleneck. Everyone knows that script. An overly restricted gene pool has led to nothing but substandard, defective dogs…blah, blah, blah. Wading past the propaganda and disinformation, there is a grain of truth in that indictment. Breeding to the big name, top winner of the moment happens a lot. I’m not saying that big winners don’t make valuable contributions to their respective gene pools. But, regardless of show records, no dog is the ideal match for every bitch.

In fact, that “one-size-fits-all” approach is antithetical to the basic premise of this entire pursuit, which is, or should be, improving that breed with every generation.

Granted, every breeding is a gamble in one respect or another. However, selective breeding has always been about minimizing speculation. That’s what we do. Moreover, every aspect of that has become far easier today thanks to multiple tools that remove much of the guesswork from the decision. Even with those tech advantages, there is no denying the fact that accurate selection of a mate is very heavy work.

Bold, inspired decision-making demands creativity, research, and the confidence that only comes from genuinely understanding those bloodlines on a granular level. There is no way around the fact that this is doing it the hard way. A less publicized but equally significant factor is that defying popular thinking invariably invites criticism. And that aspect of it has become way worse these days, thanks to social media. In addition to AR garbage, plenty of people within the sport are guilty of that kind of self-sabotage.

Click here to read the complete article
146 – The Annual, 2025-26

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Posted by AnthonyA on Dec 29 2025. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.