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Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

ucdavis.edu

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Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

#121

Post by artfulhippo »

djsbs wrote: post #97
f6v wrote: post #72

Dog breeding is mostly a net-negative for the society. Kind of like jewelry and luxury cars.

This seems like a judgement call from someone who doesn't understand any of the three topics and therefore sees only the negatives. As an example, dog breeding which I know least of the three topics, provided society (the object in your sentence) with very specific work dogs that have served society for centuries. Imagine the Inuit without their sled dogs. Jewelry and luxury cars are easier to justify, but Im so bewi…

Money spent on luxuries/social status signaling is money not given to reduce suffering. If you have any sense of empathy for the billions of people living with low incomes, it's obvious that luxury spending is resource misallocation.

Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

#123

Post by AlbertCory »

smorgusofborg wrote: post #120
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The end result when I was looking for a dog was that the shelters have nothing but pit bulls and Chihuahuas, and the dogs that the public prefers are all marked "reserved" or just gone. This is so frustrating! I'm currently looking for a dog, and the shelters near me have a few special needs dogs, a few "lab mixes" or "shepherd mixes" that are obviously Staffordshire terriers that happened to get lucky by having lo…

I find it a bit ironic that you and the OP seem to be saying these rescue groups work for their actual goal and the goal of the shelter.

What do you think the "goal of the shelter" is? To just move as many dogs out as possible, or to serve the public by giving them fair access to dogs others don't want? Those are subtly different.

Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

#124

Post by armenarmen »

h2odragon wrote: post #4

Going 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…

I've read through your thread, and your takes are super interesting and I'd love to learn/read more. If you have a dog blog/newsletter or anything I'd love a link, and if not I'd encourage you to make one

Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

#125

Post by Vetch »

denton-scratch wrote: post #87
a-saleh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I discussed this with my partner that takes her hobby of dog-training very seriously (like, we live with three dogs, and she sometimes does payed woroshops, e.t.c) that Border Colies are often considered to be the most intelligent dogs, but that might be mostly a side-product of breeding them to be eager to please. In theory many other breeds could be more intelligent, but border collie is the one most likely to be e…

The Border Collie is indeed intelligent. It is overwhelmingly the sheepdog preferred by Welsh shepherds. It is also loyal, good-natured, and pretty safe around children. This breed doesn't suffer health problems due to inbreeding, because it isn't a (UK) Kennel Club breed; there's no such thing as a "pedigree" Border Collie in the UK.

Yeah, from what I've read Collies are a smarter breed and also vary in intelligence amongst themselves. High obedience has been shown to at times be counter to good test performance as it means lower curiosity, higher dependence on humans and lower problem solving persistence. Collies are curious, enjoy learning and having a job but can be chaotic when bored, which is markedly different from incurious obedience.

> This breed doesn't suffer health problems due to inbreeding, because it isn't a (UK) Kennel Club breed

The paper aligns with what you say, it remarks that Collies are highly inbred but not suffering that much from it. Can you explain the significance of not being a Kennel Club breed? Can that be the whole story, though?

> There were interesting exceptions to the correlation of inbreeding and health. The Border terrier, Basenji, Collie, and English setter breeds have high inbreeding but low morbidity. Likewise, the Malinois, Pomeranian and Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka (Russian Toy) have lower inbreeding and high morbidity. These example breeds are neither brachycephalic nor particularly known for extreme morphologies.

> In the case of healthy breeds with high inbreeding, it may be possible that these breeds have been purged of deleterious alleles as has happened with inbred mouse strains

> In the opposite situation, the recorded morbidities could be high allele frequency Mendelian diseases or potentially conditions linked to phenotypes under selection in the breed. These discrepancies could also exist due to population differences between the insurance data and the inbreeding data.

Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

#126

Post by quartz »

AlbertCory wrote: post #119
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The end result when I was looking for a dog was that the shelters have nothing but pit bulls and Chihuahuas, and the dogs that the public prefers are all marked "reserved" or just gone. This is so frustrating! I'm currently looking for a dog, and the shelters near me have a few special needs dogs, a few "lab mixes" or "shepherd mixes" that are obviously Staffordshire terriers that happened to get lucky by having lo…

Thanks, I expected a flood of condemnations! The term "backyard breeder" is just one step up in snobbery from "trailer trash." I got my two cats from families that could be called backyard breeders. To me, that meant that children played with the kittens, which is especially crucial to cats. So if you want a golden (fantastic dogs, btw!), there are lots of breeders. You might have to drive for a few hours to find one…

I uh... I don't think that was a condemnation at all?

Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

#127

Post by alistairSH »

simplyaccont wrote: post #101
Geezus-42 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doodles already aren't purebred.

try to explain it to proud owners of "standard Australian mini labradoodle" or something like this... they claim that it's a new pure breed

If you paid $4000 for a designer pooch, you'd make that claim too. ;)

Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

#128

Post by verelo »

etempleton wrote: post #86
retrac wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my experience that a dog's tendency to wander or want to escape has only a little to do with its intelligence. (Their ability to effect an escape is a different matter.) I think it's partly just a personality trait. I've met stupid, misanthropic chihuahuas that won't wander and intelligent, deeply loyal huskies that chase after everything they can see.

We tend to measure a dog's intelligence by obedience and trainability, but dogs like huskies and beagles do not follow that rule. There is a reason there are always beagles readily available for adoption. My beagle growing up extremely smart--he knew every trick you can think of; he could remember specific objects by name; track someone's scent in an instant if you said find XXX; and seemed at times to understand who…

I've got a blue tick beagle (he's amazing: https://www.instagram.com/elvisrufflife), we recently had a friend up to our house in the woods and they had their dog run away from them on a walk the first morning they arrived. Over an hour later, i leashed up our beagle, started where their dog got lost by pointing at a few of her footprints and...away he went (on leash!). We followed a trail (that i could not see) for about an hour, i was convinced he was just tracking a deer or something unrelated. Eventually the trail lead to a road a few km away from the house where we met some other people walking their dog, i asked them if they had seen a black dog and they instantly responded with "Yes, we saw a dog 10 minutes ago".

I knew he was smart, but it's next level impressive what he can track. Our dog has had no formal training , i got him as a rescue when he was about 18 months old. He can do all the standard tricks, and apparently track things? I'm certain he knew what i wanted him to do, it was an odd form of communication but he seemed very excited with the assignment he was tasked with.

The kicker to this story is that our friends dog came back to our house all by itself about 5 hours later. We spotted it once during our hunt, but being a rescue street dog from Forida, she's pretty skittish and just ran away any time she was approach by another person.

Re: Study: Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

#129

Post by AlbertCory »

quartz wrote: post #126
AlbertCory wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I expected a flood of condemnations! The term "backyard breeder" is just one step up in snobbery from "trailer trash." I got my two cats from families that could be called backyard breeders. To me, that meant that children played with the kittens, which is especially crucial to cats. So if you want a golden (fantastic dogs, btw!), there are lots of breeders. You might have to drive for a few hours to find one…

I uh... I don't think that was a condemnation at all?

I uh... I didn't say it was, but I guess you could legitimately read it that way.

I meant "I expected a flood of condemnations, but this is nice." or words to that effect.

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