Inbreeding

[sandgrubber]

It also had that the thousands of deer in New Zealand all descend from 3 original animals yet they are bigger and more fertile than the herds the original deer came from. As for the millions of possums decimating New Zealand they too descend from just as small a gene pool. Surely we cant afford to forget our blasted rabbits, they came from a base of 5? wasnt it, now we must have billions of them. If the anti inbreed are so right, they should instead be near extinct cripples? what went wrong?

Inbreeding can cause problems. Look at the wolves at Isle Royale National Park. http://www.mtu.edu/n...story87157.html

[corvus]

Any breeding can only produce problems if they are present in the lines to start with it will not create them. Breed from 2 animals that carry the same defective genes and you will have problems no matter what.

even when the parents are two different breeds.

Given there are no tests for the vast majority of deleterious mutations and some may not be seen until later in life, this seems like a moot point.

ETA, Incidentally, there's a case study of a species of antelope that became extinct in the wild but had a small captive population. It was decided to undertake an aggressive inbreeding program with the idea that all the nasties in the genetic population would be revealed early in the peace and they could then cull animals carrying it from the breeding program. They would end up with a population with very little genetic diversity, but healthy animals. It's a risky approach, but when you only have a ridiculously small number of animals, anything is risky.

Edited April 10, 2013 by corvus

[Salukifan]

Inez:

I remember seeing a dog born and mature to adulthood, with one leg an inch longer than the other foreleg. his parents, grandparents and great and great great grandparents were all Aust Ch and none were related. He had perfect scissor bite, his litter mate just about missing its under jaw. But what odds would anyone give me that most vets will tell you inbreeding is the cause?

I think it pays to remind folk from time to time that not every congenital abnormality has a genetic cause. The bitch's nutrition, parasite burden, toxins, disease and even heat can all pay havoc with devleoping foetuses. In the case you mention, I'd have been looking at other factors.

Any breeding needs to be carefully planned. The closer the breeding the better the planning should be and the more recessive genes need to be considered.

Its the usual story.... inbreeding is a practice that done well can improve a line, and done badly can destroy one. But the practice itself is not inherently "bad".

Edited April 10, 2013 by Haredown Whippets

[alpha bet]

One thing that would be really useful for breeders in this day and age. Is if the official pedigrees showed the official hip and elbow scores as well as DNA testing.

The show titles are subjective and can often be achieved by a handler who campaigns a dog heavily around smaller shows till eventually they gain the required points for the Champion title. Even the Instinct Testing is not a true test of how good a working dog is (for example) a Herding Instinct does not mean the dog is actually going to have the true working ability... Agility titles show a dog with a high drive.... an individual thing that might not be desirable with some breeds.

In reality it is far more useful to breeders to see these health testing results made official - and five generation pedigrees would provide more information to search thru.... I would much rather see a pedigree certificate full of low hip/elbow scores than just the Show Champions.

To aid breeders to more forward and help prevent breeding some of the health issues starting to surface - pet homes can now face operations of $3-5,000 - double and triple the price they paid for the dog. If we start to push the health testing then we can educate the advantages of this to the public and start to combate the byb and puppy mills over these health issues - but only if it becomes open and official.

Information for Inbreeding, linebreeding, outcrossing is assisted by having the health testing.

Yes we said that and its working well.

It won't work as well until its official shown on the pedigree certificate..... then it is open for everyone to see and not the ability of the breeder to pick and choose if they are going to advertise the results. At the moment the hip/elbow scores are sent to the Assoc before the dog or bitch can be used however the result is not added to the certificate....

[Steve]

One thing that would be really useful for breeders in this day and age. Is if the official pedigrees showed the official hip and elbow scores as well as DNA testing.

The show titles are subjective and can often be achieved by a handler who campaigns a dog heavily around smaller shows till eventually they gain the required points for the Champion title. Even the Instinct Testing is not a true test of how good a working dog is (for example) a Herding Instinct does not mean the dog is actually going to have the true working ability... Agility titles show a dog with a high drive.... an individual thing that might not be desirable with some breeds.

In reality it is far more useful to breeders to see these health testing results made official - and five generation pedigrees would provide more information to search thru.... I would much rather see a pedigree certificate full of low hip/elbow scores than just the Show Champions.

To aid breeders to more forward and help prevent breeding some of the health issues starting to surface - pet homes can now face operations of $3-5,000 - double and triple the price they paid for the dog. If we start to push the health testing then we can educate the advantages of this to the public and start to combate the byb and puppy mills over these health issues - but only if it becomes open and official.

Information for Inbreeding, linebreeding, outcrossing is assisted by having the health testing.

Yes we said that and its working well.

It won't work as well until its official shown on the pedigree certificate..... then it is open for everyone to see and not the ability of the breeder to pick and choose if they are going to advertise the results. At the moment the hip/elbow scores are sent to the Assoc before the dog or bitch can be used however the result is not added to the certificate....

It is on our [MDBA] pedigree certificates and why many breeders are now dual registering their dogs. Not only are their scores and results added but also if they do specific work such as assistance or search and rescue etc so the breeder has it all on one document when they profile their pedigrees. And we don't just rely on breeders to enter the details either -the good and the bad stuff is entered by people who own pet puppies as well as breeders so it builds info of all of the relos.

[espinay2]

Oh how cool that you have a program for that espinay.

I use Breedmate, but there are other programs out there that do it as well.

COI is really just a number though. Unless you have the information on the dogs behind the names you really don't have much.

[Sandra777]

Not forgetting the Chatham Island Black Robin - all living examples of this species are descendants of a single female. They were probably pretty inbred to start with!

[alpha bet]

One thing that would be really useful for breeders in this day and age. Is if the official pedigrees showed the official hip and elbow scores as well as DNA testing.

The show titles are subjective and can often be achieved by a handler who campaigns a dog heavily around smaller shows till eventually they gain the required points for the Champion title. Even the Instinct Testing is not a true test of how good a working dog is (for example) a Herding Instinct does not mean the dog is actually going to have the true working ability... Agility titles show a dog with a high drive.... an individual thing that might not be desirable with some breeds.

In reality it is far more useful to breeders to see these health testing results made official - and five generation pedigrees would provide more information to search thru.... I would much rather see a pedigree certificate full of low hip/elbow scores than just the Show Champions.

To aid breeders to more forward and help prevent breeding some of the health issues starting to surface - pet homes can now face operations of $3-5,000 - double and triple the price they paid for the dog. If we start to push the health testing then we can educate the advantages of this to the public and start to combate the byb and puppy mills over these health issues - but only if it becomes open and official.

Information for Inbreeding, linebreeding, outcrossing is assisted by having the health testing.

Yes we said that and its working well.

It won't work as well until its official shown on the pedigree certificate..... then it is open for everyone to see and not the ability of the breeder to pick and choose if they are going to advertise the results. At the moment the hip/elbow scores are sent to the Assoc before the dog or bitch can be used however the result is not added to the certificate....

It is on our [MDBA] pedigree certificates and why many breeders are now dual registering their dogs. Not only are their scores and results added but also if they do specific work such as assistance or search and rescue etc so the breeder has it all on one document when they profile their pedigrees. And we don't just rely on breeders to enter the details either -the good and the bad stuff is entered by people who own pet puppies as well as breeders so it builds info of all of the relos.

So where do you get the breeders info from..... the breeders or the schemes etc.

[Steve]

One thing that would be really useful for breeders in this day and age. Is if the official pedigrees showed the official hip and elbow scores as well as DNA testing.

The show titles are subjective and can often be achieved by a handler who campaigns a dog heavily around smaller shows till eventually they gain the required points for the Champion title. Even the Instinct Testing is not a true test of how good a working dog is (for example) a Herding Instinct does not mean the dog is actually going to have the true working ability... Agility titles show a dog with a high drive.... an individual thing that might not be desirable with some breeds.

In reality it is far more useful to breeders to see these health testing results made official - and five generation pedigrees would provide more information to search thru.... I would much rather see a pedigree certificate full of low hip/elbow scores than just the Show Champions.

To aid breeders to more forward and help prevent breeding some of the health issues starting to surface - pet homes can now face operations of $3-5,000 - double and triple the price they paid for the dog. If we start to push the health testing then we can educate the advantages of this to the public and start to combate the byb and puppy mills over these health issues - but only if it becomes open and official.

Information for Inbreeding, linebreeding, outcrossing is assisted by having the health testing.

Yes we said that and its working well.

It won't work as well until its official shown on the pedigree certificate..... then it is open for everyone to see and not the ability of the breeder to pick and choose if they are going to advertise the results. At the moment the hip/elbow scores are sent to the Assoc before the dog or bitch can be used however the result is not added to the certificate....

It is on our [MDBA] pedigree certificates and why many breeders are now dual registering their dogs. Not only are their scores and results added but also if they do specific work such as assistance or search and rescue etc so the breeder has it all on one document when they profile their pedigrees. And we don't just rely on breeders to enter the details either -the good and the bad stuff is entered by people who own pet puppies as well as breeders so it builds info of all of the relos.

So where do you get the breeders info from..... the breeders or the schemes etc.

The info is provided by breeders , pet owners, rescue etc anyone who owns a dog with a pedigree.

They send in the vet reports, verifiable scores and test results etc, we also ad in qualifications which are and are not ANKC recognised,temperament issues , work [or not] to enable the breeder to have as much info as possible on whats in the pedigree.

[angelsun]

The other thing to keep in mind when wishing to compare different species and how inbreeding has affected them, is to know how many pairs of chromosomes there are to work with. Not all animals have the same number and as such, the 'inbred' factor is very different in some than others based on this fact.

[sandgrubber]

I hope there will be better tools available for guiding breeding decisions in the coming decade.The problem with inbreeding, including line breeding, is that it increases homozygosity, and thus increases the likelihood of deleterious genes being expressed. The problem with this statement is that all homozygosity is not equal. Most homozygous pairs are harmless. But the harmful ones can be quite bad, causing blindness, deformities, stillbirths, etc, etc, etc. I think there's general agreement that the genes in the Major Histocompatibility Complex, with dogs, the region known as the DLA, are especially important to health. Tests are coming available to measure the homozygosity / diversity in the DLA. see, eg, http://shop.genoscop...m/en/tests-dog. These tests are new and not cheap, and the methods may change over time. However the y should eventually spare us the difficulty of assembling 10 to 15 generation pedigrees to get a meaningful measure of the COI. And the information they yield will be more relevant to health than the overall measures of genetic diversity.