4 ms·

This is well known. Sometimes people breed the grandfather with the bitch or even the father. I think 'Pedigree certificates' has a lot to answer for in this re

by bArray 5y ago

This is well known. Sometimes people breed the grandfather with the bitch or even the father. I think 'Pedigree certificates' has a lot to answer for in this regard. It doesn't encourage any kind of genetic diversity and people are actively discouraged and punished for trying to introduce new blood into lines. Another group to blame are 'puppy farms', people who breed merely to make money and take no responsibility for the genetic mess they make. I have a family member that breeds dogs quite seriously - one of their goals is to reintroduce good health traits back into the (working) breeds and undo the awful effects of inbreeding. Sometimes this involves reading the breeders notes from over a hundred years ago and trying to reproduce the same result (it's not easy). Often it seems to be enough to introduce a few closely related healthy breeds and after three or so generations you can get back to something healthier and a good representative of that breed. There are a few breeds that are in desperate need of serious dedication - namely short-nose breeds (i.e. Pugs, British Bulldogs, etc). Pugs are by far the worse I've encountered in terms of physical health defects, a significant number of Pug puppies are culled early on due to spine defects of breathing issues. Those that end up getting sold are almost guaranteed to end up with breathing issues. One of the healthier dogs you can own tends to be a mid-sized Mutt (cross-breed). From annecdata, I've found that a Bulldog (typically strong working dogs, dumb but loyal) crossed with something smarter but mid-sized tends to yield good temperament, long-life dogs with average intelligence (which is a good thing [+]). [+] Generally you want your dog to be smart enough to read your queues and work around you, but not so smart that it's getting bored or trying to figure out how to escape.

thih9 5y ago
> not so smart that it's getting bored or trying to figure out how to escape. This could be understood as if the most intelligent dogs were always bored or trying to escape. To clarify: intelligent dogs do need more stimulation, this is very true. But as long as they get it, they're happy.
- a-saleh 5y ago
  I discussed this with my partner that takes her hobby of dog-training very seriously (like, we live with three dogs, and she sometimes does payed woroshops, e.t.c) that Border Colies are often considered to be the most intelligent dogs, but that might be mostly a side-product of breeding them to be eager to please. In theory many other breeds could be more intelligent, but border collie is the one most likely to be excited to learn how to be good at the tests we give the dogs.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    The Border Collie is indeed intelligent. It is overwhelmingly the sheepdog preferred by Welsh shepherds. It is also loyal, good-natured, and pretty safe around children. This breed doesn't suffer health problems due to inbreeding, because it isn't a (UK) Kennel Club breed; there's no such thing as a "pedigree" Border Collie in the UK.
    - Vetch 5y ago
      Yeah, from what I've read Collies are a smarter breed and also vary in intelligence amongst themselves. High obedience has been shown to at times be counter to good test performance as it means lower curiosity, higher dependence on humans and lower problem solving persistence. Collies are curious, enjoy learning and having a job but can be chaotic when bored, which is markedly different from incurious obedience. > This breed doesn't suffer health problems due to inbreeding, because it isn't a (UK) Kennel Club breed The paper aligns with what you say, it remarks that Collies are highly inbred but not suffering that much from it. Can you explain the significance of not being a Kennel Club breed? Can that be the whole story, though? > There were interesting exceptions to the correlation of inbreeding and health. The Border terrier, Basenji, Collie, and English setter breeds have high inbreeding but low morbidity. Likewise, the Malinois, Pomeranian and Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka (Russian Toy) have lower inbreeding and high morbidity. These example breeds are neither brachycephalic nor particularly known for extreme morphologies. > In the case of healthy breeds with high inbreeding, it may be possible that these breeds have been purged of deleterious alleles as has happened with inbred mouse strains > In the opposite situation, the recorded morbidities could be high allele frequency Mendelian diseases or potentially conditions linked to phenotypes under selection in the breed. These discrepancies could also exist due to population differences between the insurance data and the inbreeding data.
      - denton-scratch 5y ago
        > Can you explain the significance of not being a Kennel Club breed? Well, the Kennel Club rates breeds in terms of their conformance to "spec", which is a lot about appearance. Inevitably, breeders breed to the spec. Border Collies aren't bred to any spec. (Collies are a different breed, which I believe is rated by the Kennel Club)
- retrac 5y ago
  It's my experience that a dog's tendency to wander or want to escape has only a little to do with its intelligence. (Their ability to effect an escape is a different matter.) I think it's partly just a personality trait. I've met stupid, misanthropic chihuahuas that won't wander and intelligent, deeply loyal huskies that chase after everything they can see.
  - etempleton 5y ago
    We tend to measure a dog's intelligence by obedience and trainability, but dogs like huskies and beagles do not follow that rule. There is a reason there are always beagles readily available for adoption. My beagle growing up extremely smart--he knew every trick you can think of; he could remember specific objects by name; track someone's scent in an instant if you said find XXX; and seemed at times to understand whole sentences. Unfortunately, he also was stubborn, independent, and had an insatiable drive to follow scents.
    - Jagerbizzle 5y ago
      Our goldendoodle sounds very similar to this. She's great at "go see XYZ" or "go get ABC", knows all the party tricks, and will play fetch endlessly without ever wandering off no matter how far I throw the ball. If she ever happens to see a squirrel or a chipmunk however she'll try to rip the leash off of your arm; if she's ever off-leash and sees a critter like this you can throw the hours of trained recall out the window. Fortunately this has never happened near traffic or a cliff.
      - monkmartinez 5y ago
        Same experience. Our goldendoodle is fantastic. Our neighbors can't believe she just chills with us in the front yard without a leash. They can't let their dogo out of the house without a fence or leash. She only barks once in a blue moon and everyone in the house is on immediate high alert when she does. Generally, its salesperson walking up the front driveway. She doesn't bark at UPS/Fedex any longer... which is good this time of year. I run her every other day a few miles and she is right with me, generally off leash. When she sees a lizard tho, its game over. I have to stop and physically pull her off the bush she is buried in to get the lizard. She is very food motivated and the word "treat" is spelled out in our house because she will not leave you alone until she gets something if she hears that word. My only complaint is grooming. To do it properly, I've been told requires brushing her everyday. Not happening. I have tried to do it 3 times a week... it takes like two hours and is completely exhausting. We just get her shaved every two months or so.
- brianwawok 5y ago
  As a owner of a smart and a dumb dog.. the smart dog is a lot lot lot lot more work. Dumb dogs make so much easier pets..
  - vidanay 5y ago
    Laughs in Australian Shepherd. Idk how, but my Aussie manages to be simultaneously smart and dumb.
  - kemayo 5y ago
    For sure -- you should only get a working-breed dog (which tend to be the smarter ones as we view it) if you actively enjoy spending time on training with them. If your ideal dog experience is sitting on the couch with them keeping you company, well, there's other breeds for that. :D I have a pitbull/amstaff/boxer mutt, which is a pretty good balance on being smart enough to learn tricks quickly but still be kept happy with walks and toys. I'm staying well away from the border collies and Australian cattle dogs...
Quarrelsome 5y ago
> Generally you want your dog to be smart enough to read your queues and work around you Great write up. Btw, in that context you want "cue" instead of "queue".
mgarfias 5y ago
In general terms I agree. FWIW, my wife breeds white Swiss shepherds, and very much has the health of her animals in mind when she plans a litter. She'll cull (as in remove from her program to a pet home, not take out back and shoot) dogs that don't measure up - either temperament wise, genetics (she tests every dog she keeps using optimal selection's tests), other other traits - one of our fave bitches had to have elbow surgery due to a developmental defect that left an unattached piece in her joint. She was spayed. like everything to do with people, there are fads, and then bad things happen due to those fads that you don't see for YEARS. The shiloh shepherds found they had a genetic heart defect, and it was traced back to a single stud used too much as he was popular. I forgot where else I was going with this, but I mostly agree with the parent. OH, I know, the "new blood" thing. Most of the worlds kennel clubs have a process for bringing new blood in, where you bring in a dog that LOOKS like your breed, and meets the breed standard. You give it a registration, and its attached to the studbooks as an addendum. Keep breeding with your fully registered dogs until the progeny's three gen pedigree is filled with pure breds and you have a fully registered dog. Its not perfect, but at least its there as an option.
- bArray 5y ago
  > FWIW, my wife breeds white Swiss shepherds, and very much has the health of her animals in mind when she plans a litter. Very glad to hear there are so many people taking this seriously, there is some hope for at least some breeds! > She'll cull (as in remove from her program to a pet home, not take out back and shoot) dogs that don't measure up - either temperament wise, genetics (she tests every dog she keeps using optimal selection's tests), other other traits - one of our fave bitches had to have elbow surgery due to a developmental defect that left an unattached piece in her joint. I would make an argument for culling on the basis of bad temperament - a large breed dog with a bad attitude is a burden only a few are going to be able to handle in the best case. In the worst case it's somebody's child that gets bitten because their parents didn't read the dog. I would also make a similar argument for any puppy you believe that will require significant or expensive surgery in the future, because the chances are, they won't get it and will suffer. A bad knee joint if quite common in these heavy breeds, but a spinal defect for example is not going to be simply or easy to deal with. > Most of the worlds kennel clubs have a process for bringing new blood in, where you bring in a dog that LOOKS like your breed, and meets the breed standard. One problem we've seen is breed definition creep. A lot of these working dogs are no longer capable of doing the work they were selectively bred for because they have been bred for looks alone for too many generations. After about hundred years, there is not an 'expert' alive that knows what the original breed is supposed to be. This is why going back to the breeder's notes have been so important - especially ones around the time when the working dog was actually working.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matwood 5y ago
Agree with everything you just said. My wife and I (mainly her) rescue French Bulldogs. They are popular so a lot of people get them without realizing all the health issues, then give them up once they realize the money and work involved. 2/3 of our current rescues have had the IVDD (spinal) surgery and are doing fine. One has also had palette surgery in an attempt to open her airway a bit more. None of them should be walked if it's > 75F. We had another die from a ruptured spine and another die in my arms from a massive heart attack at 2 years old b/c of a genetic heart defect. Obviously the rescues spay/neuter any dog that comes in. I wish I knew of a better solution, but we do what we can to help these animals since we have the means.
- notinty 5y ago
  Thank you.
pimlottc 5y ago
> Generally you want your dog to be smart enough to read your queues and work around you I think you mean "cues" here. For reading queues, a rabbit is more popular.
- ok_dad 5y ago
  > For reading queues, a rabbit is more popular. I chuckled and woke my wife, thanks a lot! Reference for those who don't get it: https://www.rabbitmq.com/ https://www.rabbitmq.com/
wdb 5y ago
Is there a place to find which breeds are most inbred? I am wondering what the status of the Beagle is

by bArray 5y ago

thih9 5y ago

> not so smart that it's getting bored or trying to figure out how to escape. This could be understood as if the most intelligent dogs were always bored or trying to escape. To clarify: intelligent dogs do need more stimulation, this is very true. But as long as they get it, they're happy.

a-saleh 5y ago
I discussed this with my partner that takes her hobby of dog-training very seriously (like, we live with three dogs, and she sometimes does payed woroshops, e.t.c) that Border Colies are often considered to be the most intelligent dogs, but that might be mostly a side-product of breeding them to be eager to please. In theory many other breeds could be more intelligent, but border collie is the one most likely to be excited to learn how to be good at the tests we give the dogs.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  The Border Collie is indeed intelligent. It is overwhelmingly the sheepdog preferred by Welsh shepherds. It is also loyal, good-natured, and pretty safe around children. This breed doesn't suffer health problems due to inbreeding, because it isn't a (UK) Kennel Club breed; there's no such thing as a "pedigree" Border Collie in the UK.
  - Vetch 5y ago
    Yeah, from what I've read Collies are a smarter breed and also vary in intelligence amongst themselves. High obedience has been shown to at times be counter to good test performance as it means lower curiosity, higher dependence on humans and lower problem solving persistence. Collies are curious, enjoy learning and having a job but can be chaotic when bored, which is markedly different from incurious obedience. > This breed doesn't suffer health problems due to inbreeding, because it isn't a (UK) Kennel Club breed The paper aligns with what you say, it remarks that Collies are highly inbred but not suffering that much from it. Can you explain the significance of not being a Kennel Club breed? Can that be the whole story, though? > There were interesting exceptions to the correlation of inbreeding and health. The Border terrier, Basenji, Collie, and English setter breeds have high inbreeding but low morbidity. Likewise, the Malinois, Pomeranian and Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka (Russian Toy) have lower inbreeding and high morbidity. These example breeds are neither brachycephalic nor particularly known for extreme morphologies. > In the case of healthy breeds with high inbreeding, it may be possible that these breeds have been purged of deleterious alleles as has happened with inbred mouse strains > In the opposite situation, the recorded morbidities could be high allele frequency Mendelian diseases or potentially conditions linked to phenotypes under selection in the breed. These discrepancies could also exist due to population differences between the insurance data and the inbreeding data.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      > Can you explain the significance of not being a Kennel Club breed? Well, the Kennel Club rates breeds in terms of their conformance to "spec", which is a lot about appearance. Inevitably, breeders breed to the spec. Border Collies aren't bred to any spec. (Collies are a different breed, which I believe is rated by the Kennel Club)
retrac 5y ago
It's my experience that a dog's tendency to wander or want to escape has only a little to do with its intelligence. (Their ability to effect an escape is a different matter.) I think it's partly just a personality trait. I've met stupid, misanthropic chihuahuas that won't wander and intelligent, deeply loyal huskies that chase after everything they can see.
- etempleton 5y ago
  We tend to measure a dog's intelligence by obedience and trainability, but dogs like huskies and beagles do not follow that rule. There is a reason there are always beagles readily available for adoption. My beagle growing up extremely smart--he knew every trick you can think of; he could remember specific objects by name; track someone's scent in an instant if you said find XXX; and seemed at times to understand whole sentences. Unfortunately, he also was stubborn, independent, and had an insatiable drive to follow scents.
  - Jagerbizzle 5y ago
    Our goldendoodle sounds very similar to this. She's great at "go see XYZ" or "go get ABC", knows all the party tricks, and will play fetch endlessly without ever wandering off no matter how far I throw the ball. If she ever happens to see a squirrel or a chipmunk however she'll try to rip the leash off of your arm; if she's ever off-leash and sees a critter like this you can throw the hours of trained recall out the window. Fortunately this has never happened near traffic or a cliff.
    - monkmartinez 5y ago
      Same experience. Our goldendoodle is fantastic. Our neighbors can't believe she just chills with us in the front yard without a leash. They can't let their dogo out of the house without a fence or leash. She only barks once in a blue moon and everyone in the house is on immediate high alert when she does. Generally, its salesperson walking up the front driveway. She doesn't bark at UPS/Fedex any longer... which is good this time of year. I run her every other day a few miles and she is right with me, generally off leash. When she sees a lizard tho, its game over. I have to stop and physically pull her off the bush she is buried in to get the lizard. She is very food motivated and the word "treat" is spelled out in our house because she will not leave you alone until she gets something if she hears that word. My only complaint is grooming. To do it properly, I've been told requires brushing her everyday. Not happening. I have tried to do it 3 times a week... it takes like two hours and is completely exhausting. We just get her shaved every two months or so.
brianwawok 5y ago
As a owner of a smart and a dumb dog.. the smart dog is a lot lot lot lot more work. Dumb dogs make so much easier pets..
- vidanay 5y ago
  Laughs in Australian Shepherd. Idk how, but my Aussie manages to be simultaneously smart and dumb.
- kemayo 5y ago
  For sure -- you should only get a working-breed dog (which tend to be the smarter ones as we view it) if you actively enjoy spending time on training with them. If your ideal dog experience is sitting on the couch with them keeping you company, well, there's other breeds for that. :D I have a pitbull/amstaff/boxer mutt, which is a pretty good balance on being smart enough to learn tricks quickly but still be kept happy with walks and toys. I'm staying well away from the border collies and Australian cattle dogs...

Quarrelsome 5y ago

> Generally you want your dog to be smart enough to read your queues and work around you Great write up. Btw, in that context you want "cue" instead of "queue".

mgarfias 5y ago

In general terms I agree. FWIW, my wife breeds white Swiss shepherds, and very much has the health of her animals in mind when she plans a litter. She'll cull (as in remove from her program to a pet home, not take out back and shoot) dogs that don't measure up - either temperament wise, genetics (she tests every dog she keeps using optimal selection's tests), other other traits - one of our fave bitches had to have elbow surgery due to a developmental defect that left an unattached piece in her joint. She was spayed. like everything to do with people, there are fads, and then bad things happen due to those fads that you don't see for YEARS. The shiloh shepherds found they had a genetic heart defect, and it was traced back to a single stud used too much as he was popular. I forgot where else I was going with this, but I mostly agree with the parent. OH, I know, the "new blood" thing. Most of the worlds kennel clubs have a process for bringing new blood in, where you bring in a dog that LOOKS like your breed, and meets the breed standard. You give it a registration, and its attached to the studbooks as an addendum. Keep breeding with your fully registered dogs until the progeny's three gen pedigree is filled with pure breds and you have a fully registered dog. Its not perfect, but at least its there as an option.

bArray 5y ago
> FWIW, my wife breeds white Swiss shepherds, and very much has the health of her animals in mind when she plans a litter. Very glad to hear there are so many people taking this seriously, there is some hope for at least some breeds! > She'll cull (as in remove from her program to a pet home, not take out back and shoot) dogs that don't measure up - either temperament wise, genetics (she tests every dog she keeps using optimal selection's tests), other other traits - one of our fave bitches had to have elbow surgery due to a developmental defect that left an unattached piece in her joint. I would make an argument for culling on the basis of bad temperament - a large breed dog with a bad attitude is a burden only a few are going to be able to handle in the best case. In the worst case it's somebody's child that gets bitten because their parents didn't read the dog. I would also make a similar argument for any puppy you believe that will require significant or expensive surgery in the future, because the chances are, they won't get it and will suffer. A bad knee joint if quite common in these heavy breeds, but a spinal defect for example is not going to be simply or easy to deal with. > Most of the worlds kennel clubs have a process for bringing new blood in, where you bring in a dog that LOOKS like your breed, and meets the breed standard. One problem we've seen is breed definition creep. A lot of these working dogs are no longer capable of doing the work they were selectively bred for because they have been bred for looks alone for too many generations. After about hundred years, there is not an 'expert' alive that knows what the original breed is supposed to be. This is why going back to the breeder's notes have been so important - especially ones around the time when the working dog was actually working.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

matwood 5y ago

Agree with everything you just said. My wife and I (mainly her) rescue French Bulldogs. They are popular so a lot of people get them without realizing all the health issues, then give them up once they realize the money and work involved. 2/3 of our current rescues have had the IVDD (spinal) surgery and are doing fine. One has also had palette surgery in an attempt to open her airway a bit more. None of them should be walked if it's > 75F. We had another die from a ruptured spine and another die in my arms from a massive heart attack at 2 years old b/c of a genetic heart defect. Obviously the rescues spay/neuter any dog that comes in. I wish I knew of a better solution, but we do what we can to help these animals since we have the means.

notinty 5y ago
Thank you.

pimlottc 5y ago

> Generally you want your dog to be smart enough to read your queues and work around you I think you mean "cues" here. For reading queues, a rabbit is more popular.

ok_dad 5y ago
> For reading queues, a rabbit is more popular. I chuckled and woke my wife, thanks a lot! Reference for those who don't get it: https://www.rabbitmq.com/ https://www.rabbitmq.com/

wdb 5y ago

Is there a place to find which breeds are most inbred? I am wondering what the status of the Beagle is