I finally decided to neuter Gideon. It wasn't that hard of a decision, he has pups and grand pups who are doing very well in the show ring and on the field, and are making their impact.  I had no plans to breed him any more, and he can run quite well without his gonads. He remains the grand champion Reserve Winners Dog in Specialty Show winner in the breed, with I think 5 of those awards. I retired him from showing quite some time ago. He has lovely movement, and is quite attractive overall, but has a slightly overshot bite, which was the cause of the many , many RWD awards . His real accomplishments have been on the field, being the first racing champion, SRC, as well as the first SRCX in the breed.

 I have my Architecture and Mythos litter pups to focus on, from Tyler and Cinder, and Connor and Sheba , Dresden, Ilsa, and Helios,  and they have the speed , structure,  movement and temperament I love  to see in this breed.

 I've got Sazi, Ronan, and Sony down from Gideon to Sheba as well. They have his good traits, his "prettiness", movement, running ability, and focus as well.

 Gideon may, in his "veteran" years, be a good dog to run with youngsters in training, since he is very focused, and will correct nonsense on the go. We recently ran him with he and Cinders grandson , Scirocco's Dakar, who was being a bit unfocused in practice, and it seemed to have helped focus him .

 His bloodline is not rare, it's one of the most common in the breed, and still being bred more / inbred on , so it wasn't like his line is anything special in terms of diversity, almost the reverse, so it seemed un neccessary in terms of doing good for the gene pool of a rare breed to continue with breeding him more. Diversity is better served with few litters by more individuals than many litters by few individuals , and genetic bottlenecks in dog breeds are a great way to amplify health and temperament problems.

 So it was an easy decision to move on to dogs I have down from him who have many of his good traits, and fewer of his bad traits like his hotter-than-breed ideal temperament . I am concerned with preserving an ideal breed temperament because I did so much work with dogs with poor temperaments when I was at the shelter, and I really think genetic temperament is something we all have to make sure we keep an eye on and make an effort to direct. I think it's up to us as breeders to make sure this breed stays easygoing. So working to keep the good traits , and moving away from bad traits is paramount .

  As easy, and easy to handle as Gideon is with all people, and as funny and personable as he can be, the shortness of his temperament with dogs is something of a trial to live with, as my other dogs are such peace-niks by comparison. We'll see if the neutering has any impact.

  I don't expect it to make any dent on his noise production. Or his insatiable love of toys.
 His grandson Dakar, has much of Gideons speed, his love of toys, but none of the short temperament, however he did manage to inherit all the yak yak yakking. <G>