[densa44]

Who is on the other end of the leash makes at least 50% of the difference in dogs. I had a friend, he's gone now and he had a disease called kennel blindness. But he was an awesome trainer and "finished" over 33 black labs, and some of them were not very good dogs. (A finished dog has a field trail champion in front of its name) so Diesel has that figured out.

When reading the pedigree, when you have been around long enough to know some of the dogs and handlers you can decide for your self if a dog owned by a rookie like Elk here, and the dog does well, is that a better bet to breed to than a dog trained and run by a pro? You have to make up your own mind.

You can't beat real hunting experience as some of the ops have said.

And for extra marks; I was sitting in the gallery of the Canadian National Retriever trails the last time they were in Logan Lake, with an old friend from the Niagara Pen club and we were watching his young BLF run in the National, and I asked him why he wasn't running his dog. He said " You can't run your own dog in a stake like this" Rainbow Molly won! He was right.

So it also matters who is running the dog in tests. Handler errors count for many of the dog'e problems. In the case of good dogs, I'd say it accounts for all of them.

Thus reading a pedigree is more complex than it looks.

Good post guys, remember it doesn't matter what you buy, you have to train your dog.