#dog inbreeding

[kangals]

forgive me…. i am a little dumb… does that COI number mean stellina is like. 40% inbred?? i’m assuming no but could you explain what the numbers mean?

Stellina is more than 40% inbred 🙃 but yes, that is what it means.

COI = coefficient of inbreeding, or essentially how inbred a dog is. A parent-child breeding, or a breeding between full siblings would theoretically give you a dog that has a COI of 25%. On average, purebred dogs are at about 20%, but that varies depending on breed - some breeds are very diverse, others are very inbred. The collie breed average is estimated to be around 40%, which is very much on the high end - it means on average, collies are almost genetic full siblings. This website has breed breakdowns, for a visual reference.

Genetic COI is a relatively recent thing, as before we had DNA tests we had to rely on “pedigree COI” aka literally laying your dogs pedigree out on paper, counting how many times certain dogs appeared over the generations, and then doing calculations based on that. These tend to be significantly lower than the genetic COI because that doesn’t take into account the overall gene pool of the breed. Stellinas pedigree COI was somewhere around 18% when I calculated it iirc, which is still high but significantly lower than her genetic COI. That’s because the amount of dogs originally used to create the modern collie breed was very small, so all collies today are pulling from the same small pool of DNA. When you have breeds that are all direct descendants from the same handful of dogs, and with how COI only accrues higher and higher with each generation… it’s totally possible to end up with thousands of dogs that are genetic siblings.

The good news is that despite their very low genetic diversity, collies are still a healthy breed with a respectable average lifespan on 12-14 and few major health issues. But that’s despite the high COI, not because of it. On the other hand take the Doberman breed, which has a similar average COI around 40%. Something like 2/3 Dobermans will die from a heart disease called DCM, which makes seemingly healthy dogs just drop dead. And because virtually every Doberman is a genetic full sibling with each other, there’s no real way to just breed away from it. The breeds essentially in a death spiral unless there’s some miraculous medical breakthrough, or unless they start breeding Dobermans to other, unrelated dogs to try and increase diversity. Which is a huge can of worms by itself. so while collies are still doing, all things considered, really well, they're very much the exception and not the rule. unfortunately because there's no immediate repercussions, that means a lot of collie breeders and clubs will hand-wave off the high COI as "oh that's not a problem for us" which, like. yeah. for now.

so tl;dr: yes COI is how inbred a dog is. yes it being high is bad. you can have a high COI and still be healthy (and have a low COI and be unhealthy), but it's still really not great and should be avoided. however in breeds where the COI is already high, there's not really a feasible way to get around it.

[despazito]

Listen I'm a bit of a hater and I do have some reservations with the concept surrounding conformation and animal fancy as an institution but horses are one of the LAST animals you can really criticize for their conformation standards and just calling it eugenics. Unlike most dog breed standards, horse conformation is more predicated on their ability to function and perform work, or to carry a wholeass person on their backs so it's really important they got good structure!!! Sure there's halter horses bred purely for show and that's where you start getting the wonky dish faced Arabians and BBL quarter horses but unlike pugs the vast majority of horse breed standards do in fact keep the horse's best interests in mind.

[raspberry-gloaming]

LOOMING AND THE IMPACT ON THE LEVEL OF INBREEDING ON THE TIME LORD POPULATION, AN ESSAY

And how inbreeding is a big issue amongst the Time Lord population, due to their elitism and strict caste system.

[elbiotipo]

I was gonna make a longer post but first worlders are weird about pets

like yes we have all these exotic pets in our funny videos, don't ask where we got them! wildlife poaching? haha I like your funny third worlder words, magic enviroment man!

but nevermind that! you need to follow this set of strict rules on having a dog/cat because they are absolutely helpless beings that need to be monitored and pampered 24/7, honestly, if you don't have an income of 100k and aren't willing to dedicate your entire existence to this small animal, don't even THINK of getting a cat, fuck you. You can't even ETHICALLY have a pet unless you're middle class. Anyways, my little purse dog had to go the vet, for the third time this week and,

[darkwood-sleddog]

anyways i think its funny that it is basically implied these non american breeders in this scenario are like, held at gunpoint and forced to import and breed inbred, temperamentally unsound dogs into their lines. Nobody is making you do that babe.

[lilnasxvevo]

Btw my probably unpopular opinion is that CQL JGY DID NOT kill Jin Rusong because he admitted to every other terrible crime he committed including killing his own father and killing his sworn brother so why wouldn’t he admit to killing his own son???

He doesn’t say to Qin Su that he killed Rusong, only something along the lines of “He would have had to die anyway,” and he doesn’t say anything to Lan Xichen about killing Rusong

MOREOVER, if there was any evidence that he was behind Rusong’s death, don’t you think Nie Huaisang would have found it and dragged it into the light? Do you really think Huaisang would have flinched away from going that far after everything else he did to expose JGY’s crimes? Do you think Huaisang, who had ten YEARS to plan everything, just went “Nah, I have enough evidence” and didn’t BOTHER to look into Rusong’s death???

No. The only explanation is that Nie Huaisang looked, and found nothing. And judging from the rest of Huaisang’s stellar detective work, that’s because there wasn’t anything to find.

Is that because Jin Guangyao covered up all the evidence? I don’t think so.

However. I also think that the reason he didn’t lean too hard into “Of course I didn’t kill my son!” as a way to defend himself was that he was, as he alluded to during his showdown with Qin Su, somewhere around 50% committed to killing Rusong at some point—his enemies just got there first.

I think he was keeping a close eye on Rusong’s development and I think that if Rusong showed any sign of physical or intellectual disability that Jin Guangyao was going to get rid of him as quickly as possible.

As a side note, I will remind everyone that Jin Guangyao’s motive for wanting to get rid of Rusong was not “to cover up the incest”—he was quite confident he could keep that covered up indefinitely, as anyone who knew the truth knew that it would be basically suicide to go public with what they knew. Bicao only agrees to go public when she has secured the protection of two—TWO!!!—different leaders of two different Great Sects. That’s how dangerous she knows this secret is.

Instead, Jin Guangyao’s reason for wanting to kill Rusong to hide any disability or deformity he might have was that it would encourage people to say that Jin Guangyao had dirty/tainted/inferior blood and that’s why his son was inferior. This doesn’t really…make sense to the modern person, but it isn’t a crazy prediction for JGY to make, that people would say such things. It WOULD be kind of nuts to say “oh if Rusong is disabled then people will suspect his parents are half-siblings,” because there are about a billion more likely reasons why someone would have a genetic/congenital problem than incest, so it’s really unlikely that the rumor mill would ever think of that or that such a rumor would gain any ground.

[levbolton]

Since human incest is illegal in many countries because it is listed as child abuse (it is), animal inbreeding should also be banned because it is animal abuse (it is)

[crowtongued]

{--You ever just get stuck thinking about dogs to the point of obsession watching nothing but How To videos about getting and training one yourself for literally years til you’re like an expert on it and then you meet the most fucking adorable pupper ever and you’re like holy shit I need one more now? Anyway yes hello I am Cawcky and the only thing I have room for in my tiny bird brain is Puppy ™ --}

[wandering-wolf23]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but inbreeding animals is never a net gain for the animal in question. And you can't inbreed your way out of a mess that inbreeding created in the first place.

In other words, French bulldog breeders are nuts.

[pinkieroy]

Reading this article thinking, sure none ever heard of inbreeding being bad in the long run before

[great-and-small]

patch notes for EarthAnimals.v.12.09

Fixed male cat urethras to be less narrow (now 3.5x wider). Same correction made in male goats

Made alterations to equine cardiac sphincter- horses can now vomit

Scrapped french bulldogs and performed full overhaul of skeleton and soft tissue

Fixed panda GI tract and enabled diet options other than bamboo

Koala populations no longer dripping with chlamydia

Added 5,000 vaquitas to the Gulf of Mexico

Fixed cheetah coefficient of inbreeding. Note: organs can no longer be transplanted freely among population!

All dogs are now born with stomach tacked in place on body wall, preventing lethal twisting (gdv)

Fixed incorrect placement of legs in loons (they are now able to walk)

[aficionadoenthusiast]

you sound young from your posts and obv its fine to be misinformed on stuff, so- the "purebred dogs are more prone to health issues" thing is literally a myth. Supporting ethical breeders keeps dogs OUT of shelters, backyard breeders and fad dogs (doodles especially rn) are the problem. I suggest joining some local dog clubs to get more indepth explanations, you seem really passionate about dogs! :)

this is a really good message, and i'm glad to find someone else passionate about dogs, but purebreds being more prone to health issues is definitely not a myth. i can understand where the confusion might be coming from, though.

it's not really about purebreds specifically being inherently less healthy and more about why they're less healthy which comes down to how they're bred. a lot of purebreds are bred through inbreeding which has the same problems in animals that it does in humans which is why it's outlawed in most states. genetically speaking, when an egg is fertilized, it gets two different sets of genes, one from the the egg and one from the sperm, which (1) allows for genetic variation and (2) helps decrease risks of genetic disease by providing the cell with the dominant healthy gene instead of only getting the recessive* one. when there is incest, the cell runs the risk of getting only the recessive gene, and because purebreds are so often bred by incest, they have much higher risks of developing health problems. you may have heard of the habsburg jawline or fugate family with blue skin? both are commonly due to incest, and inbreeding is associated with a slew of other illnesses and health problems. another problem is reduced genetic variation. genetic variation happens when cells recombine during reproduction which gives a new genome even if the parents are the same. (it's part of why siblings aren't all clones of each other, among other reasons). anyways, genetic variation also plays a huge role in disease protection. when there isn't variation, a single disease can kill an entire strain of dogs, much like what is currently happening to bananas. when there is incest, that decreases the gene pool, which decreases genetic variation. this all also means that even if a purebred dog is healthy, they could still be carriers of hereditary diseases or they could be more prone to disease and illness. here are some sources if you don't believe me

economically speaking, purebreds are so often bred through inbreeding because breeders, dog show people, and people who need working dogs are often quite obsessed with the "right" characteristics, that is, they want the dogs that will earn them the most money, and this stigma has spread beyond working and show dog parents to the general public, and it has led to an unfair preference for purebreds and certain coveted hybrids like doodles, as anon mentioned, and other "fad dogs" which leaves mutts and rescues sitting in shelters because many shelters refuse to give in to the stigma, as they shouldn't. still don't believe me? less than 5% of dogs in shelters are purebred.

breeders achieve desired traits through artificial selection, aka picking dogs to mate with each other because they have the desired traits, and the breeder wants more dogs with that trait and as amplified as possible. the problem with this is that oftentimes, the dogs with the most desired traits are from the same family, and often even from the same line, so a dog might be bred with its grandparent, parent, sibling, etc., which increases the risk of bad genes i mentioned earlier, but it also ensures that purebreds stay pure. another risk of this type of breeding is that sometimes these traits are bad, or, because some genes code for several different things, breeding for certain characteristics and behaviors can lead to other harmful traits building up, such as in the pug.

you might be asking, "wouldn't it take several generations for this to have a negative effect?" sometimes, yes, but unfortunately, this artificial selection has been happening for centuries already, actually probably millennia, and, sometimes, it only takes one generation for a dog to become the victim of inbreeding, and most breeders are never gonna reveal their breeding practices because a) it will lose them money, and b) they're not required to.

supporting ethical breeders should be great! it really should be as good as it sounds, but there are so many unwanted dogs in shelters and on the streets that even if a breeder is ethical, they're still pumping more dogs into the world for profit when there are thousands of animals just sitting in shelters waiting for forever homes. not to mention, breeders are pretty much unregulated by US federal standards, and individual state laws are barely better, so it doesn't really matter if a breeder's practice is legal or illegal, because by US federal standards (and again, most state standards), backyard breeders are perfectly legal (source).

so, breeders can say they're ethical all they want, but unless you have personally seen their facilities, their registration papers, their dogs' registration papers, and gotten a vet to say with certainty that the animals are being treated right (or someone else qualified), you will never know for certain if a breeder is ethical, and i just can't in good faith support that. in my experience, the best way to keep dogs out of shelters is to adopt from shelters.

also, anon, if you're reading this, i'm so sorry for blowing up your ask, this is just one of the few topics i'm confident of my knowledge in

-

*when i say recessive, i'm using the biological definition, which means the trait that is expressed when the genotype is homozygous so that it is typically not there or is masked by the dominant gene, i.e., the recessive trait is the less common trait

[darkwood-sleddog]

While asking your opinions about European opinions on dogs, was referring to the breeding strategy documents uploaded on their breed clubs' websites. In a lot of breeds where the bulk of the gene pool is centered around U.S. dog-populations, the writers of the documents, the documents go into details discussing matador (or "popular sire") syndrome in the U.S. and having to breed out from their imported dogs: nervous temperaments, noise-anxiety, reactivity and aggression towards humans.

Your first question was incredibly vague, as is this one. What breed are you referring to? Malamutes? Because popular sire syndrome in any breed is again, not a strictly American problem. It can happen in any breed, in any region.

I am simply one working bred Malamute person, who doesn't breed and has very little ins to other breeds (of my own doing...i don't need unnecessary breed drama in my life). I find American show-line malamutes to be pretty temperamentally soft, but they also very VERY closely share pedigrees with the dogs in the UK in Europe that are 1.) popular and successful in the ring and 2.) popular and successful as sires. Many of the breeders I personally follow online are happy to share their dogs genetics back and forth across borders and work together to maintain a proper temperament. I have never seen complains about the temperaments of American show line dogs that are not also complaints about the breed temperament in general across all regions and countries (pet bred and giant lines are a different story, most often they are not responsibly bred/un-health tested so I cannot recommend the use of their pedigrees in breeding imo).

Malamutes HAVE the potential for same-sex DOG aggression (which is written in our standard) and any responsible malamute breeder worth their snuff will understand this, and many are working to minimize those aspects of the temperament, but not all breeders will prioritize this. It is a natural part of the breed. A responsibly bred, breeding stock worthy Malamute will never be nervous, noise-anxious, or reactive/aggressive to humans. It doesn't mean these dogs AREN'T produced. Genetics are funny, but once a dog presents these temperamental issues they should NOT be bred.

Maybe non-American breeders plagued with such a problem as you describe should instead focus less on popular/important pedigrees and more on importing dogs from temperamentally sound lines, from dogs that easily live with a family in a home situation that are regularly brought into social situations, dogs that meet their temperamental requirements. Maybe Non-American breeders plagued with this problem should not breed a dog that presents human reactivity/aggression, overly nervous temperament, etc. It don't care that it cost a lot of money to import a dog, the breeding of a dog with unsound temperament ultimately falls on the person that makes the choice to breed that dog AFTER the behaviors have presented themselves.

There are irresponsible breeders all over the world doing damage to breed temperaments. Breeding a dog with a known temperament issue and then complaining about is is irresponsible. Just don't breed the dog. Again, this is not a uniquely American problem, just as popular sires and the issues that come with that in a closed gene pool aren't a uniquely American problem. Thinking a temperament issue within a breed is the cause or fault of Americans only sounds a lot like breeders looking to absolve themselves of any blame when it comes to the choice to breed temperamentally unsound dogs.

[thehmn]

I haven’t seen anyone talk about this but everything about Perrito from Puss in Boots 2 implies that he comes from either a puppy mill or some very unethical backyard breeders.

He tells us that him and his “litter mates” lived with a “family” that would first throw him in a dumpster and when that didn’t work they tried to drown him in a river.

First, “litter mates”? Why not siblings? That suggests that inbreeding was probably a thing and they called each other “mates” to disguise that. (Edit: I’ve been informed that in English “litter mates” is used to distinguish a litter from the “siblings” a dog or cat will have later when they’re sold off which add a whole other level of sad because it means he was taught from the start to not get attached to his parents or siblings if he use that word despite never being sold off)

Second, he was the runt of the litter so the “family” just threw him away, most likely because they wouldn’t be able to sell him for a lot of cash and didn’t want to waste money on feeding him.

Third, he’s a merle chihuahua.

The merle gene in chihuahuas comes with so many health issues that most kennel clubs won’t allow you to register them no matter how purebred they are, and the few who does will only allow it under very specific conditions. The coat is considered so unethical that a lot of chihuahua fan forums won’t even allow you to join. If you breed two merle chihuahuas the puppies are fucked. And chihuahuas can carry the gene even if they don’t have the merle coat meaning even ethical breeders risk breeding two merle chihuahuas without meaning to. And Perrito clearly has a lot of birth defects like lopsided ears, underbite, wobbly run, and some kind of internal issues that required an operation at some point if the scar on his stomach is any indication.

A lot of Puss in Boots 2 fans are so dedicated to hating chihuahuas that, because they like Perrito, they refuse to acknowledge that he’s a chihuahua and instead prefer to think he’s a mutt or even an Australian sheepdog puppy (nevermind that Kitty asks if he’s part of a chihuahua gang or that Perrito says he USED to be a puppy) not understanding that him being a merle chihuahua is another subtle hint to his horrible past.

[doberbutts]

Is the high level of inbreeding in dobes more because "undesirable" traits are common so those dogs get weeded out (whether actual bad things or just not fitting the breed spec), a small number of breeders having the monopoly, or because they are all related anyway so there's no way of avoiding it without an outcross program? Is something like the Doberman Preservation ​Project a realistic future for the breed?

The doberman breed is in the current shape its in due to multiple genetic bottlenecks- some simple stupid breeding decisions and others due to active war zones and the consequences of wars- paired with people who are stubbornly refusing to even try to make it better because they have convinced themselves that what they're doing is right.

Fenris is my lowest COI dobe to date [23% iirc] and while not the lowest I've seen in the breed [19%], still a huge improvement over to 50-60% breed average. But people have argued again and again that lowering COI means making breeding decisions that produce inferior dogs, and so many refuse to even consider it as a possibility.

(For non-dog people, COI is coefficient of inbreeding, and it is a look at the numbers behind how inbred a population is. You want as low of a number as possible. 25% is equal to immediate siblings. Ideally we'd want single digit numbers, with anything over 10% being a major problem to fix. To compare, my chihuahuas are something like 6% (Fae) and 0.02% (Tater). Sushi is a direct line breeding aunt-to-nephew so she's up in the 40s.)

(It doesn't necessarily mean a dog is immune to genetic predisposition to bad health, as evidenced by Tater's CM diagnosis, however it does seem to correlate directly with longevity and likelihood of developing these problems, meaning Tater unfortunately just lost the genetic lottery)

In other words, it is certainly possible to reduce the COI of the breed by HALF with smart breeding decisions, and people are plugging their ears going LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU because it means actually going out and looking past the popular sires and taking a chance on a dog that might not be your exact type but will still improve the next generation. This is not just a show line problem because I spend the majority of my time with working line dobes and working dobe people and this is an incredibly annoying problem there too. Fenris himself has popular sires in his pedigree, both the show half and the working half, so it is demonstratably very difficult to avoid.

I do think a well executed outcross project is needed, however... the problem I have is that the current proposed projects all suck. There's not a lot of direction outside of throwing things into the pot and seeing what sticks, and a lot of the resulting dogs quite frankly aren't what doberman people would be looking for anyway. Farm collies? Bulldogs? Bullies? Carolina dogs? Border collies? Pyrs? Why??? None of these are going to make a dog that has the temperament that draws people to this breed.

There are. A bunch of breeders who are waiting for an outcross project that actually makes sense. They've even posted in various outcrops groups that they would support a project if it had certain specifications. Many have said, get yourself a nice female and title her out in a bite sport and do all the doberman health testing even if she's not a doberman and we'd be interested in contributing semen. The response almost invariably has been "but I don't want a protective dog". Then what are you doing in a DOBERMAN project??? So of course the chief complaint is that most of these projects are not looking to make dobermans, they're looking to make their own breed and just have a doberman paint job. Well, sorry, but most involved doberman people want a DOBERMAN, not just a dog that looks like one. This is the only AKC recognized breed with the sole function of personal protection. They are protective dogs. Either accept that, or get interested in a different breed.

I have heard increasingly concerning things regarding the temperament of the doberman diversity project dogs, which does not surprise me unfortunately as none of these dogs are in any way sourced from dogs with verifiable correct temperament. What do you get when you cross a Craigslist Corso with a Craigslist doberman? Well the first generation might be okay for people who want pets but apparently the ones that have worked in protection are awful at it. Same with the malinois crosses- of course, you took a lukewarm malinois and bred it to a z-list doberman and you're surprised that you got a bunch of lukewarm at best pet dogs.

I think the only project I solidly am somewhat interested in is the bandog cross, and that cross works just fine but then of course it does because in that country, bandogs are exclusively military, police, and security dogs, and she bred it to a igp3 doberman. Unfortunately the doberman died before his 10th birthday, so now we're all waiting to see what happens with his progeny.