Mike I bought a puppy from Yellow Rose Kennels out of Dan and Misty wanted that Phantom blood put now I see what you where talking about with the aggrestion hope you can breed this out and leave the good things she has a good nose but will fight a fence post
Larry....I know we would all agree that this aggressive behavior is unacceptable. It has been my observation that the huge majority of pointers won't shy away from a fight if it presents itself, however this same group does not look for a scrap either. My personal feeling is this aggressive behavior/trait is from the blending of the Elhew blood with Hook's Bounty Hunter. (For my fingers sake I will refer to Hook's Bounty Hunter as HBH for the remainder of this reply.) I have not seen this aggression in other Elhew lines. I have no personal knowledge of primarily line bred HBH lines void of the Elhew blood. I do know a gentleman that based his line of pointers on crossing European bred pointer females directly to HBH and linebreeding those crosses without any aggressive behavior/traits. I guess I would liken the Elhew/HBH blend to epoxy. Two separate compounds, apart from each other there are no issues. Blend the two compounds together and behold, we have contact.
By all means I am not implying that all of Phantom's offspring showed this trait but I am saying that the worst fighters I have ever been acquainted with were direct offspring of Phantom. My observation of this behavior/trait found in the direct offspring of Phantom fell/falls into 3 categories or levels if you will. Level 1. ( No aggression whatsoever) Level 2. (Somewhat aggressive). Contributing factors - feed/feeding time, kenneled near a dominant dog, hauled in the same box to the field with another dog. No real fight, just snarling and vocalization. We all have seen this in our dogs at some point, so I do not consider this an issue. This can be dealt with by some form of discipline. Level 3. (Frickin' Nuts) The dogs that are found in this category have one thing on their mind around other dogs and that is getting their teeth in them. It doesn't matter to this dog if it is at the kennel, in the box or in the field. They want to open a 55 gallon drum of whoop ass on another dog and that they will do with a passion, quite similar to a pit bull. Contributing factor - breathing.
The dogs of the level 3 type have been completely removed from my facility as you would hopefully expect. The unfortunate fact is there were WAY too many of these types. There was also no rhyme or reason to who or what breeding it would show up in. Some litters would have pups all at level one; some would be a mix of 1 and 2, while other litters would have an even, across the board, distribution of all three levels. I may have made a mistake though, I should have contacted some hog hunter and allowed them to take type 3 and put it down with a feral hog and let 'em get after it! I now realize that many hog hunters have dogs that are crossed with pointers for the contribution of scenting ability and endurance. I assume most of the hog hunters would have welcomed the aggression.....oh well...let's just say mine were culled, HARD.
I have raised two litters, double bred from Phantom. Although still young I can safely say that the aggressive behavior/trait has diminished. The sire to both litters was Mr. ELhew Bo'Darc, a son of Phantom out of a half Elhew half Fiddler female. The females of each litter were out of predominately Fiddler bred dams. I will continue to watch very carefully for this trait to try and raise it's ugly head again. I will take corrective action very quickly if it does.
I do not feel that I made a mistake by introducing Phantom into my Fiddler gene pool, as he brought alot of great attributes to the table. But I certainly have had some set backs because of this aggression as far as where I feel I should be with this line.
I haven't seen a lot of aggression out of Lily, my nearly one year old female out of Mr. Elhew Bo'Darc X Bo'Darc Phantom D'Livery. One thing she does that is kind of interesting is sometimes when in her kennel or the chain gang & the other dogs are out in the yard running, she may lay flat down on the ground awaiting one of the other dogs to come by. My take on that (for what it's worth) is she is expressing an innate, instinctive move to make her self smaller so she can pounce on the dog when it nears.
This dog has the best nose I have ever seen on a dog. It is not unusual for her to point a planted pigeon 25 - 30 yards away. She has a very stylish point also, high head - straight up 90% tail.
Tommy I am glad to hear that Lilly doesn't show any aggression. As I said I have seen alot less of this with just one generation removed from Phantom. I am also glad to hear she has a good nose on her. Here's a couple of pictures of Lilly that Tommy has e-mail mein the past.
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
As you may recall, I've owned dogs directly out of Hooks. Have had males and females from different breedings with Hook's as a direct sire to the Sire/Dam and all were alligators. Genetically gifted dogs for nose, natural ability, style and real athletic, but down right mean towards any other dog - not people.
I agree you need to be 2 generations removed in order to take it out. I have two now that the dam of these dogs is a direct daughter to Elhew Mary who was by Hooks and have zero problems with fighting.
John...Thank you for your input on this subject. This first hand knowledge of the direct offspring of Bounty Hunter is something I did not have, as I never was able to own any. This brings to light what I have felt all along, the culprit was Bounty Hunter. As you say of him, so was Phantom and his offspring, very gifted animals. You also called it right in being them being alligators. But with Phantom's offspring already being another generation removed from Bounty Hunter, some were not that way and as I move away yet some more I hope to see it completely subside. Thank you again for your first hand knowledge shared with us on this matter.
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
Mike just got back to here to see what everyone had to say. I was suprized at the response. Penny is 6 months old and is very aggersive put loves people. My wife raises show Mastives that full grown weigh 200 we have a puppy that is a month older then penny and weighs 105 penny will fight her for unknown reasons. I do think that you are right on the 3 kinds on the hooks dogs I had a bitch out of Snakefoot Babe we will call her from now on and she would not fight at all.
Reading here about Yellow rose I do have to agree But they are selling the sraight tail elhew pointer penny has a bad tail right now and I ask about this and they said that till a dog is a year old that you can never tell I call bull**** on this sould have known better what you see is what you get!!!!! Rick Grover sould be out of buisnes if they keep up the way they are they will be. Do not get me wrong Penny has a better nose then any dog I have every had but I will not stand for this fighting. Mike was Phantom a fighter??? When I breed Babe to Dan a old man at Brads told me that Phatom had thrown more good birddogs then any dog he had seen I have a high respect for him what do you think??? Do not worry about hurting my feelings say it like you see it!!!!
Larry...It took me a while to find your response. It showed up in the middle of this thread, as I'm sure this will as well, since I am responding to your comment. Anyways, it has been my experience that you do have to wait several months on dogs of Elhew breeding to see where the tail is going to end up. On Wehle’s video he talks about some pups with "ropey" tails. My best guess is that he was comparing their tails to a limber rope maybe even a wet noodle! ALOT and I do mean ALOT of Elhew bred dogs have tails such as this as a young dog and it is not uncommon for them to be 6 to 8 months old before you start to really see what you have tail wise. By saying a year old I guess that leaves alot of leeway but regardless it will take quite a while to see what you've got. After a year old I wouldn't expect to see much change in where the tail is positioned.
This very topic was discussed ALOT by me and Tony Davis, after I started raising pups off of Phantom. I was not used to seeing these "Gateway Arch" tails on my pups. I was used to seeing straight or pump handled tails on my Fiddler bred pups but this "rolled" tail was a little tough for me to swallow. Tony encouraged me to just wait and give them a chance to mature and he was right. The biggest majority of the tails from Phantom’s offspring did make it to acceptable levels. One of these days I'm going to have a topic just on tails, for us to ponder.
As for Phantom himself being a fighter I did have some problems with him around male dogs especially. I did not find this alarming though as he had been bred quite a bit before I got him and I just figured it was a stud dog, macho thing. As he got older he became more difficult to breed as he was becoming less tolerant of females. The last breeding attempts I tried to make with him, wasn't much more than a growl and snarl session.
As far as Phantom as a producer, day in and day out you will not find but just a VERY small handful of stud dogs that would or will equal Phantom in producing good quality boot leather birddogs. Others that come to mind are CH. Slate Creek Doc, Elhew Damascus and CH. Fiddler’s Ace.
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
Mike as you well know I had phantom around for a very long time and I can safely say (and with experience in the matter) that phantom did have offspring that would fight and would rather fight than eat, hunt, have sex, or pretty much anything else. I have seen phantom bred to every different kind of bloodline that we have today and with the exception of the miller bloodline, he pretty much had fighters in all of them. But even with that flaw I still beleive that Phantom was one of the best Elhew sires that there was. (maybe because of McGOO and KIWI) and by the way April will point everything in sight or smell, but is wild as can be.
I agree with you Tony, that Phantom was one of the best Elhew sires. I have often wondered though, if Phantom had aquired less of the Bounty Hunter traits, if he would not have been even a better producer? On the other side of that thought , was it actually this very Bounty Hunter influence (the good stuff) that allowed Phantom to be such a great producer. Who knows....I just wished the undersiable trait (not that I want undersireable traits, but the bottom line is all dogs have them, it's just a matter of what you can tollerate) wasn't something as dramatic as being a fighter. I would have prefered it to be something a little more insignificant as cherry eye or undershot or something along those lines, instead of being so dog agressive. I can hunt a dog that had cherry eye or is undershot, I cannot hunt a fighter...
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
I think we need to talk about something else that needs to be discussed about the yellow rose kennels. Did you buy a pup or a started dog? I bought a started dog from them thats was supposed to be steady to wing and shot, whoa broke and could back. She was not steady to wing and shot and had never been trained to back on dogs and was not even close to being finished with whoa breaking. I talked to the trainer of this dog he said he never trained her to back or to be steady to wing and shot. I tried to discuss this with them at yellow rose and they were nothing but rude and pissed off that I questioned them. I would never deal with them again all they care about is charging you a premium for a 12:00 straight tail and not the quality of the dog. Also Dan is not a yellow rose dog once yellow rosed recieved him they automatically changed his name to make it sound like they raised this dog. They are a joke, but I truley hope your dog works for you and it came out of a nice stud.
Jimbo....I have not had any dealing with Yellow Rose (or YR from now on) nor do I expect to, so all I have to respond with is what I have been told by others. It is not my intent to bash anyone or any kennel with what I am about to say. It is merely my opinion and what I feel separates me from them/others.
You voiced a concern that I have repeatedly heard over and over again regarding this operation. The other topic that reoccurs concerns papers matching the dogs. Many folks that visit this forum have had dealing with this kennel. Several had similar results/concerns that you have expressed. I can say that of the folks that have talked to me about this matter, the majority has been of a negative opinion. The dogs seemed to be fine; most are good dogs, they are just misrepresented in some fashion, and then after the sale any discussion has been with some form of tension or denial.
It is in my opinion that a kennel is only as good as the operator’s word. My reputation in dealing fairly with all is of utmost importance to me. Bad news is down the road and around the corner before good news ever gets it’s shoes on and out the door.
A couple of other items that separates this kennel from YR are the number of litters/pups raised in a year and the genetics involved. It is not in my plans to ever raise that number of dogs. I have a job, so therefore I don’t need to sell dogs to “bring home the bacon”. I have no idea if the operator of YR has employment or not, it is not of my concern, but by the number of pups/litters raised, I feel it is a safe assumption that they do not.
As far as genetics, it is safe to say that they, YR, are like one of the many kennels that are riding along the mystique of the Elhew family. There are many people who will not own anything but an Elhew bred dog. All I can say is more power to them. I have never considered myself as a follower, so it would come as no surprise that I have something different than the masses. Oh yes I do have Elhew genetics in my kennel, but the reasoning for it being there differs from most, that being, I am using it as an outcross. I wanted to find something that I could blend back into this Fiddler/Nell’s Rambling On family of dogs that I have. Those outcrosses come in the form of CH. Slate Creek Doc, Elhew Italy/Elhew Huckatuck and Hook’s Bounty Hunter… that’s it. The only other genetics that differ from this are found in Bo’Darc Fiddlin Hi-Rise and that through Cricket’s sire’s dam, if that makes any sense.
Anyway Jimbo, thanks for your input. I know others have wanted to say something but decided not to. It may be said best, LET THE RECORD SPEAK FOR ITSELF.
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
Below is a copy of an e-mail I received from Rick Steen. Rick along with Dale Guthormsen, a member of this forum, are residents of Canada and they have littermates that are out of Bo'Darc Phantom D'Livery by Mr. Elhew Bo'Darc. These pups are double grand pups of Elhew Phantom. Here is what Rick wrote to me.....
Good morning Mike,
Hope all is well,
I have just finished reading the forum regarding Phantom, the pup I got from you is exactly the opposite, he is the smartest young dog I have ever been around, he has all the very positive traits.... there is just not one mean bone in his body, he is a complete package.
He will be going with me to the Prairies this summer, for I will be at Dales training, then we will see where he stands in the big picture, for I have never seen a pup with the ground speed and "real' endurance as he has, couple this with biddability and he may just have it all.
A question for you, is there a DNA certificate available from the Dam and Sire? I also feel he is good enough of a dog to be registered, his registered name will be "Nell's Rambling Oak"
Have a good one
Rick
This pup is a littermate to one pictured above owned by Tommy Graham as well as the one mentioned by Tony Davis. No pup from this mating has showed ANY undesirable traits, with the exception of being as Tony said, on "the wild side". They are all bird dogs without a doubt.
I am under the opinion at this time, that the dog aggressive trait found within about 10 to 15% of Elhew Phantom's direct offspring has been diminished in my breedings by the heavy Fiddler influence found through the motherlines of both the sire and the dam. Again these are young dogs so I worded it as my opinion "at this time", but the other double bred Phantom litter I have raised (Bo'Darc Phantom Blues to Mr. Elhew Bo'Darc) shows no signs of the aggression either. The Fiddler blood appears to have cleaned up/buried the problem.
Some may wonder or question why would I intentionally breed to a known carrier of this undesirable trait. I would answer that by saying that only a small amount of Phantom's offspring showed this trait, again maybe 10 to 15%. ALL of his offspring were outstanding gun dogs with a huge amount being the very best natural retrievers and natural backers I've ever seen. It was only after a few years and several litters later did I find the aggression problem, but that did not deter me from breeding to him. The percentages were definitely in my favor of producing very talented dogs that were not dog aggressive, and by now continuing to cross the Phantom blood back into the Fiddler blood I still have the talent and natural giftedness, but now without any signs of a fight.
Something I want to add to this topic is what I feel often overlooked in many breedings and that is “Proper Selection”. This is a topic that we should discuss altogether separately but I just want to touch on it here for a second. As I stated earlier all of the Phantom offspring that I was associated with were very naturally talented and gifted dogs. The kind of dogs that you want to breed to. Here to me is part one in eliminating the undesirable trait, that being, NONE of the direct offspring of Elhew Phantom that I have or am using to breed, have shown ANY signs of being dog aggression. By selecting individuals used for breeding that were not dog aggressive and then by, part two, blending in the Fiddler genetics is, in my opinion, the real key to extinguishing this matter.
Mike...In response to your last comments; I don't think you could put it any better!!! Selection is not just important, it is AS important as any breeding tool we have(especially where intensive line breeding is envolved). If the idea behind line breeding is to "set" traits and improve consistancy, how can we afford to lock in negative traits such as aggresion. The combination of using genetically strong lines, having knowledge of specific dogs within these lines, and sellecting the right pups and dogs to breed from crossing any one of a few different lines(I think) has had alot to do with your success as a breeder of quality dogs. Hopefully, with your knowledge, a good eye, and possibly a little luck, you can take the positive characteristics your outcross lines have to offer, improve on the strong line you already have, and with continued line breeding lock in these traits!!! Looking at some of your recent breedings, you are well on your way and I can't wait to see what the next few years hold for you!
Also...I'm thrilled to hear about the Stitch/Wendy mating. Beth and I were talking the other day about a possible road trip, and driving out to see you and your family was at the top of our list. Hopefully, if a pup is available, we can get back out to Ponca City!!!
Hoyt...Yes, selection is as important as anything that I am doing at this point in this kennel's breeding program. My only regret is that I am not independently wealthy so that I could do this full time and raise 15 or so litters a year. This would help fill the bill on all the folks that are looking for females and it could possibly help speed up the process of solidifying this line of dogs. I guess on the other hand, it could also speed up the process of this kennel’s demise!!
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
Is the aggression you have spoke of in Phantom breedings only towards dogs or also people? Does it show in males and females? My bitch out of Phantom shows no aggression, but a bitch I have whose grandsire is Mcgoo from a different male other than Phantom does not get along with other dogs. She was just in heat and I was concerned about getting her bred because of it.
Jared....I have never been associated with or know of any human aggressive dogs from this HBH line, only dog aggressive. As far as the seeing it in the males and females my experience is that it is just as random between the sexes as it is between the individual dogs that show this trait. There is no rhyme or reason to it. Your experience with this dog aggression you've just shared shows me that my suspicions are correct in that the real carrier of this dog aggressive trait is Bounty Hunter.
I would hope that if anyone who had a human aggressive dog would eliminate this problem IMMEDIATELY! There is NO WAY that any dog is worth keeping around that would harm anyone. And as sad as it is the reality of this scenario is that the ones that usually get dog bit are kids. Again I have never heard of or seen any dogs from this line that were human aggressive but if there were any, I would hope that the owners would do the responsible thing and cull the problem QUICK!!!
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
Mike we were talking about this thread this past weekend, me and several old timers that is. I asked them all, three of which had ran against HBH, about the agression problem and none of them had ever seen it out of HBH. They all said actually he was a passive dog who could care less about the other dog unless it was to back them.
I own presently 3 and had 4 that were all heavy HBH in the third gen, one of which had HBH 3 times in that gen and none have any agression problems with other dogs. Far as the agression issues go I would look closer up than HBH to how tight some of these breedings are. I have seen more agression from dogs, regardless of breed or line, from dogs that are simply paper bred dogs. Too often nowdays it's all about the paper and not the actual dog on the ground in many breeding operations. That in and of itself according to quite a few men who have been breeding since the 40 is where most problems they have seen over the years has come from. Just my and some older timers .02 .
Duane...Thanks for the info. I guess I'm more confused now than ever about this coming from Bounty Hunter. I'm just glad that the offspring that I have available to me do not show any signs of this trait nor have any of their offspring.
You are very right about some folks just breeding paper. I myself was guilty of that years ago when every dog I had on the yard was sired by one champion or another except for one, Pat. Pat was the only real birddog of the whole lot. I learned the hard way about the "paper chase". This goes back to the topic of selection that we have discussed earlier in this thread. Papers are a good place for someone to start in the selection process for breeding but it doesn't end there, selecting a tried and true dog of the correct type is more important. To complicate matters more though, is the fact that some dogs are the real deal, they are great in the field but they cannot reproduce themselves. They are only capable of producing what I would consider sub par dogs. That’s why it's so important to me that I breed this family of dogs that I have now responsibly, because they do reproduce dogs as good as themselves or even better. That is also what disturbed me outcrossing to Phantom, what did unknowing bring into this family of dogs? All of Phantom's offspring that I know of are super in the field but some of them were a little wacko when they were around other dogs. Again I think it's back to selection, by not using dogs that showed this aggressive trait, it is definitely on it's way out, no matter where it came from.
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
By the way, no pups that I know of out of my phantom bitch have shown aggression.
Some other questions on genetics:
2 pups from a previous litter of mine had cherry eye, they were from my phantom bitch and the sire was out of Susans Joy and Big Delivery. Being familiar with both these dogs Mike, where do you think it came from.
Are there any traits that are passed only through the male and others only through the female?
Jared....I am glad to hear that your female is not a carrier of the aggression trait. I bet those pups out of her and the Big/Susan male were very nice dogs. I have found the Cherry Eye predominately in the Fiddler line but I've also seen it in the Guard Rail line. Cherry eye is found throughout different dog breeds, not just Pointers. It is, in my opinion, a relative “non-issue” undesirable trait. I have not seen cherry eye in my pups for about 2 years of breeding now. I used to see it quite a bit. By observing the surgical process over my vet’s shoulder, I decided I was capable of performing this minor surgery just as I remove the dew-claws on my pups. It is something that I would prefer not to be found in a pup but to me it is not a big deal either. If for instance I was told that every pup from now on was to have 1 undesirable trait either cherry eye or the dog aggression, I’d take the cherry eye without question. You can still hunt and breed a dog that carries this trait as where the aggression needs to be eliminated.
Jared I am sure that some hereditary traits, both good and bad, are found coming from the sire and or dam. Some are dominant some are recessive. We really need Hoyt’s input on this question to give us some enlightenment. Let’s see if he’ll help answer this one……
"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."
Mike...I'll be glad to share what little I know, but at the risk of creating more confusion than enlightenment! Cherry Eye, like many other heritable diseases has mode of inheritance which is unknown. This is perhaps why cherry eye seems so sporadic and unpredictable in nature. My guess(and I stress guess) is that cherry eye is polygenic rather than simple. Simply put, there may be multiple genes contolling expession of a certain trait or in this case disease.
Concerning inheritance from either the dam or the sire, "it takes two to tango". In it's simplest form, as mentioned above, a disease would be simple autosomal with complete dominance. For ease of explanation I,ll put the following scheme in table form! The letter pairs represent alleles(homologous gene pairs, one from the sire and one from dam).
AA=homozygous dominant(unaffected)
Aa=heterozygous(carrier)=NO expression of neg. trait!!!!
aa=homozygous recessive(affected)
AAxAA=no expression of negative trait(unaffected)
AAxAa=no expression of neg. trait but may produce carrier
AaxAa=production of unaffected, carriers & affected
Aaxaa=production of both carrier & affected
aaxaa=expression of negative trait (affected)
With the above in mind, imagine how confusing it can get when multiple genes are envolved and some of these genes display incomplete rather than complete dominance, and then throw on top of all that any environmental factors that may also affect expression. It can really get messy!
Mike...I hope this helps explain somewhat, why a disease like cherry eye can be so difficult to trace and remove from a population. Hope everything is going well and look forward to talking to ya soon!!!
Hoyt...Thank you for you valued input. The break down you have shown us, such AA or Aa, shows how difficult it really is to develop a PURE strain of dogs. As you can see from Hoyt’s explanation, there are ALOT of variables in each mating. We can also see that even though the sire and the dam “appear” to be free of any undesirable traits, they can be carriers of the undesirable trait. If this breeding was easy good dogs could be found everywhere in every mating from every line….we all know that is not the case!
Hoyt, Thank you so much for you sharing your knowledge with us and putting the scientific spin on these topics when we head in that direction…..
It's Hook's. As I noted before, I've owned several that Hook's was a direct sire/grandsire and both were fighters. Didn't matter wat sex. Mine were mostly Elhew blood, so maybe there are some crosses out there where the aggression is not so evident or non existent. Jan Zarabicki had Hook's for a while as did Billy Holmes and I think both will tell you he was a gifted dog and threw gifted dogs, but aggressive.
