What Every New and Experienced Breeder Should Know! A reader-friendly toolbox chock full of practical genetic principles by award-winning breeder, Claudia Orlandi. The ABCs of Dog Breeding takes an easy-to-understand, step-by-step approach to breeding and is designed to help anyone find success and joy in their quest to produce beautiful, healthy dogs for showing or performance.

Hundreds of eye-catching graphics, along with brightly-colored interior pages, extra-large print, and original artwork enhance learning and make this science-based manual a visually unique reference to which serious dog breeders will return again and again.

The ABCs of Dog Breeding is the foundation for the author's more than 150 popular seminars on dog breeding and canine anatomy.

A toolbox approach discusses (1) Genetics, (2) Breeding Systems, (3) Pedigree, (4) Selection, (5) Genetic Defects, (6) Anatomy and (7) Kennel Blindness, in a step-by-step format with a goal of giving breeders the knowledge and confidence to make sound breeding decisions.

Genetic principles dispel myths related to topics like the following:

Is the sire more important than the dam?
What is the definition of inbreeding / linebreeding?
Should an inferior dog with an excellent pedigree be bred?
Is the pedigree more important than the dog itself?
Is breeding to the littermate of a favored dog the same as breeding to the favored dog itself?
Is there scientific validity to the tail male/tail female theory of breeding?

Along with extensive references, each chapter in the ABCs of Dog Breeding includes Real Life! sections, which highlight breeding concepts; Bark Smart Charts, which summarize key points; and Toss Up study guide questions.

Successfully breeding purebred dogs is 50% science and 50% art. The SCIENCE of breeding deals with the breeding systems (inbreeding/linebreeding and outcrossing) used to mate each dog and calls for a knowledge of genetic principles. The ART of breeding has to do with the dogs that you select to mate and requires an understanding of anatomy and an eye for a dog, which is the ability to evaluate a dog as one piece in terms of quality, balance and correctness.

Many dog breeders ignore genetic principles! Reasons range from: "genetics is over my head," to "randomness and chance in breeding make genetics pointless" to the most popular chant: "genetics is boring and I'm OK without it!"

The reality is, breeding revolves around randomness and chance and if we understand and use genetic principles, we have a set of breeding rules to follow. Not following these rules increases the chance of producing inferior dogs who are more prone to health problems; we also waste time and resources. Observing the rules of genetics provides a short cut to breeding better, healthier dogs.

Longterm breeding success requires an understanding of why something happens in a breeding program. This is the stuff of genetics and is key to keeping the good things and eliminating undesirable traits in the dogs we breed. Just as our ability to read and write requires learning our ABCs, learning to breed purebred dogs begins with a layman's understanding of how a sire and dam pass traits on to offspring. The ABCs of Dog Breeding is written for serious breeders who wish to learn practical, easy-to-use breeding principles that will help them make better breeding decisions.