Saving genetics of the Elkhound breed should truly be paramount in all breeders and Elkhound dog owners minds. However, not all truly understand the complications of preservation breeding when combined with show breeding.

In this short article I’ll try outlining a very few points as it’s a vast subject when you get into genetics but just from simply showcasing past and present practices and various mindset differences in breeders and breeding practices.

Take our program, we try to utilize “Genetic Lineages” and use the same genetic lineages for as long as possible so as to make as few changes as we can. An example would be to take a stud, mate him to very few females, but have as many litters as those few females can have. This yields a genetic offspring with limited changes but they could span over many years.

The first mating could be when he is quite young and the last when the female is at or close to the end of her whelping zone. This could be 8 years potentially of age for the female. Depending on when you use the male he could now go on to mate with another female for a very respectable amount of years, potentially her whelping life.

What you would have is only two genetic females removed out of all the genetic variety of females in the base of Elkhounds. You would have a nice tight knit group of offspring that have all had basically 1 genetic change in the entire life span of those three dogs.

Now contrast this to say, a “Show Breeder” mindset. In that scenario it’s not uncommon to take 1 stud and mate him to a volume of females, in actuality, it could be upwards of 50 or 60 plus different females.

What has occurred now is you have taken 60 female genetics out of the genetic pool and the females they have, let’s suggest they had normal litters this could easily be 150 plus females. Roughly 210 plus females now are removed from mating with any of the males, give or take those same numbers 150. So any male and any female combination that “Could have been utilized in a 1 or 2 female to stud ratio” is now gone.

Had say, 30-50 studs been used instead of 1 single stud, you would have had unlimited mating pairs and combinations from those 60 females. But by utilizing 1, you have 300 offspring that can’t mate in any way going forward with each other. The only way for any of those three hundred plus to find mates is with outside genetics.

What is immediately apparent to anyone is now you have 150 brothers, who, even if you gave them an outcross unique female each to have a litter with, you have the same genetic now multiplied by massive factor, give or take 900 offspring. This is two generations and you have effectively wiped out a 1000 or so Elkhounds from the breeding pool as they are all related closely.

This does not count the 150 females, which could in fact have multiple litters, meaning multiples each litter of 900, as do the males, and you literally have no outside genetics in 3 generations.

This is exactly what has occurred! Quite literally!

In a preservation breeding program by using “Breeding Pairs”, meaning using 1 stud on 1 female for life, perhaps 2 but trying to limit it to very few, you have unique bloodline genetics. Only two dogs in it really, and the past they have, but going forward, very few genetics if it has been followed for a long time.

Now in a program of those same 50-60 females if this is followed, 1 male per 2 let’s say, you now have at least 30 various combinations of genetics to work with. So any male from the first set can work with any female from any other combination. This massively extends the genetic pool, it literally works the exact opposite to the Show Breeding concepts.

One of the most important aspects of Preservation breeding is to slow genetic change. Using a stud on very few females is one of the most profound ways to slow this genetic change. The male and female can be productive for their entire life, produce awesome healthy pups and a few pups throughout the breeding life can be selected as primary replacements. The last litters being the most influential as the most time has past before they are no longer viable as mating dogs and now retire from the gene pool and the new generation takes over.

By utilizing this concept it allows for all other genetics to be still useful to the offspring as they are unrelated. The more single or two pair breeding is utilized, the more genetic options there are for outcross.

Currently, in North America I do believe we are the only preservation breeder left, I believe in fact that almost the entire breeding pool of genetics in North America, or a very high percentage of them, are all related outside our few bloodlines. The amount of importation of Elkhound genetics in the past couple decades has slowed to a crawl, with literally only us importing. So no new blood has been infused.

We utilize these old world concepts and we run very few genetic lineages. By periodically bringing in a “New Outcross Stud” we can effectively continue almost indefinitely with this concept as a new outcross is not required often in our program. A healthy robust outcross stud can breed 10 plus years, take 1 son and you can effectively only make two genetic changes every 20 years.

This is in effect exactly what we witness with the Teeko litter. He is from one of the last litters of Takoda, who was 11 at time of Teeko’s birth. Teeko is now 8 having his first litter. 19 years to two changes. 1 Outcross stud utilized with an outcross female, that stud was Karu and the female Kalia. Very few dogs used, many pups, hardly any genetic changes. It leaves the vast majority of other Elkhound lineages available to mate with them and the pups they have.

We literally can take a Teeko son, get him 1 outcross female, maybe two and go ten years again with 1 change genetically.

Preservation breeding concepts yield the healthiest dogs as they are diverse and unrelated. They are from proven genetics that have no flaws. Much easier to manage flaws with selection of 1 or 2 dogs from the outcross pool this way. Trying to maintain zero flaws with 60 different combinations, good luck with that.

So health is dramatically conserved and maintained, not just genetics. Instincts preserved, behaviours and much more. But that is another discussion, another day.

For now, we have some seriously healthy pups with very few genetic changes made to the bloodline in like the longest time frame of any litter in North America in the history of the Elkhound in North America, most likely. If there is a litter that tops this for fewest genetic changes in the longest period of time, I don’t know about it, but if there is, hat’s off to whoever did it, and it would be a very rare possibility of it.

Until I find different, which I won’t I am sure, I am confident this litter ranks up at the very top end of preservation breeding techniques and genetic preservation.

You can check this litter at Michael and Sarah’s Instagram and or email me as well, I’ll share on it.

Golden Ring Elkhounds (@goldenringelkhounds) • Instagram photos and videos