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Date Posted: 11:59:11 09/16/03 Tue
Author: Dan G.
Subject: Re: It DOES become clearer
In reply to: JB 's message, "Re: It DOES become clearer" on 09:14:43 09/16/03 Tue

JB,

I will use your example to make my point.

"His PH score came back .66-.48 (remember the breed average is .62-.62) His sire is .39-.32 and his dam was .43-.43"

Meaning that, even though Bossman's sire and dam had good hips, they still produced a dog with undesirable hips. This fact is very important to remember. If the dogs hip score is very good, it does not mean that the dog will produce progeny with good hips. The same is true of a dog with bad hips.

For example, if the rest of Bossman's pedigree shows good hip scores and his littermates came out good as well, then it is safe to assume that Bossman may be able to produce pups with good hips. Maybe not, but definately worth looking into.

Now lets say for the sake of argument ONLY that Shumba's sire and dam showed hips that fall within or a little below average, and his littermates also show average or below average hips. It is a very strong possibility that Shumba (even though he has a good hip score) will produce pups with average or below average hips.

My only point here is that since HD is a polygenic disorder I believe that the history in the pedigree of the dog in question is more important than just the dogs hip score.

A good example would be the German Shepherds. The Germans have probably culled and tracked their pedigrees the hardest (at least that I know of), and they still only come up with a heritability factor of somewhere in between 55-60% for HD. This clearly shows that you can never rely on the hip scores of only one generation, much less on one dog.

Now one could argue that your goal should then be to use only the dogs that have exceptional hip scores, great temperments, good conformation as well as very good history in pedigree hip scores. But I would point out that this is exactly how "exceptional" specimens damage a breed.

O.K., this brings me to the point that I have been wanting to address. Now I know that I'm opening myself up for major bashing, but here it goes.

To use only the best of the best, results in inbreeding and eventually this results in diseases or problems that become breed specific. It is of my opinion that within the BB breed, breeders in the U.S. should NOT be selling dogs for breeding purposes. The gene pool is much too small, the cull rate is much too high and this spells out a recipe for disaster in this breed. I would urge anyone that considers breeding in the future to research all of the bloodlines first and purchase dogs solely from outside countries and from bloodlines far apart from the ones being used here in the U.S. This is the only way to maintain a healthy breed. Working against inbreeding or even linebreeding will maintain progeny variability and a high level of heterosis (hybrid vigor).

Obviously this would only be accomplished with a strong organization, and any organization will only find its strength in money, which is why I never understood the complaint about organizations being hungry for money. For some reason, people in the dog world let their emotions get tangled up with common sense. No business, charity or organization runs efficiently without money to back up its efforts.

One last point,
It has been brought up quite often that there is no set type. I could see how this would hurt the breeders pocket, but not the breed. The fact that there is no set type is probably a very good thing for these same reasons. If you have a high variability rate among your progeny, you may not be able to tell what type of dogs these pups will turn out to be, but at least they will be healthier on average. If you want perfect consistency on how the pups will come out in terms of conformation, then yes, inbreed the best of the best and eventually you will have a very pretty line, like most of the show dog breeders. This last paragraph is not directed towards you JB.

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