Line-breeding Bad or Good? - Page 2

I am amazed at the lack of knowledge about line breeding vs in breeding. People state wonderful results look at this breeder he does it  yadda yadda, which means nothing as I have not seen any great resutls from the examples above but have seen a lot of negatives, etc. etc. what they do not see is all the other dogs in the close inbreeding program with horrible resutls from temperament to health, chronic supressed immune systems, higher evidence of mega esoph, you name it it will be there and in much higher numbers than a outcross. I did some research this past year on WUSV dogs in general the first place through fifteen  and very few and had any common ancestors showing in five generations wonder what that says?? A dog, a person, a anything that is inbreed is subject to health issues some how it does not become a miracle and skip dogs, or certain breeds of dogs, or anything a tight gene pool with common in breeding and closely breed is a set-up for some terrible genetic issues being present and more negative results than positive.

Why do you think the american show shepherd has come to be mostly noted to be  a inferior, unhealthy animal with nerve and chronic health issues?  Why do you think the average backyard american shepherd with none of the show lines even tho not a import is unually the healthier dog more intelligent dog?  The German Shepherd came to this country  a well balanced dog in general and was subject to the show line breeders who  were trying to change the look and conformation of the breed and practiced very close  LINEBREEDING would be the answer. Ever wonder why the mutt off the street half shepherd, half beagle or whatever usually does not have  near the health issues and appears smarter than most purebreds.

I am glad breeding is such a personal choice for every breeder as I care deeply about the health of what I produce as well as the working ability and choose not to breed irresponsible.  This is one subject that so many seem to leave common sense at the doorstep.

Marlene

I have a full sister to Ziggy v Tiekerhook. The reason there are all females listed is because it was a litter of seven girls and one boy. My girl (Evita van Tiekerhook) is a very nice dog. She is small in size, extremely athletic, and super fast. Hips and elbows look great. She has nice conformation but could use a better head. I am hoping to get her titled by the end of this year. She has endless drive for the work. Her obedience is fast and correct (most of the time anyway) Her tracking needs work. Most  importantly, this girl is solid with all people. I have three kids ( 1,6,and 9) and she is in the house regularly with all of them. NO PROBLEM. She does not guard her food or toys from them. I am not a first time dog owner, but I feel this dog would not be a danger in even an inexperienced home. With that said, she does have TONS of unending energy and probaby would make most people crazy. The one thing that is a pain in the @$$ is that she does not care for other dogs, but it is managable. Sorry for the long message, but I love to talk about my dog.

I would like to breed her following KKL. Any thoughts on specific stud dogs?

Thanks,

Candy

How about a 2-2 Max, 3-3,3 on Nick?  ;-)  http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/para.utkoma?fadir=522522&modir=519118

What opponents to linebreeding fail to realize, is the "negatives" are completely dependant on the "genetic load" of the bloodline.  Genetic load is a measure of all of the harmful recessive alleles in a population or family line.  A high genetic load would be one in which there is a high frequency of deleterious recessive alleles.  A low genetic load is bound to carry alot of homozygous beneficial alleles, and more likely to consistently produce well, particularly in phenotype.

Different breeds carry different genetic loads for different health concerns (i.e., no lethal merle in gsd's).  Different bloodlines carry different loads as well, but it's important to note, that it's not really a bloodline at all, if there is no linebreeding.  Products of continued outcrossing do not "produce themselves" consistently, and only perpetuate the concealment of genotypes with recessive detrimental genes.

Linebreeding in and of itself is no cause for worry, it all depends on the genetics involved.  Honestly, outcrossing concerns me more.  If it were true in a non-specific but broad sense that, inbreeding were a "set-up for some terrible genetic issues being present and more negative results than positive" then the successful program run by Tiekerhook kennels would have failed miserably a long time ago.  And that simply is not the case.

Inbreeding can intensify desirable characteristics to a degree that the offspring are highly probable to produce these characteristics.    

In-breeding is typically defined as :

father to daughter

mother to son 

full brother to full sister

So this dog in not truly inbred, but very close.  

  As far as inbreeding being responsible for health and temperament issues, this is not the case.  Inbreeding does not cause these problems, but rather breeders who lack knowledge of a what exists in a dog's background do. 

Outcrossing is not likely to fix faults nor can it concentrate specific qualities with any certainty.  Of course outstanding offspring may result for outcrosses but it is unlikely that these outstanding offspring will be able to reproduce themselves with any consistancy.  But of course outcrosses are another important tool for a breeder.  

  Many would think this breeding was a bit insane.  But the difference between genius and insanity is a thin line.  That line is the result; and who can argue with the results of this kennel?   

I agree 100% with daryleheret and Zahnburg. The acts of linebreeding, distance or close and inbreeding are not the culprits here; the errors are made by selecting faulty dogs to linebreeding, inbreed on. That would be the result of not having  enough exprience,  not doing enough research prior to making such a breeding, not having good information available or just not having good dog sense. Garbage in, garbage out.

I respectfully disagree that the Am line dogs are "the way they are" due to linebreeding and inbreeding. Again, poor selection of foundation stock from Lance on down to the present day has probably given the Am lines breeders more headaches than anything they are doing today pedigree-wise.  By linbreeding and inbeeding moslty on Lance they have set a specific type that is now considered to be the correct type. Long backs, short legs, swan-like necks, too much angulation fore and aft, refined heads with Roman noses, and sloping backlines. They have seen so many of these dogs that they either genuinely believe they are the correct type or just haven't done their homework, so sadly do not know any better.  This is why Dallas stood out in a crowd. He was not nearly as extreme as the influential Am line breeders want their dogs to be and for that reason, he was either loved or hated. The most common complaints being he  did not have enough angulation and his head was too common. Most of us would have felt he was one of the best AM lines dogs to be bred in many years.  The GSDCA provides the fancy with a nice Illustrated Standard that can be seen on their web site. The AKC show dogs we seen today bare little resemblance to the ideal GSD pictured in that IS.

I haven't actually seen all that many Am lines pedigrees, but those I have seen of the top winners of the time are essentially outcrosses. An outcross is no common dogs in the first 5  generations even though some may go back to the same dog/s after that. By the time  you get to the current generation, the gene pools of dogs much past the 4th generation are going to be so watered down that they not going to have much influence on your current generation. A dog in the 5 th only provides 6.25% of it's genes to the genome of the current dog so has little influence. Unless thay are indentical twins, no 2 littermates carry the same genome either.

It's always puzzles me why linbreeding and the occasional inbreeding is considered voodoo science in the imported GSD world. Do it right and it's a straight line from point A to point B. You can stack the deck in your favor by linebreeding or inbreeding the right combination rather than outcrossing generation after generation after generation.  The litter must be strickly graded and the  inferior progeny never bred, but when you get a good dog or 2 from an inbreeding or a linebreeding, the odds are greatly in your favor that dog will produce better than a dog that has an open pedigree. Outcrossing for generation after generation does absolutely nothing other than weaken the gene pool and that leaves the door wide open for health issues more so than linebreeding and inbreeding. I've also learned that there is no way some are ever going to be convinced that linebreeding and the occasional inbreeding is a good thing. It's OK to ingore the SV  rules in most other ways - breed untitled dogs or dogs with bogus titles, incorrect coats, bad feet, poo

Ooops.............

poor pigment, weak nerves, but never, ever ignore their rule against close breeding. I don't get that. In the dog world, it's not considered incest.

Some of you have probably already read Lloyd Brackette's article of how to breed better dogs. He's considered by some to be the father of the breed in America and, yes, his dogs are behind the Am lines we love to hate. However, it's still a good article and worth the read IMO. I'm sure someone will jump in here and say his dogs were pieces of crap and maybe they were, I don't know. However, that can be and is said about every dog breeder I know of, so I take it with a grain of salt

http://www.nylana.org/RRACI/brackette.htm

Sorry, there's a typo in the above link

http://www.nylana.org/RRACI/brackett.htm

"A dog in the 5 th only provides 6.25% of it's genes to the genome of the current dog so has little influence. Unless thay are indentical twins, no 2 littermates carry the same genome either."

If I may add a small correction:  A dog in the 4th only provides 6.25% of it's genes to the genome.  A dog in the 5 th only provides 3.125% of it's genes to the genome of the current dog so has little influence. Unless they are indentical twins, the inbreeding coefficient is likely to be half again, so that a 4-4 linebreeding carries 3.125% common alleles, and a 5-5 share 1.5625% COI.

Another thing to point out, is that when issues of health or nerve have resulted, health and nerve were not top priorities in the selection, but instead took a back seat to overselection for different traits, such as pigment or conformation.  A reverse scenario would involve something like, working line breeders allowing for soft ears, white spots, and such to keep strong nerves and drives in the line.

Perhaps breeders of Am lines have compromised qualities they felt to hold less importance in their breeding.  Am line enthusiasts probably keep to themselves enough, "in their circles", to not even be aware of what real working drives and temperament should be like, to compare.  Perhaps they go to schutzhund practice about as often as I go to dogshows.

I can't get your second link to work either, but here's another article on Bracket's Formula.

http://www.breedingbetterdogs.com/bracket.html

Darn it, the second link works for me, Daryl.  If you haven't already read the entire article, maybe you could paste it in your browser window. It's about 40 pages and fairly extensive. Battaglia has also written some very thought provoking articles about breeding dogs. Some find them a bit controversial and feel they encourage over breeding in an already saturated market, but still well worth the read I think. It never hurts to get another take on any subject.