The exchange program is voluntary. It provides you an option to work with and exchange pups with other breeders.  You could be trading pups or dogs with each other to correct and enhance your breeding program. You would be working with breeders of like mind helping to reduce your search for a new dog to add to your program. The only cost involved would be for shipping charges to get the pup or dog to each other. It is also expected that all pups or dogs traded would have a health guarantee.

Knowing and understanding the individual strengths (prepotency) of your dog or lines is extremely important. When a dog is prepotent for a trait this dog will dominate every pup that he/she throws. If you breed a dog with erect ears that is prepotent in this trait to a dog that has one ear up and one ear down, every pup born out of this litter will have erect ears but may carry a gene that is still one up one down. To breed out this gene you must now take that pup that has erect ears and breed back to a dog that is once again prepotent for that trait. The offspring of that breeding will now be prepotent for that particular trait.

The same would apply to most other traits that you are trying to breed out. If you have a dog with a bad bite, you must breed that dog to a dog who is prepotent for good bites. The offspring will all have good bites but might still carry a gene for a bad bite. You then take that dog with the good bite and breed back to a dog that is prepotent for good bites and all the offspring should be prepotent for a good bite.

Example: Sam is having a problem, he is producing dogs that are perfect in every way except that he continues to get some bad bites. Jane is producing some dogs that have one ear up and one ear down but they have excellant bites. A trade here could correct each others problem.

While the best case scenario would be to breed a prepotent dog for good bites to Sams dog without any other problems this may not always be possible. So if Sam trades a dog with good ears and a possible bad bite carried recessively to Janes dog who has prepotent good bites but might carry one ear up one down, and each of them keep the pups who express the traits they desire and then breed back to dogs which are prepotent for those traits, they will both have offspring that is desirable of all traits that they sought.

Another example would be this, you can take a dog that is prepotent for a wonderful sweet temperament but does not have good looks to a dog that is prepotent for superb looks with a bad temperment and get offspring that is great looking and with superb temperament. Now by taking the best of the best out of this litter and bred back to dogs that are prepotent for good looks and temperament you have locked in both those traits.

To understand this theory more completely refer to these articles
Close the window each time before opening a different article
Understanding Defects in Dogs
Improving Your Stock
Putting It All Together
What to do with Carriers