credit (or not) to the german breeds for being of the most set type.

I often wondered about a statement that a sheep dog breeder with a heavily line-bred line remarked that there is only about 2 dog generations between what has taken his family 100 years to establish and a almost complete loss of working traits.

why are behavioural traits so lacking in robustness, can't think of a better way to phrase it. ie the working traits seem to degenerate almost immediately. how does that fit with inheritance theory.

It's because humans are looking for these subtle differences (in this case, behavior differences) and perpetuating them in ways that would not naturally occur.

I think it's interesting to note how human genetics are observable in dogs.

Human brains are genetically wired to recognize patterns. That's what has made us so successful as a species. And that's why we see such variety in dogs (or anything else humans have domesticated--chickens, roses, horses, etc.)

When presented with a basket of puppies, the human brain automatically starts identifying the differences between them (not the similarities.) and most humans are attracted to novelty. We pick the puppy from the litter that is different in some way (because we value our ability to discern that difference). "I like the spotted one!" "I like the one with the curly tail!"

After a few hundred thousand generations of selecting for "difference" we get amazing variety that natural selection would never have need for.

If German breeds are "typier" (I haven't heard this) it would say more about Germans than their dogs.

surely the german breeds are the most uniform and reproducible in type and the first to set and establish a fixed type, don't know how to argue this except for, look at them.

I do agree tho that it prolly has a lot to do with their seemingly methodical character of the people.

I prolly did not make my point clear re inheritance of working traits, you could imo breed type to type in most breeds for a vey long time before type started to degenerate, assuming you are not breeding recessives over and over.

but my point this is not so in the specific example of working traits in sheep dogs, ie take a tight family of dogs with desired working traits and don't test and cull heavily every litter and just go ahead and breed them all - you evidently lose on average the traits you started with, how, why, where do those traits go? the shape and the colour are still there undiluted. don't know what I am getting at but i know it can be easily demonstrated.

Which German breeds are you thinking of? The GSD is a quite new breed, historically.

Corgis have been around for more than a thousand years. Some of the sight hounds are unchanged since antiquity. The Romans kept mastiffs. The Asian breeds are ancient.

The behaviors that you're taking about (working ability) are partly genetic and partly training. The genetic component--which dogs have the stuff--only show up in a few pups (who might all look alike) and require a very knowledgable breeder to determine which have it.

If you have a closed community of, let's say, purebred border collies and inbreed them in perpetuity, they will always make more pups that look like border collies. That's all the "looks" genes you've got. You're not going to get a random poodle in the bunch no matter how many generations you breed them.

But the "invisible" working gene only continues in successive generations with consistency if a breeder is identifying the pups with that trait and selectively breeding them.

Dogs would only theoretically revert to a pariah type if they all randomly bred with each other without regard to appearance. Purebred dogs can only make more purebred dogs like themselves. That's the definition of a breed. They breed true to type.

mongrelized to the max is what I was taught is "wild type ". Think coyote.
medium sized , GSD thick short coat, prick ears, sandy color.

Many native dogs seem to follow the pattern of the Dingo.

Even in the USA we have our "native" dog. It's called the Carolinas dog and looks like....a dingo.

In many first world countries the "native" dogs change a bit every few generations.

There will always be a dominant village dog that will throw it's own "look" into many of it's offspring.

Because of the lack of shots for diseases such as rabies, distemper, etc the "look" will be changed because many of the individual dogs with that "look" are wiped out every so many generations.

The remaining survivors will then start to look like the latest "dominant village dog.

Whole breeds have been developed because of the same reason. It may be the local dominant dog or it may be a good hunter that is breed to often.

This can create a breed that is often named after the breeder, town or city the dog is from.

Examples in the terrier group.

Staffordshire terrier

Norwich terrier

Scottish terrier

Etc, etc, etc!

MUCH inbreeding but in those times culling eliminated the non hunters, dogs with faults that kept then from functioning properly, temperaments that didn't fit the breed, etc. This was all common for past dog breeding.
Many breeds today are on the decline simply because they are being bred for looks or maybe just for pet temperaments with no real effort to breed for function and very little effort/desire to cull because of health issues. Even putting far to much effort into saving the dogs that have to many problems and will be bred to later for all the wrong reasons.

^ sounds great.....our growth in science, understanding genetics, data mining defects, correlation, data-base matching, instant communication etc have really paid off in the dog world. things could have got a bit grim there for awhile.

glad the AKC was on it, saved so many working breeds, nobody dropped the ball at all, not even so much as a fumble, the forefathers could not even conceive how we have propelled things forward this far from such primitive beginnings.

lets all take a bow to the imaginary applause.

 Quote: tracey holden

 Quote: Tracy Collins

sorta like this:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ca76rlhbgN0/UX2PYfoazTI/AAAAAAAATvI/U2vVWk948DQ/s1600/dog_2165.jpg

That is a cracking little dog!

Looks just about The Same as a DINGO

 Quote: Peter Cavallaro

^ sounds great.....our growth in science, understanding genetics, data mining defects, correlation, data-base matching, instant communication etc have really paid off in the dog world. things could have got a bit grim there for awhile.

glad the AKC was on it, saved so many working breeds, nobody dropped the ball at all, not even so much as a fumble, the forefathers could not even conceive how we have propelled things forward this far from such primitive beginnings.

lets all take a bow to the imaginary applause.

I assume this is sarcasm?

I'm not one of the rabid AKC-haters. But I also don't think that the modern purebreed dog fancy does all that much for the benefit of dogs. I don't believe that there's much understanding of genetics or data mining for defects that go into it. And if there is, too much of it is focused on nothing but looks--and exaggerated looks at that.

Dogs are deemed worthy of breeding solely based on the shape of their head or the angle of their leg without much regard to whether or not they are otherwise healthy or sane. Most purebred breedings probably don't even get that level of scrutiny. Any dog with papers can be bred with any other dog with papers and create more dogs with papers. Worst of all is intentionally breeding genetic deformities that are incompatible with health. I can think of several breeds that simply should not exist in their present form.

 Quote: Tracy Collins

Which German breeds are you thinking of?

The GSD is a quite new breed, historically.

CORRECT -- Relatively speaking, the GSD is a Recently Man-Made breed ... While conversely, the VERY primitive Basenji (of which I've owned 4 unrelated individuals, including a 1st generation pup whelped from African imports AND one actually whelped IN the Congo) has been "doing it's own thing" in the African bush since B-4 recorded history

 Quote: Tracy Collins

The behaviors that you're taking about (working ability) are partly genetic and partly training. The genetic component--which dogs have the stuff--only show up in a few pups (who might all look alike) and require a very knowledgable breeder to determine which have it.

YES, particular "working traits" are Selectively Bred for by HUMANS looking to produce, establish & maximaze Specific K9 Characteristics in their stock, whether it be Herding or Trailing or Guarding or Coursing or Drafting or Fighting or Vermin Killing or whatever