What is outcrossing?
Outcrossing is where the sire and dam are totally unrelated, preferably for three or four generations. The true form of an outcross is between two entirely different breeds because in reality the members of most registered breeds come from a common ancestor (althought it may be many, many generations back). It is very rare for outcrossed puppies to be uniform in appearance. Usually there are a very large ranges of sizes, coats, colors, markings, and other distinctive characteristics. Outcrossed litters are generally heterozygous, and do not reliably reproduce themselves, so even the nicest puppy in the litter may not later produce the best puppies. Outcrossing is generally used to introduce something new to a line — a better head, better colors, better front, etc. Usually the puppies retained from these breedings are bred back into the breeder’s original line to standardize them back into the line’s general characteristics and reproducibility — with the one desired characteristic. Th
