BREEDING 19 



need curtailing. The fact that you have taught a 

 dog certain tricks is no reason for assuming that 

 his pups will also show a predisposition to similar 

 acts. 



When particular qualities have been apparent in 

 individuals of a certain family for many generations 

 past, the natural presumption is that the present 

 representatives of this family will be able to transmit 

 their good points to others, and it is eminently 

 desirable that sire and dam should be equally well 

 bred. It is quite obvious that any wished-for features 

 may be intensified by consanguinity, and for this 

 reason it is a common practice for owners toj resort 

 to a good deal of in -breeding, the family likeness 

 by this means being more strongly impressed. Un- 

 fortunately, however, if good points are thus intensi- 

 fied, the converse holds true also, and any con- 

 genital weaknesses become more accentuated by the 

 union. So it happens that if in-breeding is 

 persevered in to an unwise extent we get an inevit- 

 able debilitation of the constitution and a predis- 

 position to disease. At the same time we may find 

 a deterioration in size and vigour, and when these 

 symptoms are noticed we must take warning in time 

 and resort to entirely new blood. Some varieties, 

 owing to the number of individual specimens in this 

 country being few, have been in -bred to such an 

 extent that nothing will serve save a rank out -cross 

 with an entirely different breed. Bloodhounds, for 

 instance, show a distressing predisposition to dis- 

 temper in its acutest form, and from time to time 

 alien blood has been introduced with entirely bene- 

 ficial results. The first two or three generations 

 are shocking mongrels as a rule, but a little mathe- 



