The Bottleneck of the Century - Only one bloodline left! - Page 5

"outcrossing is healthier no question"

I repeat; outcrossing CAN increase the frequency of deleterious alleles. Healthiness and outcrossing are not synonomous.  Everyone knows vehicular accidents are the number one health risk.

Why not just pressure the SV to reopen the studbooks if anyone's really that concerned?  Bring in some REAL diversity.  If the offspring results fit the standard in conformation, temperament AND ability, we can rightfully call'em gsd's.  There's enough gsd's with a pedigreed "birthright", that don't deserve to be affiliated.  I'd prefer doing that before mixing with any showline.

I'm not sure I really understand Jantie's study, but only recognized one predominantly workingline on the list, #129 through Troll v. Haus Milinda.  Troll and Task were linebred 2-3 on Fado, an exceptional producer of top performers, esp. in the BSP.

Daryl,

I believe jantie's study was done due to the dog she used to own and put to sleep because it had bad hips.  She was pretty intent on trying to make the breeder pay and attempting to ruin their reputation!

Vickie

www.PowerHausKennels.com

Good thread.

darylehret, the study really only focuses on the German highlines (showlines) which are totally dominated by the names of only a very small number of kennels, mainly von Arminius, Wildsteigerland and (sorry, really tired, or I'd check to be sure) I believe the third was Kirschental. It is virtually impossible to find a German show dog without the same ancestors appearing again and again the the pedigree. AS an example, Palme von Wildsteigerland appears SIX times in the fiifth generation of Ursus von Batu's pedigree!

I don't know about you, but I"d call that really unwise line breeding. Yes, it priduced a great dog, but just think of all the possible genetic faults he may be carrying as a result of his ancestry being so heavily based on this one bitch!

Basic immunity to disease is probably determined by 5 key gene pairs.  If 3 or more are homozygous from close linebreeding or inbreeding, longevity, vitality and robustness of the GSD suffers greatly.  In addition the probability of other pairs of dysfunctional recessives piling up which produce ill health effects and debilitating conditions also goes up significantly.  It is a well known scientific fact that heterogeneity of the immunity determining gene pairs does increase  longevity, vitality and robustness and increased general health and fertility.  If you want continued bad health, reduced longevity and reduced vitality in puppies, just keep doing very close linebreeding.

It is also well known that if one outcrosses, and both the sire and dam carry the same bad genes for reduced longevity, vitality and robustness, reduced health and fertility also results.  Just as with other genes and specific conformation and temperament traits, bad bred to bad increases the frequency of bad in the offspring and tends to fix those traits by piling up undesired or undesireable genes.  If one outcrosses two GSDs, both of which have serious health issues, reduced immunity, vitality and fertility, then one usually gets a fairly high proportion of the same in the progeny. But in general, outcrossing tends to increase health and without careful selection of sire and dam, decreases conformation. But, and this is a big but, a knowledgable experienced breeder can still outcross and get health, vitality and robustness and good conformation..  And a knowledgable, experienced breeder can also get health, vitality, and robustness by doing linebreeding if done very, very judiciously (but it is actually more difficult).

So the obvious conclusion is that there is no substitute for knowledge of the sire and dam, the lines they come from and what is often produced in those lines.       Rule #1:  above all, breed healthy to healthy (ideally both sire and dam have been vetted to be HD free, elbow disorder free, free of EPI (no subclinical EPI either), normal thyroid, normal esophagus, no draggging tail or symptoms of dead tail or pre-myopathy of the spine, hemophililia, von Wildrebrands free (no bleeding disorders), robust correct temperaments, character, etc.         Rule #2: select GSDs for breeding that do not have disqualifying faults, temperamentally or physically.      Rule #3: select GSDs which compensate for each others phenotypical deficiencies visibly, or select a mate who is known to correct for the problem of the other.    

My view is that the ideal situation is to do an outcross breeding between two GSDs of divergent lines which tend to resemble each other in type (phenotype = appearance), that is to then breed divergent genotype (actual genes that are carried in pairs of chromosomes) to similar appearing phenotype.  Thus the goal is to pile up conformation similar genes while pairing heterogenous immune system, temperament and health producing genes. 

Yeah!!

Vickie, you have seen past the smoke and mirrors. This is just one more bite at the apple and if the Sieger weren't happening right now, I'm sure we'd be hearing  from those who have been involved in this war since the first shot was fired.

BTW Jantie is a male.

Preston and Sunsilver, Excellent, excellent it itirrates me to no end that some breeders cannot see that it is risky doing such linebreeding more often than  not  and even with outcrosses you run in to similar problems if not careful.

Marlene

For the workinglines there should be enough dogs to preserve genetic diversity, a problem may be that breeders tend to flock around a "famous" stud, and not considering less known dogs that may actually be better to use. As for the showlines I don´t care;)

Once again, before you all get so sure you are outcrossing, you really need to do COI's on your dogs. It's not a trick thought up by the Am lines people, it's the real deal and the only way you will know what your gene pool contains without calculating it yourself and that takes a very long time.

I don't think anyone is advocating linebreeding generation after generation. That's not sound judgment, but neither is outcrossing generation after generation. I suspect many here are not outcrossing as much as they think they are.  It doesn't sound like many of the workingline breeders will even consider outcrossing to showlines and vice versa. A missed opportunity perhaps? There is also the possibility of introducing a different breed into the mix, Mals maybe or Bernese if you're wanting a even heavier head, more coat and pigmentation. Kidding about the Bernese. Daryl has already suggested that the SV could be petitioned to re-open the stud books. You can do the same with AKC. Compared to other breeds, this one is overflowing with different dogs. Some breeds go back to less than 20 foundations dogs.

I'll ask again - how many foundation dogs were there and do the working lines and showlines go back to the same dogs? That answer will determine if you are outcrossing as you think you are or linebreeding, may even, god forbid, inbreeding now and then. If you don't have those answers, you can't possibly know unless you do COI's.

If it were easy, there would be a lot more good GSD's around