Stig
There is a term called "Inbreeding Depression". This accounts for the negative aspects of inbreeding. They include but are not limited to Loss of vitality, Loss of fertility, increase in genetic defects due to recesive defect genes becoming dominant, loss of size etc. While these sound very bad they actually do not become apparent untill you do EXTREME inbreeding. Most of these problems came to light due to the use of mice in medical experiments. When they use mice for experiments one of the things they have to overcome is tissue rejection. This can come up with a skin graft or the like. Because they couldn't clone these lab mice they would perform father - daughter matings over a large number of generations. This was done so they could get the next best thing to a clone. Something like 98.9% same DNA as the father. This helped over come tissue rejection. A dog that has a 2-3 or 3-4 or 3,3-4,4 or even one father daughter is so far away from these depression problems that it's funny.
While I don't want to get into the fighting aspects of Pitties as I think they are lowlifes, they do give a strong insight into strong inbreeding. They have very strong inbreeding co-effients as they want to have consistancies in their litters. This they do achieve. The gamebred pitties that have such strong inbreed are the ones that the so called "Dog Men" prefer for obvious reasons. These pitts don't have that big health problems, don't have problems concieving litters etc. So when you compare this to the GSD working gene pool that includes the various WG dogs together with the Dutch and Belgium, then you have the DDR blood as well the different Czech lines and Slovakian lines it starts to put it into perspective.
Anyway that's how I understand things.
Stig, do you think that if you could put a Bernd Lierburg litter on the ground today do you think this would be good for the breed or bad?
Nuf said.

Hi,

I can´t see no benefit in reuse dead studdogs that already have left a big influence in the genepool of a breed, this must lead to a loss of genetic variation in a breed. I don´t want to make any false statements about this matter, so I have passed on this question to an expert on breeding issues, I will let you know when I get an answear.
To do closer breedings than cousins significant increase the risk of doubbled defected genes, even if you don´t get any serious health problems caused by defected genes, the immunesystem is also affected by a close breeding. We all now that our workingbreeds are devided into show and workingtype, no crosses are made between these two groups of obvious reasons, which makes the genepool even smaller. If we should limit our breedingdogs to just a few dogs in a breed, which often is done by linebreeding intense on popular studogs, this are going to create problems, because NO animal is free from defected genes. So it doesn´t matter which dog you choose to breed on intensive, you are then going to increase that specific dogs hidden genetic defects in the genepool. Later after 3-4 generations when you are going to have this specific dog on both sides of the pedigree and in several dogs, the negative effects of overusing this studog starts to show. His genes, both good and bad are doubbled in the offspring which leads to serious healthproblems in a breed. In the GSD we should have enough breeding material,both DDR,BRD, czech/slovakian lines that could be used in the breeding,but we still have to make sure that a few studdogs don´t get overused. Look at the situation in dobes, and rotts to I guess. Today workingdobes are often of the same origin, the few breeders that still breed workingdobes linebreed on just a few studogs or have similar lines, I wonder how the situation for this breed are going to be in 30-40 years from now, if breeders don´t make serious efforts to change their breedingmethods and start to use more dogs in the breedings instead of concentrating on a few, I guess the problem here is to find enough dogs that aren´t close related to the dogs used today.

Sorry Stig,
I can refer you to a breeder that is a NO inbreeding or Line-breeding, but frankly the dogs suck. They are working lines that can't work. There are too many aspects in genes. In humans there are 7 allelles that go into height, I don't know the amount on dogs, but that is how you can end up taller or shorter than your parents.

As for not seeing the use of a Dead dog, well, stud dogs are active for 8 or so years (if you wait to OFA, and they live a normal lifespan) In that time you produce a bitch and then must wait another 2 years to get her OFA'd. Time is not on your side with dogs.

If you have found ONE breeder that produce bad dogs because he don´t do line/inbreeding, my opinion is that he has select bad breedingdogs from the start. If you want workingability and health you should select breeding partners that has been selective breed for similar character during several generation, independent of the origins of the dogs. If you breed a strong dog, to another strong dog, which have similar character, you have a good chance to get good puppies, even if they have no close relations. This is the way nature works, and in nature you only see healthy animals with tremendous ability, if not the genepool by some reason gets to narrow. I´m sure there are breeders who have done succesfull breedings with two good unrelated dogs.
Breeders who use much linebreeding are giving the responsibility to other breeders to keep the genetic variation alive in the breed. Instead of produce several hundreds puppies from one studdog, it´s better to have a limit on how many offsprings this specific dog should have. Let him have 50 puppies instead of 500, and then countinue the breeding with his best son instead, so the breed as a whole gets stronger and stronger after each generation, just like it works in nature. Why use linebreeding when you sooner or later need to cross out, to get vigor in the line, problems that had been avoid if more dogs was used in the breedingprogramms. With this method you increase the risk of defected genes, and you need to have acces to several unrelated lines, this conditions are not present in many breeds. The simple rules breeders should follow is:
1. Only use healthy dogs as breedingdogs, who dont show any suspected hereditary defects.
2. Don´t let a single dog be parents to lots of puppies.
3. Make sure that the number of breedingdogs in a breed don´t gets under critical levels.

The simple and sad reason why we have the problems with genetic diseases in todays breedings with dogs, and which create illness and suffering in many dogs, are the lack of understanding for the simple rules that must be followed to keep a breed healthy both physical and mentaly. It´s no accident or any strange forces of nature which suddenly affect a breed when you get genetic problems. It´s just the single consequence of the goal many breeders have for their breedings without thinking how it will affect the health in a breed,wrong breedingplans and breedings with a few animals, even if there are more to use. In several breeds all three of this misstakes are made, which is to bad <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

I think you should do some serious research on perfomance animals and breeding. There is a thread on here somewhere from a while back talking about apples and outcrossing I think you should read that. It isn't as simple as dad is a good so you get 50% of dad, mom is good so you get 50% mom. Yes there are halves to all the genes but there are variations in the possibilities of how they will combine. Phenotype and genotype.

I am taller than both parents, Blonde, and blue eyed... and No, the milkman was not involved...

So far as your references in "nature" are you aware that herd and pack animals FREQUENTLY inbreed.. look at the mustangs. A single stallion will breed a band of mares, and the fillies of that mare will often be bred back to the stallion when she comes of age. Yes they do change bands and the stud colts will form new bands with different mares, but the strongest and healthiest will prevail in the genepool.

Genetic problems are near unheard of in them as well. I adopted one from the BLM. He was the most rugged sure footed stable animal in the entire barn... he wouldn't have won any beauty contests, but if you were out in the woods and in trouble he was the horse you wanted to be on.

I don´t think that during the last hundred years or so, the time we have breed GSDs,dobes and so on, breeders have make any real progress in breeding workingdogs, why then are so many breeds suffering from genetic diseases, and quite a few who could make policework. I know that many workingdogs are linebreed, most with similar origin, but this doesn´t make it a good strategy. The only time linebreeding is acceptable is when you have large genepool, and a carefully planned breedingprogramm, so a stud isn´t used to much. History shows that this is almost never the case, all want to bred on popular studs, and this is a dangerous strategy. You can´t compare breeding with apples or plants with dogbreeding, totally different things,also cattlebreeding and dogbreeding are not the same. In plants you have almost unlimited genepools, in dogs very small. It´s well know what happens in nature when genepools get small, healthproblems starts to show. No wild predators are breed like dogs, there is much more varitey in the genetic variation, because a male don´t get as many offspring like in the artificiel breeding by humans. In sweden there is a genetican who has a website where breeders could ask him about breedingissues. He has also helped some breeds in Sweden who suffered from healthproblems caused by to few breedingdogs, with a change of breedingmethods. Me and many other has asked him all kinds of different questions regarding line/inbreeding for workingdogs and health. His answears are allways the same, it´s not a good idea. The only breedingmethod that has a longoing positive effect for a breed is selection of good breedingdogs and avoiding close breedings on a large scale which empties the breed as a whole on genetic variation and thereby the future conditions of a breed. The progress of genetic science don´t give us any secret rules how to breed good workingdogs, but it tells us what to avoid, and overusing of a few studs are the most common misstake breeders do. The genetican I refer to has written many intressting articles about the importance of right breedingmethods, if you read them I´m sure your view on line/inbreeding will change, they could be downloaded from the net, but unfortunatelly they are mostly on swedish.

Regards

Chuck check YOUR PMs.

Chris J,

Your original question was the benefit for the genepool by use frozen semen from mink or another popular studdog,like grief. When I asked a Dr in genetics, specialized in dogbreeding, about this he said, " To use frozen semen from a stud that already have been breed alot could mean disaster in breedings of dogs. The reason is that the genetic variation would be dramaticaly lowered with a large scale spreading of genetic diseases as a consequence. Frozen semen in dogbreedings should firstly be used in breeds where the number of dogs is small in a specific country, so that they can´t avoid to much inbreeding with their own dogs. Then it could be a good idea to import frozen semen, because it will raise the genetic variation in the breed". He also pointed out that if you should use frozen semen, you better make sure that you know what this dog has produced both in health and workingability. Look how many of this dogs offsprings have a firstclass mentality that are ruled by the genes and not the skills of the trainer. As you know, many dogs could look great on the sportsfield, but the same dogs could show weak nerves and lack of courage, when they are put in a more demanding situation that they haven´t train for.
Finally he said that the only demand we can have on a studdog is that he produce high quality offspring. If it does, there are several sons to choose from that could pass on his good genes. If you select the best sons they are also going to contribute with good genes from their mothers. By this they contribute with keeping the genetic variation in the breed. A long going use of the father has a opposite effect, it only contributes to lowering a breeds future possibilities for health and development.

Stig
One of my friends is a Genetisit (sp?) and was a breed warden for a dobermann club in eastern europe. He has a different opinion than your friend.
Maybe it's not only dog trainers that dissagree. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Explain to me how nature has got it wrong. In a wolf pack that has about 10 dogs how diverese would their gene pool be? If the dominant male has about 3 years on top, he will have no doubt knocked up his sisters, mother, and numourous daughters.
This debate will go on forever so I'll leave it at that.
Cheers

Chris J wrote:

*****For instance both Mink and Lord spent time in the US. If people had
frozen semen from either one of these dogs, well just imagine.*****

Imagine what, Chris? I sure hope there isn't any stashed away... Those two have been bred
more than enough.

wismz wrote:

******Some of the greatest ruling families have been inbreed.******

True... However, when I read this statement one word just popped into my mind--hemophilia. Hmmmmmmmm..

Stig, don't give up, you are right. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />