The term "Generic Siberian Husky", has come to mean more to me over the years. This term first used by J. Jeffrey Bragg, to describe my Althea, it has become almost a quest within it's self.
For all intents and purposes, any black and white, Irish marked, Blue eyed Siberian would be the standard accepted definition of a Siberian Husky. Dogs that fit this standard definition exist virtually everywhere thanks to the exploitation the breed has endured at the hands of show fanciers, and pet owners who breed. Genetically however this look came from simple inbreeding to achieve a human ideal of the Siberian Husky. In different hands, in different times, with different trends,..... we may have ended up with an entirely different looking dog all together.
To achieve a true genetically generic dog, it would have to come from a very diverse background of dogs sharing nothing more than the same origin and loose phenotype. The conciseness breeder would obviously try to achieve this through genetic testing, not the use of popular sires. The blanket term "Siberian Husky", would simply mean that the dog was a draft dog from Siberia, with a spitz-type appearance.
If inbreeding renders litters of predictably marked and conforming pups, then the opposite would occur with out-crossing. With this in mind, we are trying to have our females sired by males who are unrelated by as many generations as possible. Eventually I intend to post the Coefficients of Inbreeding, of every dog from this project. The unreliable nature of A.K.C. stud book keeping makes that difficult at this time.... In some places I still can't trace back to the boat....
With this in mind, no dog regardless of registry should ever be excluded from the program based on pedigree. One should try most often to breed impressive dogs, with impressive health, before reading too much into an impressive pedigree that is not worth the paper it is written on. Until DNA testing becomes so affordable that it can be insisted on in common practice, a pedigree is an idea attached to the presence a kennel creates for its' self.
When breeding in this way, your litters will visually appear very diverse. We keep our litters for as long as possible, evaluating all aspects of each puppy before selecting the one that in our opinion a cut above the rest. Each dog will excel at something. They all find one thing that they do very well, and show great passion in doing. When we find a dog that is single minded, we then have them spayed/neutered. Therefore a dog that is only a great hearing dog, should not be bred. That dog should be a hearing dog. The dog that should be bred, should be able to be a hearing dog, a retriever, sled dog, a treeing dog, great with people, good metabolism, nice coat, awesome personality, good with the whole pack, and just be a well rounded dog all together. I find it hard to believe that there are ever more than 2 dogs in a litter that should carry on their genetic legacy. More emphasis should go into training, that procreating in most kennels.
I would love a chance to breed to native Siberian dogs. I think that would be the ultimate outcross within the breed. I do however realize that it would take me entirely out of the AKC... I do not care though. After all, the dogs in a closed stud book registry only come from about as half as many dogs as 1 big Iditarod musher has on their lot to choose from right now. With that in mind, you can see where relying on the shallow gene pool within only one registry would fall short competitively, as well as genetically.