Line-breeding is the breeding together of loosely related members of family groups within a breed population. It uses multiple forms of the axiom breeding, “Let the sire of the sire be the grandsire of the dam on the dam’s side.” This is the most frequently used form of inter-family mating. It is relatively safe in that it does not encourage a large number of birth defects, and if well done, it can produce quick improvement in multiple aspects of breed specific conformation and temperament development.

Within the line-bred system, balancing the family relationship relies heavily on very close study of the pedigrees within the line. Conformation improvements and regression of line characteristics are all controlled by continually balancing the relationships of family members to keep the familial relationships static or rebalancing those relationships to eliminate or accentuate desirable conformation and temperament features. Line-breeding improves consistency of type within the littermates and enhances traits considered valuable within that bloodline in most instances. When defects arise, they must be dealt with by rebalancing the line and breeding away from the defect.

Equally balanced family relationships on either side of the pedigree shared between the mated pair serves to maintain the status-quo of the line-bred family. It introduces few new genetic factors and reduces the influence of breed characteristics not already carried within the bloodline. Only when an undesirable character or defect enters into the get and requires correction need that balance be interrupted. Too close line-breeding may reduce breeding vigor within the line after many generations, but this can usually be readily re-established with occasional outcrosses to another line.

Backcross line-breeding is a technique sometimes used to bring out superior characteristics of one or more ancestors within a line. This system takes even more careful pedigree study and percentage calculation by the breeder. However, skillfully done it is the most productive form of line-breeding to bring out exceptional improvement in multiple get of a single breeding. In backcross breeding, one or more ancestors are singled out and emphasized by duplication within the pedigrees of the mated pair. Backcross breeding tends to bring forward the phenotype of the ancestor in the immediate get of the litter, but the breeder must be able to spot that type within the litter and then select for that type in subsequent breedings to make this a successful technique. Backcrosses sometimes require two or more rebalances of the cross with subsequent mated pairs to attain the desired results.

When breeders speak of establishing “Their Line” within a breed, they are not often referring to a line-bred breeding system. Most frequently they are discussing establishing their personal kennel name on a family group within their breed, purchasing foundation blood stock, and startup of a breeding practice no matter to which breeding system they ultimately subscribe. Unless the individual has tons of experience in breeding, they do not usually set out to create a workable long range developmental plan at inception of establishing their “line”.

Within an established breed, the mating of pairs with no duplicate family relationships for five to six generations of pedigree behind them is called a totally outcrossed breeding. A relative outcross can also be considered at the four generation level. This is considered the safest breeding system for totally novice breeders to follow if they have no assistance (mentoring) from more established breeders. However, finding totally unrelated blood stock within the confines of a breed with small numbers nationwide, may be a trick of it’s own. Once a breed has developed in numbers of available bloodstock in a Country, finding outcross stock of outstanding quality is not such an insurmountable problem. However, it still requires constant replenishing of import brood stock, and with each injection of new blood comes the threat of new defects, inherited disease and resurgence of problems eliminated from the bloodlines of the original root stock in past years.

Many breeders, finding serious heath problems within their “line”, choose to eliminate the members of their family groups perpetuating the problem, retain a few selected blood stock not displaying the problem, and then go well outside their bloodline or even the country to import stock thought to not display the defect. This approach saves face among other breeders since no announcements of trouble are needed, and it can occasionally resolve the immediate problem. However, in the long run, the problem continues because it is now spread among brood stock provided to a number of other breeders forming their kennel stock from that derived from the discarded line. Even duplicating the original breeder’s outcross may not do much to correct the cropping up of that original defect in remnant populations.

Outcross breedings in line-bred systems are useful to maintain hybrid vigor. Since inbreeding tends to reduce size of the individual get and litter size, maintaining a habit of using outcrosses to a new line can be a prudent choice for line-breeding advocates. However with each outcross, the breeder takes the chance of adding problems inherent in the new line to his or her own family population or reintroduction of problems already eradicated or reduced in the breeder’s own line.

Phenotype becomes of astronomical importance in outcross breeding systems since it is the only way the outcross breeder can maintain breed integrity and quality in the brood stock. Pictures, videos and personal observations of prospective sires and dams and the recording of details of these observations become important to the pedigree studies and breeding progress. These can partially be provided by online sources like Tibbies.net pedigree data base because pictures breeding details are included in many of the entries online.

Most breeders in many breeds need to gather pedigree information through paid pedigree services like the AKC and/or private services, breed books and foreign registries, then convert this information into private multiple database formats. Computation of breeding coefficients can be done by many computer programs installed on home computers and today this is a central reason for establishing a data entry system in their own home. To do this takes time, effort and sometimes money, but it can be done. Before computers became available hand done breeding books where the top half of the page recorded potential or actual sires and the lower half recorded dams were developed. The pages were then split longitudinally and cut in half to allow the user to realign the sires and dams into potential breedings. Sometimes extended pedigrees were just laid upon the floor atop one another. This author can remember many trips to the carpet with pedigrees to study before a special bitch was ready to breed.

Then, along came computers and eventually the Internet. Today the only time this author refers to her private breeder program is to calculate breeding coefficients on her own breedings and to provide signed pedigrees for puppy buyers. The remaining pedigree research tasks she accomplishes through the free services of the Tibbies.net Pedigree Database.

The amount of research data available on Tibbies.net is truly astronomical and encases a world of information for newbie and experienced breeder alike. This free service can put a new breeder on the same footing as an experienced breeder in very short order.

With numbers growing daily, over 26,200 animals form the Tibbies.net pedigree service data- base. No other massive collection of pedigrees exists in Tibetan Spaniels world wide and that includes many individual national stud books. Ease of use is the earmark of this database.

A four generation pedigree is at the tip of the reader’s fingers on any animal in the database. Extended pedigrees can be generated by entering the name of any of the sires, dams and/or grandsires and making a printout of each progenitor. Private database breeder’s programs that determine breeding coefficient calculations can be augmented by easy data entry from this one source, online service.

Valuable breeding information including names and numbers of sire and dam, siblings and breeding records detail each entry. Trial pedigrees allow the reader to assess potential mates and bring up pertinent information about the prospective mates in that potential pairing.

Sibling information available on the website is important to gauge the overall quality of the litter, sexual vigor and whether or not alternate sires or dams of the same pedigree may be available. Multiple champions in a litter, opposite sex siblings and (if others are recorded individually on the website) the possibility of pictures and colors of other littermates are all bits of available data relating to the dog or bitch about whom one is seeking information.

Knowledge of previous breeding successes is also pertinent. How many puppies in each litter can reveal a lot about the sexual vigor of a stud dog or brood bitch. How many champions the dog or bitch has already generated and with what mate? What is the pedigree of bitches with whom the stud dog has been productive is a very pertinent question, particularly if the reader is contemplating a similar pedigree breeding. These are all questions a prospective breeder can get answered using the Tibbies.net pedigree database.