A hound
is a type of dog that assists hunters by tracking or chasing the
animal being hunted. Its abilities can be contrasted with gun dogs,
which assist hunters by identifying the location of prey or retrievers
which recover shot quarry.
A breed is a domesticated subspecies or infrasubspecies
of an animal. For a type to be recognised as a breed, there should
be a viable true-breeding population. The term may also be used
as a verb, meaning action intended to produce offspring. The breeder
makes it his or her trade to engage in plant breeding and the maintainance
and creation of breeds of animals suitable for domestication.
A dog breed has no close analogy for domesticated
plants. An important difference is that plants are commonly propagated
by striking or grafting cuttings: there is no corresponding technique
for animals. Cloning may change this if it becomes more available.
A breed should also be distinguished from a strain,
which is simply the descendants of a single significant individual,
and which in domesticated animals is also known as a bloodline.
A strain may not remain entirely within a breed, nor is a breed
necessarily composed of a single strain.
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