The Devil You Know - Dog Breeding Practices

Whenever an argument is made against some practice of purebred dog breeders some romantic reference is usually made to animals like wolves in the wild, along the lines wolves are much healthier because they eat raw food …. if it is a good year but what about in a bad year when there isn’t much game to catch about and what is isn’t particularly well-fed either. Ever seen pictures of wolves in a bad year when they are thin and mangy? Then there is the discussion of inbreeding practiced by dog breeders, what most fail to mention is that many wild animals that run in packs inbreed. There is usually an alpha male that tends to impregnate all the females in the pack, some being his daughters. Any other males in the pack would usually be related to the alpha male as strange males are not tolerated, so brother/sisters, mother/sons mate.

Thousands of years ago most dogs were simply a generic village type dog. Some might be bigger and some smaller. They had little purpose other than as scavengers and possibly an alarm system for villagers. The occasional one might be made more a pet though not as a modern person sees a pet, just a dog more attached to one family. The lifespan of these dogs was short … those that were good scavengers, fighters would survive a bit longer … if disease didn’t take them.

As time went by, man started to appreciate certain specialized traits in the dogs that might be of value to them. For example, one of the larger dogs might be good at keeping wolves away from their livestock such as sheep and cows. Another dog might be able to help them round up their livestock. Then there was that smaller dog that was exceptionally good at going down holes to get at the vermin who was getting into their grains or taking their fowl. What about that dog that had the ability to chase down the fox that was getting into the hennery?

We now have the idea of breeding dogs that would exhibit specialized traits of benefit to man. How to do this? Breed the dogs that exhibit the traits you want together …. for example you want a dog that has a particular size and shape to go down a badger hole, not too mention the temperament to take on the badger. You find two dogs that have those qualities and breed them together. One or two of the offspring might come close to having those traits that you needed to rid farm of the vermin. But that dog may only live a short time before succumbing to an untimely end. You need to breed replacements with those same qualities. In days past, life for the dog was often short … disease, little veterinary care, war …. For example, the Cavalier population was reduced to a handful of dogs during World War II which is one reason why the breed’s genetic base is so small.

The quickest and easiest way to lock in traits when breeding specialised animals was by inbreeding ie doubling up on those desirable genes by breeding mother to son, father to daughter, brother to sister. Running around the country hoping to find two non-related dogs with the traits you wanted and then breeding them together was a crap shoot because few if any of the offspring might exhibit the desired traits. So inbreeding was often done in the early development of a breed to get the desired results. All those pictures of the early dogs shown in the TV programme “Pedigree Dogs Exposed” as examples of what a breed looked liked in earlier days were actually more likely to be a result of inbreeding than our modern day dogs because inbreeding was used far more prior to 2nd part of the 20th century than it is today.

Through inbreeding and linebreeding (breeding together dogs with common ancestory) the desired traits would be locked in and a breed would be developed. The offspring would look very similar (ie have breed type) and hopefully function in the manner that the breed’s developers wished.

Later those dog breeders found that they would like to exhibit and compare their dogs to other breeders of the same type and so dog shows were founded. Dog shows would give breeders the opportunity to see other dogs which might exhibit traits they would like to include in their breeding programme and so they might go out to a different line to bring in a desired trait. Eventually Standards for each breed were written up which described the features that a particular breed should have to differentiate it from other dogs.

Moving into the late part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries new breeds were bred less for working purposes and more for companions particularly the smaller breeds. Fashions would change depending upon the times. For example during the Victorian era the longer nosed Cavalier was discarded for the shorter nosed King Charles Spaniel because the shorter nosed breeds were more popular.

It wasn’t until the later part of the 20th century that health became an issue in part because due to the lack of vaccinations and poorer veterinarian care fewer dogs would actually survive into old age. As dogs lived longer it became more apparent that some dogs would develop health conditions not formerly seen ….

Many genetic diseases are the result of some combination of recessive genes, in other words both parents must have all the necessary genes to express in the offspring. If you are carrying out a program of inbreeding and close linebreeding you are more likely to know what diseases your dogs carry the genes for as they will express in some of the offspring. The danger of going out to a different line in a breed (outcrossing) was that while bringing in new desired traits you also could bring in some very undesirable traits such as a genetic disease you formerly did not have in your lines. Inbreeding and linebreeding for many breeders are often a case of “the devil you know”.

To some breeders trying to eliminate health problems in their dogs, inbreeding was an old fashioned “health test” for a breeder’s dogs. The quickest way to find out if you had a genetic health problem in your lines was to do a test inbreeding. Breeders in days gone by were more pragmatic and when breeding, any dog that was sickly or exhibiting deformities were culled at birth.

Human moralities started to creep into dog breeding as dogs became more pets than functional, which made the idea of inbreeding somewhat distasteful among more modern dog breeders and instead many breeders would start to breed on common ancestors who would have the desired traits. Also some breeders would not necessarily cull sickly or deformed puppies de riguer, preferring to let those weaker puppies go as pet puppies.

The majority of modern day show dog breeders no longer inbreed, preferring to line breed on typey, healthy dogs in their dogs’ pedigrees. In some newer breeds still in the early days of development, it may be seen as necessary to develop type.

Some breeders view outcrossing (breeding two dogs from unrelated lines of the same breed) as a bit like playing Russian Roulette as those recessive genes are sneaky and can lie hidden for generations until two dogs who carry the necessary combination for many of the polygenic health conditions meet. It is often when breeders “go out” that they find themselves with problems never seen before in their dogs.

It has been suggested in some arenas that to improve health conditions in breeds they should breed out to other breeds. There are some major problems with this idea. You would end up with an entirely different type of dog – occasionally some might look and act similar to one of the parent breeds but often they look and act entirely different to either breed so you have lost breed type (how a breed looks and acts) which breeders have spent years trying to develop in their chosen breeds. Generations would be spent trying to bring back type in your breed.

And the bigger problem is, you may be adding more health problems to your breed! In dogs which have been cross bred many can have the health problems of both parent breeds, if not new ones. So double the trouble. Doodles are a great example of this as they have a tendency to have the health problems seen in both their parent breeds and it seems that they may even have a higher incidence of some diseases like Hip Dysplasia than even their parent breeds.

For the purpose of this article Terms:

Inbreeding – the breeding of direct family members, ie mother/son, father/daughter and brother/sister.

Linebreeding – the breeding of dogs with a common ancestor in their pedigrees.

Outcrossing – the breeding of unrelated dogs of the same breed.

Crossbreeding – the breeding together of two different breeds.

To be continued in a later blog … the genetic background of Cavaliers