Breeding 251 



There is an inexorable law which book authori- 

 ties do not seem to recognize. It is the law which 

 tends unceasingly to a reproduction of the average 

 quality of the breed. It constantly pulls upward 

 to the average and constantly pulls down. You 

 can take all the phenomena of a season for 

 breeding purposes and the chances are that your 

 result will be merely an excellent average of the 

 breed. Some people have a way of charging this 

 to atavism. As a matter of fact, atavism, or the 

 tendency to throw back to some remote ancestor, 

 is not as threatening as the talk about it would 

 indicate. The law of perpetuating averages is 

 not only threatening, but it is ever present and 

 eternal. It is that law which the breeder must 

 recognize and reckon with. His wonderful 

 winners will come along occasionally ; but he 

 must understand that, whatever his breeding 

 stock, he does very well if he gets results up to 

 a good standard. 



Discussion of breeding and citation of facts and 

 illustrations could go on indefinitely; but this 

 chapter can stop at no better place than with the 

 foregoing statement of the law of averages, a 

 law of such force that the greatest individual dog 

 cannot often raise the level, while despised indi- 

 viduals can gain posthumous laurels through the 

 greatness of their children. The only practical 

 application of the law is to use the best individ- 



