Posts by Mikey T
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When looking a 2 dogs this is a streach, the whole output of breeding program is another story. Even with the best breedings some genetic throwbacks and mismaches etc show up and produce a flyer that looks nothing like its ancestry just as too poor specimens can produce an outstanding one on rare occassion. It is ill advised to comment on a breeding program by the ascesssing a random single dog.
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History leason. Basset means low set, there are at least many different "basset" breeds ie basset hound, basset artesien normande, basset blue gasscone.,Basset Fauve de Bretagne, PBGV -Petit Basset Giffon Verdeen, GBGV grand basset Giffon berdeen, etc.
So for the sake of discussion on a Basset hound board when some asks the question are there two types of bassets the mean specifical the breed "basset hounds" rathe than a more generic number of dwarf bred sight hunting hounds. for which of course there are many types.
as for the History of the Basset hound it is an English Breed as defined by the FCI the world largest Pedigree/breed registration service. The breed was devloped and first shown in england but the foundation stock for the breed was imported from France. These foundation stock were from lines that went on to form some of the other basset breed most notably the basset artesian normand, and basset blue gascone. So as anything if you go far back enough there is some common ancestory between the basset breeds but they are in the end distinct breed now.
The Early History of the Basset Hound in England, 1874-1921
So the idea of a french vs english basset hound is false. Actual if you will find the french and or english term when applied to a basset hound is alway done as a mean of explaining why the dog is not conformational correct. That is the term french and english when applied to basset hounds actual convey the same meaning an excuse by the breed why there stock and offspring are not conformationally correct.
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Soundtracks Twisted Sister, hmmmm any breeder that registered a dog under that name has to be a bit "twisted" themselves
Jo-ann Gerde
photography See the 1 hour and 30 second table sequence.
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my nascar field hound. She specializes in tracking bunnies that circle to the left
Actual In person most do not notice the bend to the left. what they do notice is in profile the lack of a stop and curvature is reminiscent of a bull terrier
I WANNA ROCK!
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and roll all night and party everyday?
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I know but as the say if you haffta explain the joke well it suks
Run for your life
Like a Knife in the Back
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I was hoping for Mirriam to answer the question but I will do the best as I can as I understand. Macey was the last of a larger litter to be born, actual mirriam had to go with the bitch to the vet to have her extracted. Where the nose is genetic, cause by overcowding in the uterius, being stuck in the birth canal for a prelong period, Or from forcept or the procedure to forceable extract her is not clear and will never really be known. I do believe genetic are not a like cause. Especial given the number of champ from that litter but one never knows.
yay a pet peeve of mine. Much like assuming an Australian Shepard is from australia because of it common merle markings. It may included foundation stock that originated in austrailia but it is clearly an american breed.Ok I set myself up for your response last time Mikey.I knew it as soon as I wrote it.
The other one is that the purpose of the basset hound was to hunt small game on foot. While that was the purpose of bassets originating in France the English breeder clearly on had one thing in mind and that was the look of the hound. In this regard the basset hound has more in common with the toy breed than the other hound in the hound group. ect the elk hound which is not a hound at all but a spitz breed but that another story. It was not until later that people discovered that basset hounds still retained the ability to hunt that they were used in that way. More as an after though than the driving force.
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I always find this a bit ammusing. The justification of a particular breed standard as pertaining to suitability or excelling at purpose of breeding with scant to no evidence to support it. Lets talk head wringkles and long ear as trap scent and stiriring it up simultaniously. The is no evidence that they actual do nor that it actually improves performance. Lets us take a look at England's and the world's more popular short legged scent hunting dog the beagle. The beagle does not have wrinkles and shorter ears yet it is the preferred rabbit hunting dog. . You will in generally that hunting or field trialing dogs have shorter ears and less wrinkles than those winning in the conformation ring. So at the very least this suggest such trait ar not as important as the breed standard makes them out to be and they may actual be of some detriminent or these trait are genetical tied to some other trait that is not benefitial.
The breeders in England goals were to produce a more "massive" dog than the French stock that it started with. The did so by adding bloodhound to the mix so the longer ear more wrinkles ect were more or less along for the ride. Is there any evidence that a more massive dog is an asset in the field? Does it perform better than the french hounds that proceeded it. It has it purpose and advantages but in most cases the advantages are simply that of massivness that makes it even slower moving. Such a dog is an asset for the more atheletically challenged hunter but not so much for any others. In the same vain basset tend to work much closer to the Hunter, again this is more of a stylistic choice and not one performanced based. So there will be individual that prefer to hunt behind bassets but that is minority.
IMHO if one objectively looks at the breed standard of most pure bred dogs there is a lot of justifcation of why a breed looks like it does because it was bred that way intentional ,but in fact the breeding for a look either came first or was just happened to be tied to another trait and was simply along for the ride. Most of the justifcation is after the fact and basied on no to little substance that the trait actual improves function,.
Let us take a look at a a study done in russia in which wild foxes in a captive breeding program (fur farmers) were bred for a single trait.short flight distance. . In a few generation the actual appearce of the fox changes daraticaly being more Piebald (large white pacthes, flopply ears to name just a couple traits. That is their appears to be some physical appearance traits that are link with genetic personality traits. So breeding of a particular personailty can and will manifest it self in the look of the dog as well and these physical traits are just along for the ride theywere not purposely bred for nor do the effect performance, but the underlying personality traits certainly can
for mre details see
Early Canid Domestication:
The Farm-Fox Experiment
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Un no you atribbiting enhanced of performance reasons for a particular conformation trait. Something the actual breed standard does not do. I do not dispute that the standard is a discription of the look of the Ideal basset. Nor do I think that it sould be changed etc. Nor as some have suggest abolishing conformation standard all together and breed strictly on the basis of performance to correct some of the fatal flaws the see in breeding for conformation, ie lack of genetic diverisity, increase in genetic faults etc. Breeding strickly for performance is not without flaws as well. In reality the boom in purebred dogs over the past few centures has actual increased bio diveristy of dogs in general. Yes there may be less biodiversity in individual breeds but dogs have a whole are much more biodiverse as a result of selective breeding the the occurance of much more homogenious gene pairs than would natural occur through random breeding patterns,
For some reason many people do not find compeling the reason for breed standard on purely athesthics grounds, but for a large portion of dogs that is the reason behind the origination of the breed. Basset hounds being one of them. Hunting and other performance motivation only came for the the ability after the fact to certain performance model. It is not a matter of form following fuction in the basset but the other way round. Form came first the functionality of the dog and what it was somes time used for later on was determined by its form.
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Actually the breed standard does not atribute any particular atribute other than size both height and weight to purpose. The purpose of my discourse is examine some common Memes about basset hounds which ears length and fold and wrinkles about the head improving scenting ability is one.
Not actual sure who you mean by the creators, that of the standard or the breed, or that anonimous source for the meme. If you mean either of the first two, creators of the breed and or standard, I have not seen any evidence to suggest that. Only evidence I see is an aesthetic preference for longer ears and wrinkles and a host of other traits as well that similar to a bloodhound head ie prominient haw. Not once have I seen mention that the creators/founders of the breed sought longer ears etc because of better field performance.
If you mean the later it doesn't really matter what they believe it only matters if it is true or not.
Again not from what I read the aesthetic came first followed by the purpose. That because he is slower and easier to follow ( which is probably as much a personality trait than physical one) they are sought out by individual seeking the same. One could say it is much a chicken vs the egg debate, but in this case the motivation of the early founders is much clearer. The imports of foundation stock were not hunters/gamesmen but arristocrats interest in the sport of purebred dogs, conformation, producing hounds that looked good.
The standard is open to interpretation, I think how that interpretation manifests itself is more reveiling than what it actual says. Keeping in mind the breed standards for "show dogs" and "field dogs" are virtually the same with any differences being quite minors and across idiver sanctioning bodies. If long ears and/or loose skin and wrinkles about the head had real( read noticable) effect on performance I would expect those for which performance was a premium to naturally bias toward that norm. That is as the best performing hounds would naturally have longer ears and more looser skin about the head they would be the preferred breeding stock and hence the performance dogs would tend to have longer ears. This is not the case.
First the ranking of scenting ability is again a meme, Given the meme that bloodhounds are the best scenter would it not be most reasonable to assume that second best scenter is the dog with the head that most resembles a bloodhound when there is no other evidence? But this is simply a leaf of faith, that with no other conlicting evidence gets repeated and believed ad nauseum. There is scant research on the study of various breed actual scenting ability and even those studies one can only reliably make judgements based on the the condition of the study. Under different condition different results are likely. There is no single skill representing scenting ability. Also research has clearly shown that training is an important aspect of this ability as well.
Is there a non-scenting dogs? There certainly a number of dogs used to do scenting work that do not have long ears. An there is certainly some Scientific evidence to back-up a superior scenting ability of them over some traditional scent hounds based on the size and number of receptors in the olafactory mucus theory of Scent However there is also conficting evidence based on other scenting studies Which show the beagles superior scenting ability with smaller nose " As part of this research, they tested the scenting abilities of various breeds by putting a mouse in a 1-acre (4,000 m2) field and timing how long it took the dogs to find it. The Beagles found it in less than a minute, while Fox Terriers took 15 minutes and Scottish Terriers failed to find it at all. Beagles are better at ground-scenting (following a trail on the ground) than they are at air-scenting, and for this reason they have been excluded from most mountain rescue teams in favour of collies, which use sight in addition to air-scenting"
Non-sure you would consider them non-scenting a quite a number of sporting breed in particular the various spanial have ear length to muzzle ratio that rival or exceed that of all but the bloodhound and basset.
Not necessarily true. But desirable is not in question here. The very fact that a trait is called for in the breed standard makes it "desireable" by definition. Whether is increases performance or is indicator of increased performance is in serious question however.
When explicitly talking in generalities the condition does not apply to a dogs in this case a trend.
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