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The problem is, by the time you convince everyone that you have it, you have probably lost it.

I've heard that Van Johnson's strain(esp. the blue colored ones) come from Sm. Riv. Diamond Jim.

Dont know who would have the original strain of blues.

But IMO to have your own strain or line with in a breed or just mix bred you have to have been line breeding long enough that there is some kind of identifiable consistancy in the offspring like body structure, size, color.

Establishing ones own line is near impossible to do without some outside help. Like horsenhound said by the time you got it, you lost it haha

houndnhorse wrote:The problem is, by the time you convince everyone that you have it, you have probably lost it.

Yep, right on 9 times out of ten!

-Breed
-Strain
-Family

I too had to look up the definitions. Cobalt and Big Mike are right. The key to a strain are readily identifiable characteristics that set them apart within a breed. These terms and many others are indeed used rather loosely as Mike Leonard suggested. You see it everyday in the difference in generations. The word sick for example. It used to mean ill heath, then sick as in bad, and now when the younger generation says that's sick, it means crazy good.

How about the term dryground? Dryground is dry ground in an arid envronment, 10-15% relative humidity or less. All else is bareground, yet it is missused every day also.

Oh well...

How about the term dryground? Dryground is dry ground in an arid envronment, 10-15% relative humidity or less. All else is bareground, yet it is missused every day also.

yes it is. this mix up of terms can be misleading dry ground and bare ground are totally different animals most times. here if I go to the higher altitudes I can find bare ground and its easier on the hounds but you get a cat traveling through the lower hill country and thats dry ground for sure. I get a kick out of "dry" ground lion pics with the cat sittin in a big ol' evergreen either they trailed that cat a looong ways or it's bare ground.

Hi,

Well to my understanding, you get to have a strain when you get contant with what you are looking for, for example, the offsprings of your hounds have the same confromation, intelligence, mouth, nose, track, etc.
Just like Cameron´s hounds, he bread to his own standard, he culled what other people wouldn´t of culled, but you see a pic, and usually you can say that´s a cameron hound!,
Like Cascade hounds, they came from Cameron, but he is breeding according to him what should be best for his likings, and in not the so long run, we are going to see that his hounds are difrent than cameron´s because he might keep a hound that Cameron might cull, and viceversa, he might cull a hound that Cameron might keep.
Hope I made my self clear, as you can see I am from Mexico, and english is my second language.

Saludos

Minero

Who has the right to say they have an original strain

Anybody that wants too.

Everyone in this country has a right to freedom of speech. They can claim what ever they want.

Everyone also has their own opinion. Here's mine. Who ever decided to breed a female to a dog hound gets the credit or blame for the results. Breeding hounds is mostly making decisions. Who gets culled and who gets bred. Tough choices. Each one has a huge impact on the next generation. No two people will ever make the same choices. Don't go putting someone else's name on your product. He most likely would not have done it that way.

For example: Lester Nance has been dead for years. Nobody has Nance bred dogs anymore. Lots of folks claim they do. That's their right. Who are any of us to tell them different?

Let me ask another question... If we take a winning strand or line of dogs and don't hunt or cull just reproduce them what will we have after ten generations? Will it match the original designed for a purpose?

My point proves only one thing. Dogs are only as good as the breeder. That's why, after generations, a breeder like Del Cameron is famous. His selectiveness engineered what we now hold as a fine example of a big game mountain hound. We as houndsmen must attempt to only breed the best examples we can find and not breed without purpose. I am not the expert and I don't know how to do everything right. Not yet, but I will keep trying.