So, I bought my first foxes this past Sunday, yay!! I chose to start small with two pairs. When I was last actively breeding animals here years ago, though, I started with so many that I became inactive well before I ever had to think about incorporating more store animals into my lines. So I have a question lol.

When you pair a lined animal with a store animal, do you consider the store animal to be part of whatever generation you're on, or do you consider it a Gen 1? For example, if I breed one of my pairs, the pup will obviously be Gen 2. If I buy a mate for that pup from the store, though, is that store-bought animal also considered part of my "Gen 2" even though it's technically a Gen 1 animal?

Thank y'all in advance! I hope this makes sense. ^^;

you could count it as a gen 2.5 since it still carries half the pedigree, for example, and then the next generation from that offspring would continue as gen 3

I still count stores as gen 1, personally, regardless of what gen they're mated with.

Stores are generation 1. 

I just always call it my "store" mate. For example, I have 10 generations of paints, but i only keep one offspring. 

So lets say I bred my Gen 9 Stallion with his mate (a store mare) - the filly that was born is still Gen 10. When I order pictures for my animals, I either say "9th generation Paint by Lyn" or  (when it is a store) "Another Perfect Paint by Lyn". 

However, when I am organizing my retirement, "oldies", section of my page, I like to keep breeding pairs together so regardless of store-lined or not, I will label the store mare that bred with my gen 9 stallion as the gen 9 mare.  {aka G9. Only Angel and G9. Kiwi} While Kiwi is techincally 9th gen and Only Angel is store, I want to keep them together to see the lineage.

if you want to look at my page for help you can! I hope that wasn't too wordy or confusing! Hope that helps!!

All my animals' names are [name] [gen x], so stores are always considered first generation, although if you're looking at the pedigree of a 10th gen foal/pup, the store parent is technically part of the 9th generation.

In the end, what matters is which generation you're on right now, regardless of how many stores you need to incorporate to keep your lines going.

I used to keep track but then it became one big headache. I have been merging all my lines to eventually start my own private show line

I put the generation in my horse/dogs name if its bred with a store I put store in that animals name, but thats just me so I know.

I also use letters or numbers at the start of their names so as to keep the pairs together it makes it easier to know which pairs are their parents :) 

Thanks for the help, everyone. ^^

I guess my main concern is figuring out how to indicate breeding pairs further down the line. Atm I have 1.1 and 1.2 in their names to indicate Gen 1, Pair 1 and Gen 1, Pair 2, but I can see that becoming confusing later on, especially if I decide to increase the number of animals I'm actively training/breeding.

I use dividers - they are a huge help. One for each line, then when I move them to the "retired" divider - I just use this system:

    L1 = Line 1 , L2 = Line 2

    G1 = Gen 1, Gen 2 = Gen 2

    1S = Pair 1 Stallion,  1M = Pair 1 Mare .... and so on

Hope this helps, but in all honesty - it's really whatever system works best for you. Play around with it until you find a solution, it's not techincally a "one size fits all".  I'm in the middle of merging my two paint lines, so eventually - I will have to figure out how to track THAT lol

I think it's so incredibly hard to have a full pedigree that it doesn't really matter if there's a store in there or not! That could just be me but i've never let it bug me too much if I have to buy a store. I think there's a post somewhere saying how many animals youd need for a full pedigree and it's something crazy lol