Shollie Breeding Project [SB|NIB|naturally raised]

[Shade]

May 9, 2022 10:38:21 GMT -5 Emil@Skyline said:

May 9, 2022 9:47:08 GMT -5 Shade said:

Seeing your litterz is making me want to open my P5 game back up again <3

You play 3 and 4 more often, yea?

Yeah, I play a lot more in P4, though when I first joined the PC played solely in P5. I still love the game.

[Emil@Skyline]

Hello hello,

Another day has passed and the first two litters have now been weaned, which means that I could finally pair up the favorites. They get along great.

I finally got to look at their personalities. Ace has the gsd SCP, Annie has the "unknown" SCP which in practicality is the Dali SCP that came from the collie BUT she has confidence 100, which is great because I don't want my shollies to be particularly timid. Both are acrobatic, Ace is more, but it creates no practical difference because both are naturals at frisbee. Intelligence lags behind unfortunately. Liveliness and playfulness are fine.

The brown eyes from both parents have mutated into cherry. That's super interesting!

Yes, the leftovers are for adoption now. As much as I would like to keep some of them, I have to keep my goal in mind. You can get them here.

[Emil@Skyline]

Next two litters weaned!

This side of the family is a bit weaker imho.

No gsd legs this time, but Ari (red one) has a gsd body and Adi (sand and chocolate) has a gsd head, pointy ears and the right markings, maybe except the small chocolate patch on the face.

Both dogs have the Dali SCP but ok personality values nonetheless.

Adi has confidence 100, which is always welcome. Acrobaticness only 39 but that doesn't affect him much. Intelligence 19, though I have no trouble teaching him tricks.

Ari has confidence 66, which still doesn't make her timid. Acrobaticness 91, which is through the roof and I'm super proud of that. Intelligence 14, again, no big effect on learning tricks.

Liveliness and playfulness are high - both dogs show interest in toys and aren't lethargic.

The next 4 pairs have already been bred, puppies are going to arrive soon.

[Emil@Skyline]

I also want to mention that the five days each pair has before breeding aren't just spent checking in once and feeding. I actually train the dogs each day, so their offspring has some background already. And indeed that works - the 2nd gens are, from my 2-day experience more likely to do rarer tricks from the start or be interested in and catch the frisbee the first time they see one.

[Thor]

I absolutely love reading and following this thread. I want to do a project like this too. I love that you train them <3

[Emil@Skyline]

May 12, 2022 11:20:45 GMT -5 Thor said:

I absolutely love reading and following this thread. I want to do a project like this too. I love that you train them <3

Thank you _so_ much! I'm trying to be very um... thorough with both the process itself and describing it. I'm happy you felt inspired by it and I'm looking forward to seeing any naturally raised projects (also by others) that pop up. 

[Emil@Skyline]

Hi everyone, I hope you're so far enjoying a good Friday 13th

The next batch of nuggets was born today, four litters all at once. I only have 3 certificates because I clicked away at one.

Also, I'm running out of A names, ugh. I hate naming. At some point my pups are gonna be named aa, ab and ac, I swear.

And finally, the pair without a certificate, Xena and Xavier:

There's not much to say yet aside from the fact that a horrible combination of gender ratio and two one-pup litters isn't giving me much flexibility in picking and pairing up pups, but I have 4 days to think about the setup anyway, so no hurry.

[Emil@Skyline]

Guess what guys

3rd gens are on the way!

[Emil@Skyline]

First out of two 3rd gen litters has arrived and...

Selected for pointy ears and _all_ of the kids have floppy ears. Not one, not two, ALL of them. *facepalm* (I'm thinking if actually some of them don't have both sets of ears at once???) The gsd bodies and collie tails are going strong though, and the markings are passing on great, too. Even though neither parent had a chocolate coat, only one pup is black-coated. So I guess I'm going to consider this a victory nonetheless. Can't wait to look at their SCP and personalities.

I'm going to pick either the first or last boy.

Also, tomorrow's a busy day for the project, as 4 litters of 2nd gens are gonna leave their moms *simultaneously* (which also means updating-the-adoption-thread day, for those of you anticipating it). Secondly, next 3rd gen litter is due tomorrow, which I'm really excited for.

Here's their last photoshoot together:

(Took me a while to group them like that. It's hard to take cute baby pictures when everyone is running everywhere.)

[Emil@Skyline]

Hello everybody, lots of news today.

First of all, new 3rd gen litter! Only one pup, but the gender ratio decided not to obliterate me this time. Girl, gsd body, pointy ears, white markings. Would much prefer a gsd head and collie tail, but oh well, the former seems to be massively dominant.

Feat. Ari trying to pose.

Second of all, after a long thought process, I have picked the 2nd gens I'm keeping from the newer batch.

I'm _very_ happy with these guys' personalities. Lowest intelligence value is 24, highest 40. Acrobaticness mostly in the 40s-50s, but one 80. All except one caught the frisbee on their first try and tricks are going great too. I must say, teaching tricks and frisbee to 2nd gens is a breeze compared to AC dogs. Confidence is over 50 in all of the pups. Unfortunately only Angie (fluffball from the bottom pair) has the german shepherd SCP, I don't know why it's so rare.

And of course, I'm going to be catching up with the adoption thread today.

Ok, tomorrow. Too tired.

[zan]

I'm really enjoying this thread and seeing how your line is going! Looking forward to seeing future generations. Is your plan to eventually have this line breed true for the specific traits you want, or are you going to allow a mix of genes to come up? It's really hard to split off inidvidual traits or breed out ones you don't want and I've never tried it without checking genetics!

[Emil@Skyline]

May 19, 2022 0:24:31 GMT -5 zan said:

I'm really enjoying this thread and seeing how your line is going! Looking forward to seeing future generations. Is your plan to eventually have this line breed true for the specific traits you want, or are you going to allow a mix of genes to come up? It's really hard to split off inidvidual traits or breed out ones you don't want and I've never tried it without checking genetics!

I eventually do want them to breed true, it will just take a lot of time, so I'm not thinking about that distant moment too hard. The only variation I'm taking into account is base coat color.

I check GenePoolz output behind the scenes, but I must admit my understanding of it is kinda vague. Also, not a lot is visible still, as 2nd gens have your typical set 1 is full gsd, set 2 is full collie (or reverse) type of markup. It will likely become clearer once I get further down the line.

[zan]

Yeah, so basically the pups can show visible traits from Set 1 and Set 2, anything that isn't visible on them but is there in the genetics is something that they carry. The genetics often pass in a block like that, which is why you'll see Set 1 look mostly one breed. Sometimes the traits will cross over onto different sets so you may find, for example, a pup that has a few collie parts and the rest GSD. You're right that this will probably be the case more in later gens. This can be useful, but of course it's unlikely that you'll suddenly get the right mix of traits in one set lol, it takes a lot of work most of the time.

Usually when I breed I focus on incorporating one trait at a time into a line, so if I was aiming for a collie ear I'd breed GSD x Collie and then backbreed the pups to GSDs, checking each time that they still have that ear in their genetics, and over time being able to select away from the other collie traits until I only have the ear left in the genetics (probably just in one set, with the rest of the traits being GSD). If I wanted to 'fix' it in the genes I'd then look to breed a pet with that trait in both Set 1 and Set 2. Then I can look at adding another, different trait, since the previous one is already established. Of course, this strategy probably wouldn't work for your project (I inbreed heavily and breed and discard hundreds upon hundreds of pups) but it might be a helpful tip of what to look for in genetics, namely that mix of traits in one of the sets.

[Emil@Skyline]

Hello hello

Annie's 3rd gen pups got weaned today, Ari's will be tomorrow. (This picture shows only the ones I was considering.)

Brutus (chocolate one) is a solid pick, here are his um... results?

Frisbee and tricks are going _wonderful_ btw.

I was hesitating whether or not to choose Boris instead, and for good reason - he has intelligence 50, but everything else is worse, so... sticking to Brutus. Intelligence will catch up anyway, the other two 2nd gen pairs are pretty damn intelligent, there's no way that's not passing on.

No gsd scp, which irritates me to no end, I'll have to hope for more of it in the next pups. And if not, well, I could always change something at whatever point, yea? Overall, the gsd traits are getting kind of obliterated

[Emil@Skyline]

I'm going to pause this project for a moment because:

• Exam session is very close,
  
• I need to re-breed some dogs, as I'm not satisfied so far with how the 3rd gens have come out. I'll probably still breed this bunch down to one dog and see what happens, but it's very likely that I'll go over the same dogs again.