Re: Showline vs. working GSD - Breeding analysis -- Boerboel Breeders Info. Forum

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Date Posted: 21:20:30 05/06/04 Thu
Author: David I.
Subject: Re: Showline vs. working GSD - Breeding analysis
In reply to: Carel Koch 's message, "Re: Showline vs. working GSD - Breeding analysis" on 15:40:24 04/08/04 Thu

There are conclusions that can be drawn from the GSD example. A dog that is going to compete at a high level in a complex activity needs the benefit of heterosis offered by diverse breeding. (Wild canids breed similarly.) For a conformation champ heterosis is not of much concern, intensive inbreeding can and is used, since the physical and mental demands upon the dog are much less. Once around the ring is enough.

i don't think of an ideal working conformation. There is a group of dogs that can perform the work, there are those that can't. The dogs that can broadly "define" the working conformation. Excluding some dog that can perform the work just because of a cosmetic trait deprives any future breeding from his contribution. Reduction of working traits to aesthetic, visual traits is detrimental to the breeding of working dogs. Given the example of every other breed, although there are some individual "crossover" examples, a working/show split, while it might not be immediate, is inevitable and will require considerable energy to prevent it from occurring.

Problems relating to the gene pool in any breed are not just related to the fact that it may be fragmented because of registries or geographic distance. Although what has happened in many breeds (I don't know about Boerboels) is that a secondary founder effect occurs where the numbers on a new continent are bred up from a relatively few import dogs and over time their offspring no longer have the hardiness, longevity or fecundity (to name just a few fitness traits) of their original founders in their country of origin.

As I was saying, it is not the gene pool per se, but how genetic resources are used within the gene pool that is of most concern. If we were establishing Boerboels on a new planet (for the sake of biological argument) we would want to include as many dogs of each sex that were not related that we could fit inside the outbound ship. You could make the same argument for continuing a breed intra-generationally on earth, with the same kind of constraints, rigid selection of both males and females, little or no inbreeding, trying to maintain the contribution of the founders, discouraging establishment of popular sires, and other factors too numerous to mention here. You would hope for the periodic arrival of the supply ship each with its cargo of unrelated migrant dogs from the home planet.

Genetic diversity is the fuel which drives adaptational change across generations. At some point breeders must realize that the breeding modalities that established breeds (genetic isolation and inbreeding) are not suited to their healthy continuance. (A paraphrase of Dr. John Armstrong a canine geneticist at the University of Ottawa, Canada)

We are all stewards of our breeds, maintaining and developing genetic diversity with proper selection means leaving good genetic possibilities to the breeders who will follow.

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Very Well Said - Keep Up Your Informative Posts (NT) -- Jerry, 06:00:39 05/07/04 Fri