As the lone Preservation Breeder of Elkhounds in North America I would like to introduce you to a breeding concept that almost no other breeders fully understand. At Kamia Kennels my co-breeders and I have decades and decades of experience with one of the most profound techniques to preserve and enhance the genetic preservation.
Kobe - Kamia Kennels Elkhound
Kobe is one of the magnificent Norwegian Elkhound male offspring of Tora and Bram
It’s called Genetic Stacking. This is a proven technique that we have used since we began. It’s apparent to anyone when you have a litter of pups from a pair of Elkhounds and the pups are exceptional. It’s easy to tell from the off spring that the match of the parent genetic was literally a dream match.
Now, in other breeding operations you can also see that the offspring were not exceptional, the match of the parents was off. Not a good match, or the traits did not match. Most all of the North America breeding pool suffer this fate now today.
But back to preservation breeders.
The number one factor in the success of our preservation breeding program is we study the past genetics and we observe what the off spring were like and we understand the traits that pass and the behavior of genetic matching. We begin with this knowledge of going forward, by looking back. You can go back many generations, the more knowledge you have, the better you can pair up.
Now fast forward to the offspring. If they are exceptional like planned, which ultimately they will be with sufficient background knowledge, now you have what’s known as a perfect genetic combination. Literally you can breed this pair for life and have the same results, litter after litter. The off spring are all incredible. Each and every one. Litter after litter.
So how does this relate to genetic stacking. Well in any preservation breeding program you need genetic diversity. They have to be unrelated. Now, using the knowledge of that match of genetics from your previous pair, you can have a second pair. Totally unrelated to the first pair, but equally as well matched.
This is what is called lines, or Lineages of Elkhounds that are excellent together. A breeder can now hold two distinct lineages using very few dogs of the highest caliber and have excellent litter after excellent litter.
This is now where genetic stacking comes in.
In preservation we can now take 1 offspring from the first set, and 1 offspring from the second and pair them up. The planned offspring are so predictable it’s incredible. Because of the vast past of those two lines showing phenomenal offspring after phenomenal offspring the future is literally already shown to us.
What has happened now by taking the offspring of each of the two lineages is you “Stack” all the best qualities with complete diversity and no line breeding. It’s the absolute best way to preserve as you are not line breeding but using a much better technique called stacking the pedigree. Stacking the genetics is really what it is.
The beauty of it is shown when we look at Kobe. Kobe of course is a shining example of the All you can be Kamia Kennels Elkhound male. There are no better males in history, and no better males coming in the future. It’s literally impossible to improve on this Elkhound. Interesting thing is, all his brothers and sisters are the same. This is an example of 1 pair of Elkhounds mated together for life. All the pups from all the litters are full siblings and all exceptional. The beauty of all full siblings is that there is no dispersing genetic material in the vast amount of dogs, but it’s excellence in a line.
So what we have now coming forward is the following litter is genetic stacking.
Varja and Merle are a planned mating in June. The concept behind it is very simple from a Preservation breeding program and that is to utilize genetic stacking. This allows us to know very close to what is coming from the litter.
Varja’s Grandfather is the father of Kobe.
Merle’s Aunt is the mother of Kobe.
By stepping down 1 generation we immediately go right back to the first generation as both sides of Kobe now appear with total diversity. The stacking element comes from the other sides of Varja and Merle.
Varja’s Dad and Merle’s mother are proven to showcase excellent offspring. We have already seen that mating, the pups and the grandpups are incredible.
We have also seen other combinations of these genetics in our program and the offspring are all exceptional. So we get to move a decade or more ahead in time, but step back a decade or two in time by stacking genetics 1 level deep on all sides. This literally takes our genetic path and slows it down by those two decades.
It’s one of the most profound techniques in preservation breeding that goes back to very old ancient practices of breeders in the old country. Genetic Stacking is what is going to save a tremendous amount of genetic material for future use when the Full Blood genetics are incorporated back in to replenish the genetic pool. In order to save the most of the Elkhound genetic base the very best principles have to be employed. Random chance breeding will not do it.
Check out the background genetic result of genetic stacking in Kobe. This my friends, this is an Elkhound! This is exactly what is coming from Varja and Merle. I Thank Henry and Elena for giving Kobe such an excellent life. They have the best outdoor lifestyle and Kobe could not be in a better home. Thank you Henry and Elena and also Thank you for the great photos!
