Continued from PART 4 MORE ON INBREEDING The dog world seems unwilling to learn from science in some respects, and inbreeding-linebreeding is one of those areas. I say “one” because there is no real difference or dividing line between the two terms; linebreeding is simply descriptive of inbreeding on animals a little further back in …
Continued from PART 3 Figure 6. Seven Generations From an Outcrossing Event #’s refer to Outcross generations 1–{ from the 2–{ Pure outcross 3–{ Pure “event” 4–{ Pure 5–{ Pure 6–{ Pure These “Pure Dogs” 7–{ Pure are different individuals Pure “Outcross” represents the individual(s) of another breed “Pure” represents a purebred individual of the …
Continued from PART 2 FY = 0. This example emphasizes a point made earlier: inbreeding is dependent on relationship. In small breeds, it often happens that there are a few very influential individuals to whom most of the population is related. These elevated levels of relationship can make it difficult to plan matings free …
Continued from PART 1 Adding The Row ‘Emma’ Now that we have added a second row to form a column, a comment is in order that will greatly reduce your labor. Look ahead to the completed Table 3 e, for a moment. If you draw a diagonal line down the matrix from the cell …
[note: this first appeared as “Cryptorchidism in the German Shepherd Dog,” but is applicable to all breeds.] The most common congenital* anomaly of the scrotum and testicles is the apparent absence of one or both gonads. I use the word “apparent” because the missing testicle(s) usually are actually present inside the body cavity of the …
Hope that you never have a litter with cleft palates. But if you do, this may explain the cause of at least some cases. Let’s start at the beginning, with a short review of the birds and the bees. The sperm cell, with half the chromosomes needed for a new pup …
Breeders often talk about inbreeding and outcrossing as though they were the only possibilities — and generally with negative comments about the latter. There are other possibilities, and I have long been a proponent of assortative mating. It is not a theoretical concept that doesn’t work in practice; I …
What is a Canine Breed? What is a breed? To put the question more precisely, what are the necessary conditions that enable us to say with conviction, “this group of animals constitutes a distinct breed?” In the cynological world, three separate approaches combine to constitute canine breeds. Dogs are distinguished first by ancestry, all of …
Introduction Some 70-80 % of all dogs suffer at least once in their life from backaches. Disorders of the spinal vertebrae and their associated backaches belong therefore to any list of most-frequent illnesses in many breeds, particularly the German Shepherd Dog. The chosen treatment procedures …
The information provided here outlines an approach that has been used successfully by the author to reduce the prevalence of clinically expressed canine thyroid disease within susceptible families or breeds. EARLY THYROID DISEASE (THYROIDITIS) COMPENSATORY AND CLINICAL CANINE HYPOTHYROIDISM Most of the confusion about the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid disease …