Helen S
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InbreedingI know this has been discussed before under another heading and I was unable to find it. My question of those who are involved with breeding is how close is considered too close in line breeding?
I enquired of several breeders with litters of GWPs advertised on the internet how they were bred. They were all helpful and some even sent me scans of their three generation pedigrees. What struck me was that one litter had the same dog three times as great grandsire. The sire and dam of another litter were brother and sister.
I know the gene pool for this breed would be quite small in NZ, but dogs do get imported from Australia and the US from time to time. Is it a sensible or safe practice to in breed to this degree?
Helen S
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DesO'Neile
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Bob Wehele wrote something to this effect in his book, Snakefoot, the making of a Champion. Lexington Jake appears 416 times in Snakefoot's pedigree and if as I intend to I breed him to his sister..................... He also put forward the view that no matter how close a mating is, for the progeny to be defective one of the parents must have been. It is well established practice in livestock to fix traits by mother/son, father/daughter matings. There is however the obvious danger of fixing undesireable traits as well. This is obviously a view at one end of the acceptable scale and would be classed as severe in-breeding. The other end of the same scale would be to breed any healthy specemin to any other healthy specemin without regard to pedigree. The only problem is that you don't "fix" the traits and even an excellent dog produced by this method is unlikely to breed anything better than itself.
I am on my sixth generation since I started my kennel. All my dogs are heavily line bred, perhaps even in-bred. I have just introduced a Danish outcross but if you go back ten generations you will see the same dogs appearing both in the outcross and in the kennel so he won't be that much of an outcross.
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Ghilliegumdrop
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I agree Des, I was always taught to breed Grandparent to Grandchild as the oldtime breeders did. A very good article to read is by Lloyd C Brackett a gentleman in the States who bred German Sheperds. It is downloadable but runs to about 20 pages. Nice light reading for a winters evening 
Jan
PS What surpises me is that racehorse people don't seem to linebreed their horses very much.
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DesO'Neile
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Racehorses. Weren't there only four thouroughbreds to start off with?
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Ghilliegumdrop
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Only three stallions alledgedly as the foundation stock....but having said that they were very different. Wonder what they used before that and also in between times.Still all thoughbreds supposedly go back to these three.
The Byerley Turk 1680 - 1696
Darley Arabian 1700 - 1733
Goldolphin Arabian 1724 - 1753
Jan
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BritAnnie
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How do you know that?  Here was me thinking you were a duffer!  Must be all those quizzes you and Mike go to.  Now if only I was closer we could try for that £200 first prize on Saturday.
Annie
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Ghilliegumdrop
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It's OK I have twisted Mike's arm and he is coming with me [or else]
Did you not know, I had a very good eddiekashun. 
Jan
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Helen S
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Now I understand.....
What I do know is that thoroughbred breeders use line breeding but not nearly so close in practice as this. I seem to remember that there is some kind of "recipe" as to how many crosses to an excellent horse is desirable in a pedigree.
You have to remember that different lines tend to give stamina or straight speed over short distances. Not all thoroughbreds are bred to do the exact same job and as such can hugely differ in type, make and shape. This is to the degree that even knowledgeable horse people would have difficulty in recognizing some thoroughbreds as such.
Also it is not possible to get so many generations in a certain period of years as it is with dogs. Horse gestation takes eleven months, you don't know if it is any good for two or three years, it can only go to stud when it's racing career is over etc etc.
Helen S
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Helen S
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PS. So why don't the very inbred pups come out with deformities?
Helen S
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Bareve
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Quite a few breeds/breeders do very close breedings and certainly mother/son, father/daughter and even brother/sister has been done in the past. However most people who do that close a mating will then take the next generation out to an outcross and not go close again to family members.
The downside of breeding very close (brother/sister) is that you double up on everything - good and bad. Any recessive genes are more likely to develop into a problem as it will then appear on both sides of the pedigree.
Depending on the dog that appears three times in the great grandparents line - that wouldn't bother me too much providing that particular dog had lot more positives than negatives. Anyone doing a brother/sister mating in wirehairs is asking for trouble in my mind regardless of where they live. Now that importing is much easier for people and certainly the various kennel clubs are more open to allowing AI breedings I cannot see what benefits there are to the Wirehairs to do a brother/sister breeding.
The very inbred puppies will not automatically show any deformities unless there are deformities within the lines that come up on both sides of the pedigree.
JMO
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chiendog
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| Helen S wrote: | | PS. So why don't the very inbred pups come out with deformities? |
It's not as if pups with deformities never come out. They do. But inbreeding is only effective when is practiced with a steel heart...and a bucket of warm water close by.
Inbreeding is a powerful tool that must be used in concert with strict culling. Inbreeding can double up on any genetic strengths in a line....you keep those dogs. But it can also double up on any weaknesses....you dunk those pups. Breeders who successfully use inbreeding can achieve great things in their line. But they will inevitably have a bone yard out back.
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Helen S
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The trouble is those pups which don't have visible deformities but develop confirmational or temperamental shortcomings later on. You would have to run on dogs for a year or so and then practice the "steel heart".
Not much fun !!
Helen S
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chiendog
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| Quote: | | ... You would have to run on dogs for a year or so and then practice the "steel heart". |
You are right. And personally, I don't think I could do it. However, I can assure you that it is done as a matter of course for many hard core breeders. Purebred dogs are by definition, the result of actions not many of us are willing to take. They are the physical manifestation of our desire for an ideal man-made creature and our cold hearted drive to satisfy that desire.
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windem bang
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I never have been a big time dog breeder and like Chiendog I do not think I could live with myself if I had to inspect each litter destroying any suspect puppies. So I could not inbreed my dogs, I do think it is neccessary to fix a "type" and so I am not against it.
I have known and still know people who do have the strength of purpose to do this. I bought my labradors from one such person and my present G.S.P. puppy is himself inbred.
Where working dogs are concerned inbreeding is difficult, the physical parts of the dog can be seen and if the dog is healthy, thats fine. The hidden part - how the dogs brain works, obviously cannot be seen and yet for a working dog is just as important as how the dog looks.
This is why I believe so strongly that every generation of gundogs should be worked. Nothing else that I know of can determine a gundogs fitness to be bred from. They have to prove themselves as workers.
Bill T.
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Ghilliegumdrop
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I have been told [I'm too young to remember] that that man Hitler had the same idea regarding inbreeding.....and look what happened to him.
Jan
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DesO'Neile
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Hitler's ideas on inbreeding would have worked but for one small but significant fact. Humans have never been selectively bred. Other than himself no human had selected and culled in an attempt to create a perfect human. Just like any kennel owner starting with a hotchpotch of lines the abnormalities will come out. It is what you do with those abnormal individuals that will decide how successful your programme is. That fact that we are discussing the worst mass atrocity in human history doesn't mean the genetic principles aren't valid.
May they all rest in peace.
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Ghilliegumdrop
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Very true Des.
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chiendog
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| DesO'Neile wrote: | | Humans have never been selectively bred. |
Except for Prince Charles, the crowning glory of the "marry your double cousin" theory of human betterment
| Quote: | | I have been told [I'm too young to remember] that that man Hitler had the same idea regarding inbreeding.....and look what happened to him |
Hitler's barbarism towards his fellow man is well known. And I'm sure we all hope that he is rotting in a very warm place for his actions. Ironically however, it was during his rule that some of the first animal protection and animal "rights" regulations in Europe were formulated. I can't remember where I read it, but I seem to recall that the old system of automatically reducing the size of any litter to a max of 6 pups was outlawed during the Hitler era.
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Victoria
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There is that lovely old chestnut about breeding...
"inbreeding is only linebreeding gone wrong"
Genetics - away from dogs for a bit, we dairy goat breeders wonder why the challenges of breeding but science tells us that there are 86 possible combinations from the same sire and dam; not that the poor dam could produce that number naturally!!
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DesO'Neile
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Only yesterday I was talking to Jim Sheridan about dogs in Scandanavia and pointing dogs in particular. It appears that most of the Scandanavians are relatively content to practice line breeding but the Norwegians don't. I don't know if they just breed best to best or what but inbreeding is held in very low regard.
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tashap
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hitler didn't meet his own breeding criteria...
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Ghilliegumdrop
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True, then he got put down [albeit by his own hand]
Jan
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