Principles of Breeding

A. Thinking about breeding your Jindo?

There are at least four factors that a potential breeder should seriously consider before breeding his/her Jindo: 1) Purity, 2) Conformation, 3) Temperament, and 4) Health.

1) Is my dog pure?

This may sound like a silly question if you have registry papers on your dog, but seriously, there ARE Jindo mixes with papers. This is because for decades, breeders had only an honor system to keep track of dogs, and like in every other facet of life, there have been abusers of that honor system. In addition, some Jindo breeders honestly believe that it is okay to use mixed Jindos in breeding programs as long as the offsprings are selected to physically look similar to purebred Jindos- a practice called "grandfathering" in English terms. Of course, this practice is deterimental to preserving and protecting the Jindo breed as temperament and health characteristics of purebred Jindos are diluted or lost.

Familiarity with Jindos can help in determining whether your dog is pure or not, but ultimately, you'll want to ask Jindo experts for this task.

2) Is my dog physically a good example of the breed and conforms to the breed standard?

A good breeder only breeds to better the breed. They ask themselves whether the next generation that they produce will be better than the previous one. This can be done by thoughtfully considering the weaknesses and strengths of both male and female dogs to be bred. Do either dog have a serious fault that would take generattions to correct or a minor one? If a dog has a serious fault, one might consider not using the dog at all and instead start off fresh with a better quality Jindo. It used to be thought that there were too few Jindos in the United States due to Korean law and so it was okay to breed mediocre Jindos in order to keep a diverse gene pool. That is no longer the case now as better quality Jindos can be imported into the United States more easily.

If either dog has a minor fault, ask whether this particular breeding between the two dogs will lessen or increase the appearance of the fault.

A good tool in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your Jindo is to attend various Jindo shows and/or email various Jindo judges online. Because it's hard to be objective about one's own dogs (it's a very common affliction called kennel blindness), it's a good idea to get as many objective and different opinions on one's dogs.

Of course in an ideal world, the best kind of breeding would be between dogs with no weaknesses at all.

3) Is my dog temperamentally sound?

This is often a forgotten factor in breeding, but how a Jindo acts and behaves is just as important as how it looks. Indeed, a Jindo that does not act like a Jindo is generally disowned by Jindo fanciers as a mix. This shows how important the temperament factor is. A breeder should be familar with the temperament of a traditional Jindo of Korea and compare his or her dog against that model instead of some of the not-so-great temperaments in the United States. For instance, a Jindo that attacks human family members should not be considered for breeding.

4) Is my dog healthy?

A Jindo, whether male of female, should be healthy before being bred. They should be genetically fit and physically fit.

The Jindo is said to be a genetically healthy breed because it was developed under natural selection instead of artificial, human selection. However, during this present age, the Jindo has moved away from natural selection and moved towards human selection. Combined with the practice of in-breeding/line-breeding, the chances of genetic diseases have increased in the breed. Breeders need to be on special guard against these genetic diseases so they do not spread it even further in the general Jindo population.

 

B. Matching Guidelines

Korean suggestions*	Translation into American dog lingo**	American suggestions**
male should be the big stream	I'd interpret this as the male should be very typey and a good example of what you want to produce in the litter. He should have very good breed type.	American thought on this is that a male has the potential to have a larger impact on the breed (because he can produce more pups) so it's very important that if you do use a male for breeding he has good overall type. Even more so than the female...your female should be very good before using her for breeding, the male you breed her to needs to be excellent.
female should support, decorate, complement the main stream well to complete the dog	Female should also have good breed type, and her good features/faults should support and complement the males. If he has a fault the female bred to him should be strong in that area and overall general type should be similar.	The American dog community usually thinks in terms of the female and then finding a male who compliments/improves on her faults. It works just as well going the other direction.
male-ish female dogs should be matched with similar typed dogs or alternative male dogs (bit female-ish males)	In American dog language this would translate as you would want to breed a doggy bitch to either a male who closely resembles her or to a bitchy dog.	In comparison, I recently heard an American dog breeder say that you would want to breed a doggy bitch to a male who is not overdone and excessive, but not to a bitchy dog. In other words breed a fault to the ideal and not to another fault.
compatibleness between dogs should be judged on their deeper root of that dog.	In the past, the term "root" was used in terms of the depth of the pedigree... how strong a certain type has been fixed in the line. I believe it's analogous to using a highly line-bred dog (or at least homozygous in many traits) and mating it to an out-crossed dog. It's expected that the traits of the line-bred dog would pre-dominate in the resulting puppies.	same
if a dog has a mixed structure/attributes, match with similar typed dogs.	Breed like to like. Don't breed extremes to each other. Similar type to similar type with focus on correcting the faults of both parents will give better results than breeding two dogs who are very dis-similar.	same
good match would be when male and female can complement on each other's weaknesses.		No translation needed. It's one of the basic principles of dog breeding!
Final comments: It's really hard to breed well, to tell if a dog is a good match with another.		I've heard it said that breeding dogs is as much an art as it is a science, and that there is no question a good dose of luck doesn't hurt.

 

* source who wishes to remain anonymous

** provided with the help of Nichole Royer and Patty Etherington