Breeding philosophy - Page 10

k9gsd78

What I think you've missed seeing in the study is that the researchers created a fear response to the chemical smell, they were able to duplicate the fear response in the subject mice, and that fear response (which fear is a trait I think we would both agree) was passed on to the F1 and F2 generation.  The fear that was caused by the conditioning did become a genetic fear.  It was passed onto the next generation. 

The trait (fear in this case) which we would believe an animal to be born with or conditioned over the course of their life has now been shown that it is possible to  create a fear that is passed on genetically even though it started out as an environmental fear.  I believe that has ramifications for those of us who train and work dogs.

this might throw some of pre-conceptions out the window, when hitler starved the dutch it seemed small babies became an inherited trait - WTF?????

ie:

Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were also smaller than average.^[7] These data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation.

an overiew with links to real science articles;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944

It is this kind of real experience that give rise to the research which then tries to prove a link. 

The mouse study is heralded because of how well it was thought out and executed.  They even went so far as to collect sperm from the male mice, carry it across the campus to another research lab and artificially inseminate unexposed female mice to eliminate any chance of learned behavior taking place.  The F1 and F2 offspring still exhibited the fear trait when exposed to the chemical. 

Damn, no kidding. They must have had teeny tiny artificial vaginas or microscopic electroejaculators to be able to collect semen from a mouse.  I wonder if they surgically implanted the female. I wonder who funded that study.

It's done all the time in the research world.  Some of the research is pretty nasty even though they always write about it objectively.

Very interesting thoughts on breeding philosophy. For me I don't think the order is important but they must all be present. Its all encompassing. As Blitzen insinuated nothing else is really possible, atleast for long term if the health is poor. Working ability will be comprimised with poor structure. Poor temperment will limit working ability. The German Shepherd dog was originally designed to be a working dog. Deviating from the original purpose and choosing asthetics over work is where I believe the shortcomings have been derived.

Kyle