I resent the idea of some third party organization setting the standard for whether my dogs are an official breed or not. So I've been making up breeds whenever people ask. My current dog, Eloise, is fairly obviously a mutt with a lot of St. Bernard and a lot of Great Pyrenees. So when people ask I say, "Oh, she's a new breed that people are calling St. Pyrenees. Her ancestors included some Great Pyrenees and some St. Bernard" By people I mean me.
Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
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Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#62Going on 30 years, I have had a pack of working hounds, usually from 4 to 12 strong. We have rural land surrounded by large plots of more rural land, 4,000 acres+ of tree farm and private hunting preserve, so our hounds are necessary for keeping coyotes and etc off livestock and other pets. In that time we've had many litters of puppies, usually trading them with neighbors to improve the local landrace and pass aroun…
Thank you for sharing, I really enjoyed reading this. It was informative and quite enjoyable to read. I'm also very jealous of the amount of space you have.
Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#63Isn’t there a known phenomenon where a species has been inbreeding for so long that they’ve selected out defects caused by inbreeding via natural selection? I thought I had heard that about lab mice, but I can’t find info about it.
Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#64Going on 30 years, I have had a pack of working hounds, usually from 4 to 12 strong. We have rural land surrounded by large plots of more rural land, 4,000 acres+ of tree farm and private hunting preserve, so our hounds are necessary for keeping coyotes and etc off livestock and other pets. In that time we've had many litters of puppies, usually trading them with neighbors to improve the local landrace and pass aroun…
Thank you for sharing, I really enjoyed reading this. It was informative and quite enjoyable to read. I'm also very jealous of the amount of space you have.
I've got 10ac in the middle of this. There's drawbacks (we get snowed in for 2wk by 12in of snow) but there's compensations.
Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#65"Studies show water is wet".
Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's been a while since I took biology, but doesn't this depend on the genders of the siblings? Two male brothers have XY, and the Y would have to be shared with the father, and same with two sisters (X from father), but a brother and sister would get a minimum of 50% different as the X and Y from the father would be different?
In humans, y is so small as to be insignificant in these terms. ChrX is much larger. Also, the combination of the remaining chr1-22 are much larger than chrX by itself, so these numbers don’t factor in as much as you’d think. Rough scale example: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX YY
Off topic, but I very much enjoy the creativity you used to explain the relative size of the chromosomes.
Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#67This is well known. Sometimes people breed the grandfather with the bitch or even the father. I think 'Pedigree certificates' has a lot to answer for in this regard. It doesn't encourage any kind of genetic diversity and people are actively discouraged and punished for trying to introduce new blood into lines. Another group to blame are 'puppy farms', people who breed merely to make money and take no responsibility f…
In general terms I agree. FWIW, my wife breeds white Swiss shepherds, and very much has the health of her animals in mind when she plans a litter. She'll cull (as in remove from her program to a pet home, not take out back and shoot) dogs that don't measure up - either temperament wise, genetics (she tests every dog she keeps using optimal selection's tests), other other traits - one of our fave bitches had to have elbow surgery due to a developmental defect that left an unattached piece in her joint. She was spayed.
like everything to do with people, there are fads, and then bad things happen due to those fads that you don't see for YEARS. The shiloh shepherds found they had a genetic heart defect, and it was traced back to a single stud used too much as he was popular.
I forgot where else I was going with this, but I mostly agree with the parent. OH, I know, the "new blood" thing. Most of the worlds kennel clubs have a process for bringing new blood in, where you bring in a dog that LOOKS like your breed, and meets the breed standard. You give it a registration, and its attached to the studbooks as an addendum. Keep breeding with your fully registered dogs until the progeny's three gen pedigree is filled with pure breds and you have a fully registered dog. Its not perfect, but at least its there as an option.
Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#68What I find interesting is that dogs are way better adapt at living a “city life” or an “apartment life” than we ever will be (unless we start breeding for those traits ourselves). People think “ah dogs are animals and should live in nature and not in closed doors of a city apartment”. Nope, from a genetic point of view some dogs are way more naturally fit to live indoors (look at Maltese for instance who’s bread to…
> What I find interesting is that dogs are way better adapt at living a “city life” or an “apartment life” This is certainly not the case with some of the herding / working dog breeds (GSD, Malinois etc) - it is borderline cruel keeping them in an apartment in some cases, and dangerous in others. I lived with a presa canario for a year in an apartment (roommates dog) - it was not a good situation for the dog or anyon…
I think 'borderline cruel/dangerous' is overstating it (I do live in an 1 bedroom appt with 2 BOC and 1 BOM), but it certainly is true that if you have a working dog, you need to give it work. And place to expunge energy.
My partner does several dog-sports, and it seems that if you have on avg 30-90m training a day over the week, most of the day your dogs will just be happily tired and lounge around and sleep.
Or if she has more lenient training shedule, we do take them to run around in a field just outside of city like every two days.
The misconception is, that if you give a working dog big enough yard next to your house, it will be happy, but in reality you still need to train and work with it. If I were to exagerate, this kind of psychological neglect too can be borderline cruel and sometimes dangerous.
The bad thing is, even the owners might not realize. I heard several stories along the lines of "Our bordercolie is well fed, and well behaved, and has access to run around in a large garden, and take her with us every weekend on a hike, and then bites our friends child into her leg when the she tried to run away?" ... well, yeah, I am not surprised that a shepherd dog that isn't well trained and never worked would do something stupid like that.
My point probably is, that even in the sad story of the hard-to-manage presa canario, yeah, having it in an appartment didn§t make things easier, but I wouldn't see it as the primary problem.
Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really interesting, thanks for posting. What do you practically do with the psychopath dogs/pups? Presumably the 'insane effort' required to keep them in line doesn't square well with all the other hard work your farm requires. Are you essentially forced to give the mentally unstable ones to a shelter?
I put the effort into the first one i met; she was named "Rascal" and one of the best dogs evar! (as they all are, of course :) I had her when the next one decided she needed to try to be boss; and then that pup left to run a wild dog pack for a couple years. they were decent neighbors but didnt thrive. We'd put out food at their corner of the place and they'd sometimes accept some, she set and respect boundaries oth…
Thanks for sharing!
I’m curious how you’d identify a “psycho” dog in a shelter, assuming you don’t have tons of time with the dogs. Are there some particular traits that are obvious or quickly identifiable?
I’m curious just from a knowledge perspective, but also what someone should look out for if they’re adopting a dog?
Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred
#70This is well known. Sometimes people breed the grandfather with the bitch or even the father. I think 'Pedigree certificates' has a lot to answer for in this regard. It doesn't encourage any kind of genetic diversity and people are actively discouraged and punished for trying to introduce new blood into lines. Another group to blame are 'puppy farms', people who breed merely to make money and take no responsibility f…
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