Coolies

[AdrianneIsabel]

Originally Posted by Dizzy

I think variety comes with dogs where working is the desirable trait, then looks. Look at any working dog breed.... It's only when conformation becomes the desired trait that its becomes uniform for a few people.

I can look at many working breeds and find relative consistency in the breed, further in the line, and predictability in a breeding.

Backup hasn't a lick of show lines in his blood and yet his sister and he could be switched and you'd have to look twice.

I don't think I buy that only when show dogs come into play do we get consistency of dogs. Furthermore it's not just cookie cutters I am referring to, many traits are essential to workability and some are unique to certain breeds, or in less common place their breeders.

I may have strayed from my initial question of consistency of breed, I accept that my eye is not well enough trained on this breed yet (but I would still love someone to list the similarities so I can better educate myself).

I am now curious though more with the representation of variety within a litter, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

In the past it has been to my understanding that an inconsistency in a breeding is not ideal (recently it was commented in the American cocker thread that a good breeder would have more consistency in their litter than needing to place all of their winning hopes on one pup).