“You should definitely get this
dog – she is a nice example of the breed and she can only produce herself
because of her high inbreeding co-efficient.” – From a breeder who had a father/daughter
litter of pups
“How could you inbreed? It is morally wrong – even the Bible is
against it!” – From a
non-dog, Baptist friend who obviously never read Genesis 19:30-38
“I don’t need to inbreed. You can get what you want by careful studies
of pedigrees. Inbreeding is a shortcut
that can lead to ruin.” - From a breeder
“You can do more damage
continually outcrossing because you are mixing more and more issues into your
"mix.” – A breeder
who uses a Stodghill’s Clockwise Breeding Program
“If you
want to produce a consistent look, you have to inbreed. How do you think breed type got set in the
first place? Inbreeding dogs that had the type that we were looking for, that’s
how.” – Another dog breeder
“It is completely irresponsible
to inbreed – that’s how many health problems begin in most breeds... …there isn’t enough genetic diversity in most
breeds to begin with so when you inbreed you are just compounding problems.” –“Goldendoodle” website
There is a
saying that when you’ve got a hammer in your hand, everything starts looking
like a nail. I understand that. Hammers are often the first tool we learn to
use because they are fairly easy to swing and hit things with. They can be used for several different
reasons and for several different projects – and let’s face it – it can be
pretty damn satisfying when you use one.
The problem
with hammers is that they are not always the right tool for the job. They don’t fix every carpentry problem you
can come across. Even though you could
build a deck using a hammer and nails doesn’t mean that you should. Smaller fixes around the house can become
difficult when all you have is a hammer.
When you are building a foundation you can use a sledgehammer to get
rebar into the ground, but you need lots of other tools to get that concrete
laid and poured perfectly.
In order to
get the whole job done, we often need many tools in our toolbox and we need to
know how and when to use them.
Pretty obvious, right?
Not in the
world of dog breeding. It seems that
every time I turn around I see folks swinging hammers as if their lives depend
on it. They espouse the hammer as the
ONLY tool to use. They defend their
hammers even when their project is falling down due to the overuse of the
hammer – my deck is wobbling and falling apart?
Couldn’t be the tool I used! It
must be the wood. The nails. The weather.
The paint. The guy across the
street who told me not to use the hammer – he must’ve come over and kicked at
my deck.
To be fair,
I will come out with my position right now:
Inbreeding should be judiciously used to correct and set type. Outcrossing should be judiciously used to
correct and set type.
And just in
case you need a little help in definition department, “judicious” means: having, exercising, or characterized by good
or discriminating judgment; wise, sensible, or well-advised.
In other
words, put down that hammer. Think about
it. Is it the best tool for the
job? Is it the best tool you have access
to? Can you root around in your
neighbor’s toolshed for something that might work better?
My mentor is
a whiz when it comes to outcrossing. She
has produced consistent type throughout the years using outcrossing- you can
tell one of her pups usually by its distinct and very correct headpiece. She has been called “lucky” by more than one
breeder. But when it comes to her
breeding choices you can sometimes see a method in her madness, but not
always.
When it
comes to outcrossing producing consistent type, you must look at the sire and
dam first. “If they wear it, they share
it” as one breeder has said in the past.
Do they look the same? Do they have similar headpieces? Do they have similar toplines, angulation,
ears, etc? Now let’s look at the
grandparents - are we seeing the same characteristics in them as well?
Let’s break
this down a little further, using shoulder assembly as an example:
Sire
– well angulated shoulder
Sire – well
angulated shoulder
Dam
– straight shoulder
Sire
– straight shoulder
Dam – well
angulated shoulder
Dam
– well angulated shoulder
If we just
look at the sire and the dam, we’d think on the outset that we are going to get
a litter of puppies with well angulated shoulders. But if we remember that if they wear it, they
share it, both sire and dam share a parent who has a straight shoulder – they
are going to share it with their offspring – both sire and dam have the ability
to produce a straight shoulder, as well as produce offspring with well
angulated shoulders that can then produce straight shouldered offspring.
Looking more
and more like a crapshoot, isn’t it? Let’s go a little further:
Sire
– well angulated shoulder
Sire
– well angulated shoulder
Dam
– well angulated shoulder
Sire – well
angulated shoulder
Sire
– well angulated shoulder
Dam
– straight shoulder
Dam
– straight shoulder
Sire
– well angulated shoulder
Sire
– straight shoulder
Dam
– well angulated shoulder
Dam – well
angulated shoulder
Sire
– well angulated shoulder
Dam
– well angulated shoulder
Dam
– well angulated shoulder
The odds
look a little better in our favor, don’t they?
We see that the straight shouldered grandparents each have at least one
well angulated shouldered parent.
This is a
vast oversimplification of the decision making process when it comes to
breeding, as no breeding should ever take place that relies solely on one
characteristic for the offspring. Outcrossing
is difficult because the breeder trying to channel a consistent variety of
characteristics into a litter of puppies with two parents (and grandparents and
so forth) who have no consistent genetic ancestor.
Think of
different kennels as different regions of the globe – when you have a child
whose grandparents came from Egypt, Japan, Brazil and Finland there could be a
myriad of ways for that child to appear physically – however each pairing could
potentially live up to our ideal of a perfect beauty (standard) or potentially
be, well, a well-tempered dog who is petted out.
But remember
too that if you inbreed on dogs whose ancestors have wildly differing looks
(let’s go back to our grandchild) then you are not going to get a consistent
pairing either – in order to produce consistency you have to have consistency
behind a pairing. If your grandparents
from Brazil and Egypt look alike, then chances are their offspring will look
more similar to them than if they didn’t.
To simplify,
when I pair two dogs together I attempt to make sure that my phenotypes (looks)
match up and are consistent in a large part of the potential offspring’s
pedigree. Then if I really want to
solidify a certain “look,” I bring in the genotype to inbreed and hopefully “set”
that type into the offspring. Inbreeding
on dogs whose ancestors look nothing alike will only solidify an inconsistent look
the offspring, and it will be further perpetuated down the line.
So go ahead
and swing your hammer, but remember that there might be other tools in your
toolbox to help you reach your goal.
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