Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I thought OP was talking about an actual breed of dog. Going across the country for a well bred animal makes sense. The best ones aren't always where you prefer them to be. Some made up pretend breed is not the same thing.
Weren’t all breeds a made up pretend breed at some point?
Not exactly. Most breeds were purpose bred; IOW, they were created for reasons other than lining someone's pockets. People developing breeds often had goals in mind, sometimes in terms of functionality, sometimes in terms of looks, often both. A program that aims to establish a breed would start with a fairly wide base of existing dogs that do have the traits that they're looking for, then breed them in a fairly organized manner, to create a creature closer to their ideal. This involves culling, making sure that undesirable genes are not passed on.
What it does not involve, is taking two random dogs, breeding them, and calling their offspring a new breed. F1s of an outcross, does not create a breed, it creates a mutt. You have to essentially create many generations until the dogs are reliably producing whatever your goal is, before it can be called a breed. Because of the time/expense/number of dogs involved, creating actual breeds, is rarely done anymore.