my daughters been raised their entire lives surrounded by dogs , they're not dog people , but I assure you they know an impressive dog when they see it ........ a line that has epilepsy in it ? I can't imagine they all don't ? to breed a dog that has epilepsy is one thing , to not breed any related dogs , I would think would decimate the breed , and then to take that further , and not breed any dogs with relatives that have genetic diseases , you wouldn't be breeding any dog .......... I've seen folks claiming to try and breed out specific genetic diseases almost forever , unless there was a genetic test for it , I've never seen anyone do it , those that claimed they had were lying to you and or themselves ....... as a matter of fact I see more immune issues in dogs than at any point in my life ......... from what I've seen you just keep covering it up and hope you get lucky , I was actually told that by a really great breeder , just cover it up , not that there aren't different ways and some of them better than others to cover such stuff ........you test for what you can , and if you've "health tested" enough dogs , you realize how little it means as to the actual health of the dog , in other words , how unhealthy a heath tested dog can be ...... I recently put down a 2 yr old pup with sas , out of 4 generations of heartchecked dogs , do you now scrap the line of dogs ? it's without question genetic ? I would think most dog show folks who really knew Mike Sottile sr. well , wouldn't have liked him ? he was a really good guy , replaced a neo for me sight unseen , just gave me another pup ...... I would think most folks in show circles would have a problem with the dog hunting thing ......... i'm not just talking Westminster either , but those videos are easy to pull up , start in 2011 and look through 2018 ................. in that time frame I've been to 20 or so dog shows ...... the crown classic by me gets 20-30 corso a year , plenty of ch. and gch ....... I watch all mastiffs , I've had enough different types of dogs in my life to realize a dog is a dog ........ if Mike jr. cheats folks , well then he certainly isn't his father ...... at least not the Mike sr. I knew ..... if I can find a pic of his neos from back then i'll put it here ........... I do agree on experience , I hire folks for a living , i'd take someone with little experience and talent over someone with lots of experience who isn't any good at it ......... you can tell when they're not recreations when your job is to keep them same , versus , make them better ........
here's one of Mikes neos annie , a sister to his nina , and my daughters ...... it's a picture of a picture , pics from those days are hard for me to come by , lots of changes ............