Q. This may or may not be a simple question but I’ll ask it anyhow. Does a puppy take more characteristics from the sire or dam? Is there a general rule when breeding that the pups will end up more like one than the other, usually?
A. No, not a simple question. One would expect that puppies would end up with a 50/50 split of their parents genes but that is rarely the case when we roll the genetic dice. Some suggest that the female has a greater influence because the pups spend the first 5 to 7 weeks of their lives with her. What does seem to happen is that certain dogs, both male and female, have been documented to be genetically more dominant. For instance, Guard Rail's dame, Nell's Rambling On, was bred to a number of different males and produced champions from all her litters. She's what is referred to as "Blue Hen" -- a female that produces dogs of higher quality then she was. On the other hand there are males that seem to produce dogs that mirror them like a cookie cutter -- these are referred to as prepotent sires. Jack's sire, Wynot Ace was very much that way and many of his offspring were easy to pick out. Based on only the data of the first litter I would say that the Jack X Trip cross is a case where we have another male dog with a certain amount of prepotency as all the pups looked more like Jack than Trip to the point that people that don't know them often get LJ and Jack confused as they have very similar heads and conformation which is not a bad thing and I for one hope that trend continues in the future litters.
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| Wynot Ace |
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| Wild Apple Jack (Ace Son) |
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| Autumn Moon (Ace Son, Jack's Littermate) |
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| Mike (Jack's Younger Brother) |
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| Wild Apple Trey (Jack's Younger Brother) |
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| Wild Apple LJ (Jack X Trip) |
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| Wild Apple LJ and littermate Wild Apple Pi |
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| Female Littermate to LJ and Pi |
