How do you pick your stud dog?

[Janice McGerr]

I am planning my next litter; I know who I am using, know how I picked my stud dog.
I am interested in how some of you come to your choice on the stud dog.

[dobesign]

First, I post a note on dsnn that says "hey ms mcgerr, I sure do like Blaze!" Can we talk? Email me! And then I wait.....

[Janice McGerr]

And than I would ask who the bitch is, would like to see pedigree and pictures of the bitch (if I do not know the bitch). What is the temperament like on the bitch? What is it you are looking at to in prove on? What things you like about my dog? And sure we can talk!

[Elaine]

I think you guys are doing it all wrong. You should look at who is on the cover of Dobe Digest or Dobe Magazine… that should be your first choice. :p If not that dog, then look at which dog is doing the most winning, but be sure to ignore the judges who are putting the dog up (cause that can really back you off a bit.) I’d also ignore who did the ad, unless they are willing to pop into the litter box and Photoshop the puppies the way they Photoshoped the dog in the ads. :rolleyes: When all else fails, do an accidental breeding to any dog in your house, you’ll save a bundle on health testing and stud fees. :D


Seriously, before I even consider creating new life, I must have enough interest in the breeding that I can easily place 4-6 puppies. If don’t have that many homes, then I do not breed. Each and very puppy deserves to be that "one special dog.” Then I re-read the AKC Breed Standard… and re-focus on the ideal phenotype (and temperament) we’re supposed to be reproducing. In Dobermans, the goal is to produce a square medium sized dog with heavy bone, who is so well balanced, yet with sufficient angulation that it has greed endurance and speed. I specifically want a dog that flows together smoothly, one part to another.

I guess I approach breeding about like this: basically I am an assessment machine… I am always watching the dogs (and the horses)… watching how they use themselves… watching them as they stand on their own… and as they move. Doesn’t matter if it’s my dog or some else’s , I am always focused on the dog, on its virtues and faults. IF the dog is in the ring being shown, I watch the handler as he/she is setting up the dog, I watch what it takes to make a good picture with the dog. If it takes half an hour of being stretched, pinched and pulled, I take note. I am not that interested in a dog that can only look good with a top handler on the end of the lead. I much prefer a dog that could be handed to a total novice and still look petty darn amazing.


Also, before any breeding decison, I really want to see the littermates… they tell me more about what a given dog will produce than either sire or dam. A dog is more like his /her littermates than like sire or dam.. which is why we should look to the breadth of a pedigree, and not be so focused on the depth. I do not want to use dog that is a flyer in a litter of "not so good."


So, I decide on the bitch I want to breed, then I focus on what I’d like to improve in the next generation… and I look for a line-bred animal that is likely to be prepotent for the virtues I want, without having a faults I wish to avoid.

If I am so delusional that I don’t see the faults in the dog or bitch in front of me, then I know it’s time to “back away from the reproductive tract of any living thing" ... because I have gone over the edge. I have been dogs for over thirty years, and have never seen the perfect dog, not in any breed, not ever, nor have I ever seen littermates of such grand quality that they should be bred together. Not ever!!! Not being able to see the faults of our dogs is the surest road to utter mediocrity.

Sometimes the right sire is an obscure dog that few have heard of… even a dog with a few relatively minor faults, but with some outstanding virtue that the breed (or my bitch) needs. I always look for a dog with outstanding virtue… rather than going for the dog with the least faults.




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then I call Janice and ask about Uno. :D

[Janice McGerr]

Oooh!! E, if you want to go with the flow, you must go with the flavor of the month!!:D

And as you know that is what I always do, I am such a good girl and never piss off anyone.;) And the judges are always right, that is why they are judges.:confused:

“I must have enough interest in the breeding that I can easily place 4-6 puppies”
That is a must. But I know at times you can have these lined up and they fall out, after you do the breeding. :(

“In Dobermans, the goal is to produce a square medium sized dog with heavy bone, who is so well balanced, yet with sufficient angulation that it has greed endurance and speed.” What!?:eek: Then why do I see twigee in the ring?:confused: And Dolly?:confused:

I like to look at pedigrees, siblings, parents, and the bitch/dog it self. What things do they offer each other, can they make what I am looking for or are they going to do something that just makes me sick and have go back to the drawing board. :(:eek:

I always look at what needs to be improved on, I may not get it with that litter, but I hopefully will get that litter going in the direction that with each breeding will be better than the one they came from.

I am not as good with writing things out as E. so bare with me.:p
I know I repeated what E. said, but that is the same way I think when breeding.



Uno? :confused:Who is Uno, I do not think I have seen that dogs name in the pedigree of a top winning dog/bitch. Is he in the top 20?? :confused::eek:

I hear that the owner of that dog tends to refuse bitchs!

[Janice McGerr]

Come on I know there are more breeders on this forum that breed very nice dogs--- Jana, Jacque and the others-- We would like your in put!:)

When I start looking-I know my bitch, faults and all, know what my VWD, color code and OFA are. Then the stud dog has to appeal to me, study the pedigree, then I want to see them in person, I want a dog that moves well and still hold it together. And after all that I keep looking till it is time, you just never know another dog might fit want you are looking for and need to corret what you want to improve on.

[doberdogsfd]

The plan for us had always been to find a dog that was exactly what our girl Emma needed and purchase him.

So when the call came from Sophia for me to look at this amazing black puppy dog on the Logres website, I did. She believed he had exactly what Emma needed and that he was my kind of dog. Beautiful head and expression, bone, short bodied and an amazing pedigree.

At the point we had pretty much decided to persue a SA line to bring back the bone, dentition and attitude we were looking for. With Vaako and his incredible pedigree, we have the best of the America dogs and that rocking young dog Trotyl! Win, win.

It was as Janice and Elaine have stated before. We looked at their littermates, what was behind these dogs, not just at them. We know the good and bad points of our bitch and dog and we know they balance each other off.

We can plan all the right stuff and in the end, Mother Nature is going to do what she wants to. But The Plan and Vision need to be in place.

Mother Nature was very good to us. This breeding did exactly what we planned all along to do, bring the bone, substance, excellent dentition, good movement and well adjusted, excellent temperment to our lines.
The foundation is set.

Excellent thread Janice, I have enjoyed it.....thanks!

Cheryl
~ Blackwood~

[Minka]

Janice your Uno is one handsome dog :) and I still can't figure out if its the photographer :P or the conditioning but what a coat its the blackest black and it shines.

[Janice McGerr]

The picture stacked was taken in the summer (in Ne)and the sit picture was taken in the winter (in CO). I like taking pictures in the middle of the day, so the sun hits them (getting the shine), his coat color, well he is just dark, rust markings and all. And thank you! :)

Back to picking stud dog. I like my pedigrees to tie in with a little of something different on one side, hoping to be able to breed to other lines and still hold it together.

[Patty Storkel]

This is a great discussion, as i will be in this position for the first time in about a year. I've said for over 25 years i would never breed. I'm a slow learner - i now know to never say never, as i've been proven wrong several times now. But i digress:cool:...

My two main breed mentors had/have very different approaches. The one that i like, and seems very logical, is the "drawing of stick figures" approach, as i'm a visual person:). You, of course, need to have evaluated your bitch as Elaine and the others have said, and then you make a black stick drawing of the basic dog. You use a red pen to mark the faults and a blue or whatever other color to mark the good points you don't want to lose. Then after looking at and preferably doing a hands-on assessment of the stud, and looking at many photos of said stud, asked numerous questions of the stud owner, et., you draw a stick figure of him, again using red for faults/bad points, and blue or whatever for the good points. You then lay the stud dog drawing over the bitch drawing (using light/see-thru paper) to compare where the good/bad points fall. Hopefully if you've done your homework, you will have more blue points of the stud overlaying the red points of your bitch. In other words, a simplified way to "see" where, or if, the chosen stud will help improve the bitch's weak points:D. Or, at the least, the colors will show the stud will (should) improve the most critical fault of your bitch. Of course, it may also show you that the dog you think is really great won't improve things for your planned litter if you have blue on top of blue!!!
However, i've also heard hundreds of discussions over the years with numerous breeders explaining their rational and the whys and wherefores of putting two particular dogs together, when the "looks great on paper" is less than desirable when those babies are on the ground...:(:eek:
What i've actually done at this point is ask my breeder who i could put my girl to. I will also be asking her and everyone else for help and advice when the time comes to actually commence with a breeding.:)
patty, neala (the intended) & seamus (my Unexpected Valentine)

[Janice McGerr]

as i've been proven wrong several times now. But i digress:cool:...

I am almost always wrong, but I keep on pushing forward! :D

You can take the best bitch and the best dog and end up with OMG! :(

I have never used the stick dog way of picking my stud dog. I put allot on my bitch (I believe in the power of the bitch),I could be wrong. Every breeding is the splitting of the genes and a crap shoot.

I prefer line breeding; the gene pool in the line breeding is stronger than out crossing, I could be wrong. I am not against out crossing, but my bitch better be strong on her gene pool for me to even consider that. Ask anyone I am very hard on my dogs and pups, when I pick them apart.

If you know your blood lines in your bitch, you can see where they are strongest and were they are weak. That is were I start. Then I look at the dogs & pedigrees (the pedigree has to tie in with my bitch some how). And I research the other side of the pedigree that does not match.

I like looking at litter mates, so it drives me crazy when breeders only put there finished puppies from a litter on there web site. There is a nice dog out there showing, I like this dog would have liked to breed to him (Has a good pedigree and things I think will improve some things), but I know I would end up (feel it in my gut) with pups that look like his litter mate (running for the hills).:eek:

[Patty Storkel]

Oh, i totally agree with you on the linebreeding.

Because i'm a visual person and have a virtual sieve for a memory, photos, pictures and the stick drawings help me get a better feel for what may or may not work (even with hands-on)...:o

And yes, the bitch is the basis. You want to use the very best that you can find, not settle for your Ch girl just because she's available (i personally don't believe all Ch's are breed material). That's why i spayed or neutered everyone so far. I'm very critical, and if i could see a better bitch than the one at the end of my lead, she got spayed (as did the two males of show quality). My intended foundation bitch (10 points, a CGC and a certified Therapy Dog) had to be put down at age 4 due to cryptococcous. She really was very beautiful and had a lot to offer to the breed. So sad. So now, my current girl (12 points, only needing that 1 elusive major to finish), beautifully handled by our talented Brenna, will be my foundation bitch. She is Westminster quality, and i don't say that lightly. Her grand sire won the breed there two years in a row, in addition to being one of a few wolfhounds to earn multiple BIS placements. More importantly, she has a lovely temperament.

In wolfhounds, with such a small gene pool, a very short breeding period, and such things like it only takes one breeding to lose correct ears or other parts, i'm trying to be very careful. I don't know if it works this way with dobies, but when doing linebreeding in wolfhounds, if you have a particular dog/bitch appear too many times in the 5-gen. pedigree, we lose bone and size. Linebreeding is preferred, with judicious outcrossing to other lines with the correct phenotype...

And i continue to listen, read, and make notes on what you all say!!!:D
patty, neala & seamus

[Minaz Cassum]

Ha. You guys are too much. But, hey! wait up. Isn't what they do here?

Just yesterday I was talking with a friend who enquired when I was going to breed from my Labrador Champion girl and a couple of names came up. The frined retorted saying that I was being silly. He said you know the black male that is currently doing some winnning. Use his sire and you will have people queing up to pick up the puppies. Ha!!!

Same thing happens there as well as here. No diff.

[Minka]

Ha. You guys are too much. But, hey! wait up. Isn't what they do here?

Just yesterday I was talking with a friend who enquired when I was going to breed from my Labrador Champion girl and a couple of names came up. The frined retorted saying that I was being silly. He said you know the black male that is currently doing some winnning. Use his sire and you will have people queing up to pick up the puppies. Ha!!!

Same thing happens there as well as here. No diff.

Hi Minaz,
I don't think Elaine , Janice and the rest have to worry about people queing to pick up there puppies (try getting them to give you one , if you want to test the theory )
Notice you have a dog with a Jaspers prefix on it - nice to know that the Sardar is still breeding

[Janice McGerr]

Hi Minaz,
I don't think Elaine , Janice and the rest have to worry about people queing to pick up there puppies (try getting them to give you one , if you want to test the theory )

Minka,
We are talking about picking stud dogs. Not each breeder’s way of choosing the right home for their pups.

I am sure there are some really good people in India, same as here. But like here we have some really bad homes, in most of our minds it is easer to think that if the pup is in the U.S. that we can check on it, have someone we know and trust check on it and if need intervene if we think the pup needs our help. That being said, back to picking stud dogs and what we look for in them to move forward with our breeding programs.

I know a lot of breeders use the flavor of the month, just to be disappointed. And some wear kennel blinders and do not see that the litter did not turn out the way wanted. Just so long as they are winning.

The stud dog I pick for each of my bitches needs to be able to improve my breeding stock. And I only breed every 2 or 3 years, so the dog I chose is very important to me.

[doberdogsfd]

We were approached by a high profile individual from Brazil for one of our girls. It was no statement about the person when we explained how we would like to keep these guys close. After all , it is our first litter. We are a tad protective of them and would like to see them grow up a bit closer.

I will say, I am really interested in down the road speaking with this person. He has a proven track record, excellent dogs and folks I know know him and his family.
He understood completely and feels much the same about his puppies when placing them. Now we stay in touch and are getting to know each other.
One never knows down the road what happens.

But as Janice said, it is about the stud dog choices we make. I wanted something very specific and got it through Vaako to Emma. Something foundational for us. The two girls we are keeping, Reni and Rowan will take us forward.
What is so wonderful is with the pedigree they have, there are many options for them when the time comes. I venture to guess that is what the point is, right? To be able to improve with excellent options to do it with.


Cheryl

[Minka]

Actually my point was its unlikely that you pick your stud dogs to sell your pups - but ill learn to shut up:p

[doberdogsfd]

Hey Minka...I for one do not want anyone to not express themself.

Perhaps we miss understood you, my friend. Holy cow...that wasn't my point at all.....please forgive me.


Cheryl

[Elaine]

Minka is really beginning to grow on me... but I must confess, I haven't a clue what he meant... :rolleyes:

[dobesign]

I got it Minka! If you tap into the dog that threw the top dog, then everyone wants it, even though it could have been bred to a goat: the puppies would fly off the proverbial shelf! When in reality, quality pups can just as easily appear from a non-publicised dog as any other. I, too, feel its important to find a stud that complements what your bitch has, and more importantly, what she needs. But I do not just look at the stud and the bitch...being something of an armchair geneticist, I prefer to track the phenotypes (what they look like) and generating an image of the genotype (what their genes will express). It has been my experience that phenotypes quite often throw back to grandparents or great grand parents, and only occasionally directly resemble the parents. I prefer to do a photo pedigree, with as many comparable photo perspectives as possible. I also prefer knowing the dog, in a hands on way, but find that it seldom possible.

[Minka]

Thanks Cheryl - Perhaps I should be more detailed with what I ment .

"The frined retorted saying that I was being silly. He said you know the black male that is currently doing some winnning. Use his sire and you will have people queing up to pick up the puppies. Ha!!!

Same thing happens there as well as here. No diff."

The above quote implied the following :
1. Use the sire of the top winning dog and your puppies will have a bigger market or will be easily sold
2. Breeders who posted under this post, used this tactic.

By deduction (logic applied to the premise illustrated above ) I came to the conclusion that the gentleman implied that breeders who participated here primarily breed to sell

I mearly disputed the implication based on
1. My interaction with two subscribers to this thread and
2. The evidence at hand does not support the implication
My rebuttal (if you can call it that) is based on the fact that
1. The Logres guys clearly tell you in the most polite possible way -"were not interested in how much you can pay "
2. Elaine would have happily palmed me off with whatever she had on hand when I asked her for a dog
3.My reading leads me to conclude that Trotyl was used on Bretina to give the next generation more angulation (now I have no idea if Trotyl is a fashionable dog to breed to )
4. Janice's dog's depending on their would have had Nello's Lex Luther , Inaqui de black shadow and what ever new supersire the kennel with the biggest marketing engine is peddling in their pedigrees and not some close relative- whom she concluded were best for her purposes ( note - the dogs listed by name might/are indeed ( be) fantastic sires and their names are mearly used to prove a point )
Which leads me to conclude
1. The primary purpose of breeding is to keep and improve on what they have (In other words they use a different set of considerations to pick the dog they want to use)
2. Demand for what they produce is strong and the focus is on finding the right home and not the the easiest home for the right price

Now I must admit that I was far to lazy to outline the premise - the evidence at hand and my conclusions - given the population what it was written for and prior posting's - I councluded that my two liner clearly said that not right and if you think I'm wrong make them an offer they can't refuse and see if they accept (In other words test the hypothesis ) - I was cleary WRONG !!!
Now if I digress - I apologise , but I hope I've got my point across
Cheryl thanks for outlining what a phenotype is I was going to write to elaine to ask for an explanation

[Elaine]

1. The Logres guys clearly tell you in the most polite possible way -"were not interested in how much you can pay "



Geez-o-pete!!! Did I give you that impression??? What was I thinking??? :eek: EEEK. Let me correct that HUGE mistake right here and now!!! We’ll take your money… all of it if possible. :D:D:D:p


Seriously, just some thoughts in general here: we feel that there is a marked distinction between breeding for the next generation and breeding to sell puppies. If the goal is simply to sell (be it dogs or horses), you breed to the flavor of the month, the hot new stallion, the current Olympic winner (or his sire), or the heavily advertised and/or top winning stud dog. The sire’s success gives you a built in market. This type of breeding is of no interest to us. Much as selling a dog simply to make a buck or two is of no interest.

There have been times when good people have made very good offers on certain of our Dobermans, but we have decided against the sale because, in our assessment, the dog was not truly what they were looking for, even if they did not realize it at the time. We take the responsibility for correctly matching the dreams and goals of the buyer with the potential of the individual dog very seriously. When you get it right it is a win/win for the dog and the owner. If you get it wrong it is a disaster all round, especially for the dog. It is never about money; and we are happy to steer people in other directions (to other breeders) if we think another breeder has what they are looking for.

In both the horses and the dogs, we breed for the next generation and the generation after that, so the popularity of the sire in the moment has little impact on our decision making process. "A good dog makes a good pedigree" ... not the other way around. The fact that a sire is not well known or not heavily used is of no importance to us.

Over the past 30 some years in dogs I have been the first (or one of the first) to use a sire on three occasions (even before the owner used the sire), and each time the sire went on to be important for the breed. For example, back in the early 1990's we had the first litter sired by Lucas, (a.k.a., Ch. Lucas De Campo De Oros). Lucas was a Giant Schnauzer imported from Spain. Our bitch was at home, half way through her pregnancy on the day that Lucas first stepped a paw in an AKC show ring, at the Giant Schnauzer Club of American National Specialty, in the Open Class. Lucas went on to win the Breed that day, at the National, from the classes!!! He finished in the next two days…and went on to sire more than 100 Giant Schnauzer champions. When we bred to him, he was not even his owner’s favorite dog… after the National he may have been. ;) We had four champions in that Giant Schnauzer litter, all finished from the puppy classes. All took the breed from the Puppy classes, Vader (Ch. Logres Lord Vader) won the Breed his first time in the ring, at 6 months, beating a top Special from Canada, under Bill Shelton. Andy Lintom finished Dave (Ch. Logres Outabounz) and showed him at the Garden in 1995. Maripi Woolderidge went BOS with Steffy (Ch. Logres Midnight Motion) at the Garden. Not a bad litter. :)

We decided to breed to Trotyl when we first saw him in the ring in Roanoke, VA back in 2006, on a day when Ch. Logres' Titanium and CH. Logres' Tungsten were in the ring (both were still class dogs), and Tungsten won the major. Trotyl was still quite young, a bit of a handful for Diego, not the perfect show machine by any means. He had no puppies on the ground. We were the second breeders to use him. At the time we did, his first litter was about 10 weeks old. He was not even finished yet, he was certainly not the “Hot New Stud Dog on the Block.” Rather, we felt he was the right choice for Brentina. We may have been one of the first to breed back to him. Much as I liked our first Trotyl - Brentina litter, which produced 7 puppies, all have been shown, 3 are American champions, two are Canadian champions, one has both majors and simply needs two single pts to finish, one needs a 3 pt major, one needs majors (has gotten major reserves), there were dogs in the second Trotyl - Brentina litter that were absolutely outstanding (e.g. DeNiro).

Fast forward almost three years from the day ringside at Roanoke and Trotyl is arguably one of the top sires in the breed, and rightly so. Judged by the best of what he produces, he has been an exceptional sire for many breeders in this country. He has produced very nice puppies in litter after litter after litter. Look at Jana’s litter over on the Litter forum… I think most of us could recognize Trotyl as the sire of those puppies without ever looking at the pedigree. Trotyl predictably stamps his offspring with certain qualities, which is what every good sire should do. Trotyl is unique in that he is both an excellent sire and a very popluar sire, which, oddly, is rather rare. There are many popular sires that I would not "walk across the streeet to feed" much less breed to.

[dobesign]

Actually, I think it was MY post that discussed phenotype versus genotype, and I posted it simply because there might be some readers that are genuinely not familiar with the semantic value of that particular morpheme. Glad I could help....

[Elaine]

Minka is new here, he may have confused Dobesign with DoberdogsFD. :) Let's make him stand in a corner? :p

[Janice McGerr]

Minka,

I am sorry; I did misunderstand what you were trying to say!:(
As Cheryl said I for one do not want anyone to not express themselves.
This kind of misunderstanding in ones writing is why I do not write too much.
I am really bad on writing what I want to say!;)
So Please do not shut up!

And you are correct I do not breed to have a line of buyers wanting a pup from the flavor of the month! :)

OMG! May be I am doing this all wrong!:eek: Elaine me thinks we are doing this wrong! It's all about the most pups that are winning and useing the lime light stud dog, and selling them fast for big bucks!:rolleyes:

Go stand in the corner Minka!

[Minka]

We select, not based on the size of someone's bank account"(www.logresfarm.com - I had to read the whole dammed thing to find it )
- I rest mÿ case - Elaine
Dobesign
my apologies - I was going to google phenotype when I got home today :D

[Elaine]

We select, not based on the size of someone's bank account"(www.logresfarm.com - I had to read the whole dammed thing to find it )
- I rest mÿ case - Elaine


Hmmm? Given how verbose I can be, and that you had to re-read “the whole damn thing” … I think you’ve been punished enough. :p You no longer have to stand in the corner. :)

Btw, not sure if anyone ever officially welcomed you to DSNN… sorry for the inexcusable lapse of good manners. Welcome … clearly you fit right in.

[Minka]

The corner was my favorite place in school - would make it a point to get stationed there everytime I wanted a snooze .:D - Amazing the number of folk that get on here to post at what I can only imagine is some ungodly hour in the US
Janice - my fault for being lazy :p- I am amazed at the effort that goes into this whole breeding excercise (the research, the travel - frozen semen ( pick a dog that alive vs pick one that we know was great and produced well- the options are huge ))
I'm loving the whole dssn thing and I'm learning a lot
Elaine - now you are probably lucky your married to a doc
I offered her payment upfront on a dog that she'd pick for me any future bretina litter she might breed - and she tells me she does not take deposits :eek:

[Elaine]

I’ve said this so many times it makes my teeth ache, but the days of breeders owning and maintaining more than 4-6 Dobermans are OVER. Higher numbers may be okay if you’re breeding rats, goldfish or cockroaches, but for a “people” breed like a Doberman, you simply can not do justice to each individual dog when your numbers get too high. If you think you can do right by 10 or more Dobermans, you're fooling yourself and hurting the dogs.

The problem is that breeding goals are multi-generational and therefore breeders must maintain control over generations of what they produce in order to establish and perpetuate a breeding line. In 2009 it is simply not possible (or humane) for one breeder to physically keep all the dogs they need for a successful breeding program. It may take years to find the right combination for a given animal / given breeding combination (which may prove extraordinarily valuable for the breed), but what do you do with that animal in the interim? Do you stuff him in a crate in the basement? I think the solution is to breed with a network of like-minded individuals / breeding partners whom you trust and respect. I have to stress here that this involves treating partners with respect, allowing them some measure of autonomy, allowing them to SHINE in a given moment or a given generation, agreeing to disagree from time-to-time and yet remaining committed over generations to the same long-term goal of producing the ideal Doberman.

SO, we look for individuals we can work with long term. We look for people we trust... and we treat each other with resepct. It is not essential that our partners have our identical vision of the ideal dog, far from it actually, and it is not essential that we (Logres) end up with the best of each generation. Rather, what matters most is that each of us do the right thing for each dog in each generation, and over time we work together to produce quality. I liken it to moving a football down the field towards the goal post, passing the ball back and forth as we go. In one generation we may have the DeNiro type of dog, in the next generation one of our partners may have it, and back and forth toward the goal post. The point is we are working together towards the same goal. (And as you can see, I haven’t much of a clue about football, but it’s an analogy that I am fond of none-the-less).