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Harking from technical and medical excellent Champions Book through to the
backgrounds we are very much data and Kennel Club’s own archives, it was clear that the
evidence-driven people. Our mantra is look big data we were seeking did not exist in one
back and learn to move forward for the better. single repository and if we wanted it we would
Looking backwards to study & understand need to create it.
historical facts before planning what can be
During our fairly short time in the breed we
successful in the future was key to us, so before
have developed a real thirst for information
embarking into breeding and the purchase of
and data about these perfect little dogs. What
breeding stock we needed data.
surprised us early on, was the difficulty we had
Given that we were relative newbies to the finding meaningful information related to breed,
breed we had little experience to draw upon whether it be successful U.K. breed lines, breed
or a support network to help build a plan. So, champions, leading kennels, top CC winners,
we set off in our quest for data and factual leading sires or leading broods etc. We felt that
evidence about the breed that would support for us to create a breed plan to meet our vision,
the development of a breeding plan. We very it was critical to understand the background and
quickly realised that the data we were looking history of the breed in some detail. This led us to
for could not easily be found and much of the undertaking a significant amount of investigative
history of the breed was at risk of being lost work to establish our own ETT database and
forever. Although there were pockets of great deliver the big data we wanted.
data stretching from Mr J.R. Richardson’s
Many hundreds of hours have been spent pedigree data for over 3000 dogs and much
collating data from multiple sources. We more. Lineage and tail-line analysis, logs of all
received support from a multitude of breed 341 breed champions ever crowned with every
specialists, but special mention should be CC ever won. Details of every mating that’s
made at this point to the late Roy Wilson, Andy logged, can be analysed for its relative success,
Leonard & John Richardson for their help and C.O.I. etc. Success of a particular kennel,
support. or stud dog or brood bitch can all be quickly
analysed plus much more.
The database currently contains 10 generation
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K9 NEWS DIGITAL / MAY 2021
