Inbreeding Coefficients

[moonlake]

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I wonder if someone who has all the data, and is experienced within the breed, could identify how many genuinely unrelated lines exist in whippets.
As someone who only has 'the whippet archive' to go by - which is not the greatest resource, but does make sense insofar as I have yet to find two pedigrees where the facts differed (so it's internally consistent, if nothing else), within show whippets (so excluding the 'Sooty Sam' lines of the working whippets) seems to be a lot of uniformity in the pedigrees I'm looking at - that is, the same few names crop up multiple times in the fourth/fifth/sixth generations leading to CoIs that mimic brother/sister matings.

but as has been pointed out, I'm not an expert.  Someone like Gay, perhaps, who has all the information might be able to do the number crunching?

m (keeping head well below the parapet)

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Have only just seen this. I have holes in my database between 1965 and 1982 but I don't believe there are any unrelated "show" lines. Many kennels were not able to keep going during the war (and the KC virtually stopped registering dogs) so there was not much stock available. One dog born in 1945 -Ch Pilot Officer Prune - sired 257 registered puppies (the onus was on owners to register their dogs and many did not bother), he had more than 8k descendants within 4 generations, occurring 11788 times. You would be hard put to find a show pedigree today that does not include him or Fieldspring Bartsia of Allways (1951) who was not a descendant but he was a popular sire with 326 progeny. I don't have all his descendants but they probably mop up all the non Prune lines as well as including them.

I recently did a database search for brindle dogs with stud book numbers aged 10 or less who did not have Hillsdown Fergal in their pedigree. There were only 9 including my own and some of those were not viable as studs. It is true that we have a very limited gene pool and it seems pointless to me to discuss using "different" lines because they don't exist in dogs with more than a passing resemblance to the breed standard. Personally, I have no wish to incorporate non-pedigree stock in my line which is what they have done in France, for instance. The UK pedigree racing whippet population is AFAIK the only one not affected by the myostatin gene mutation but they are busily going to hell in a handcart by consistently breeding from stock with other problems.

Gay

www.moonlake.co.uk

 

[seaspot_run]

I wonder if someone who has all the data, and is experienced within the breed, could identify how many genuinely unrelated lines exist in whippets.
As someone who only has 'the whippet archive' to go by - which is not the greatest resource, but does make sense insofar as I have yet to find two pedigrees where the facts differed (so it's internally consistent, if nothing else), within show whippets (so excluding the 'Sooty Sam' lines of the working whippets) seems to be a lot of uniformity in the pedigrees I'm looking at - that is, the same few names crop up multiple times in the fourth/fifth/sixth generations leading to CoIs that mimic brother/sister matings.

but as has been pointed out, I'm not an expert.  Someone like Gay, perhaps, who has all the information might be able to do the number crunching?

m (keeping head well below the parapet)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

​

Have only just seen this. I have holes in my database between 1965 and 1982 but I don't believe there are any unrelated "show" lines. Many kennels were not able to keep going during the war (and the KC virtually stopped registering dogs) so there was not much stock available. One dog born in 1945 -Ch Pilot Officer Prune - sired 257 registered puppies (the onus was on owners to register their dogs and many did not bother), he had more than 8k descendants within 4 generations, occurring 11788 times. You would be hard put to find a show pedigree today that does not include him or Fieldspring Bartsia of Allways (1951) who was not a descendant but he was a popular sire with 326 progeny. I don't have all his descendants but they probably mop up all the non Prune lines as well as including them.

I recently did a database search for brindle dogs with stud book numbers aged 10 or less who did not have Hillsdown Fergal in their pedigree. There were only 9 including my own and some of those were not viable as studs. It is true that we have a very limited gene pool and it seems pointless to me to discuss using "different" lines because they don't exist in dogs with more than a passing resemblance to the breed standard. Personally, I have no wish to incorporate non-pedigree stock in my line which is what they have done in France, for instance. The UK pedigree racing whippet population is AFAIK the only one not affected by the myostatin gene mutation but they are busily going to hell in a handcart by consistently breeding from stock with other problems.

Gay

www.moonlake.co.uk

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We are still doing testing the USA, but so far it looks like the myostatin mutation is fairly localized in the USA in a few racing lines from certain imports.

Those include some of our top-ranked "open" (no pedigree restrictions) racers, so it is definitely a concern to those breeders and my hat is off to the entire North American racing fraternity for getting to the bottom of the genetic basis for what they are seeing in some of their litters. This is something that can be dealt with simply by doing the test for carrier status. Would that all of our problems were so cut-and-dried genetically.

 

[Seraphina]

You would be hard put to find a show pedigree today that does not include  Pilot Officer Prune or Fieldspring Bartsia of Allways (1951) who was not a descendant but he was a popular sire with 326 progeny.  I don't have all his descendants but they probably mop up all the non Prune lines as well as including them.
I recently did a database search for brindle dogs with stud book numbers aged 10 or less who did not have Hillsdown Fergal in their pedigree.  There were only 9 including my own and some of those were not viable as studs.  It is true that we have a very limited gene pool and it seems pointless to me to discuss using "different" lines because they don't exist in dogs with more than a passing resemblance to the breed standard.  Personally, I have no wish to incorporate non-pedigree stock in my line which is what they have done in France, for instance. 

Gay

www.moonlake.co.uk

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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It is true that there were several bottlenecks in Whippet history and most dogs today will have the overused dogs in their pedigree. But they also have others.

Actually, if you want to get pedantic, there is not really such a thing as a total outcross even if you would want to breed to another breed, as ALL dogs have descended from wolf and have therefore common ancestors. Just like the mitochondrial DNA of every single person living at present can be traced to one prehistoric woman living in Africa.

I have no objection to incorporating non-pedigree stock, provided it is only allowed with special permit issued for each mating, and done under strict rules, and only animal certified to be of merit by several qualified persons could be used.

What is important is that breeders are aware that too close breeding is damaging and then know what is in about 10 generations of their dogs' pedigree. While we are very unlikely to find 2 dogs who do not share at least some ancestors in those 10+ generations, we can look for a sire that does not have too many ancestors common with our bitch. We can look for sire that does not have many time a dog that our bitch has over and over again, and vice versa.

IMHO using dog just because he is not related is as bad as using a dog just because the progeny pedigree would look "nicely" linebred. The most important is to look at the 2 animals and see how they compliment each other.

 

[05whippet]

You would be hard put to find a show pedigree today that does not include  Pilot Officer Prune or Fieldspring Bartsia of Allways (1951) who was not a descendant but he was a popular sire with 326 progeny.  I don't have all his descendants but they probably mop up all the non Prune lines as well as including them.

I recently did a database search for brindle dogs with stud book numbers aged 10 or less who did not have Hillsdown Fergal in their pedigree.  There were only 9 including my own and some of those were not viable as studs.  It is true that we have a very limited gene pool and it seems pointless to me to discuss using "different" lines because they don't exist in dogs with more than a passing resemblance to the breed standard.  Personally, I have no wish to incorporate non-pedigree stock in my line which is what they have done in France, for instance. 

Gay

www.moonlake.co.uk

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

​

It is true that there were several bottlenecks in Whippet history and most dogs today will have the overused dogs in their pedigree. But they also have others.

Actually, if you want to get pedantic, there is not really such a thing as a total outcross even if you would want to breed to another breed, as ALL dogs have descended from wolf and have therefore common ancestors. Just like the mitochondrial DNA of every single person living at present can be traced to one prehistoric woman living in Africa.

I have no objection to incorporating non-pedigree stock, provided it is only allowed with special permit issued for each mating, and done under strict rules, and only animal certified to be of merit by several qualified persons could be used.

What is important is that breeders are aware that too close breeding is damaging and then know what is in about 10 generations of their dogs' pedigree. While we are very unlikely to find 2 dogs who do not share at least some ancestors in those 10+ generations, we can look for a sire that does not have too many ancestors common with our bitch. We can look for sire that does not have many time a dog that our bitch has over and over again, and vice versa.

IMHO using dog just because he is not related is as bad as using a dog just because the progeny pedigree would look "nicely" linebred. The most important is to look at the 2 animals and see how they compliment each other.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

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Completely agree with that last comment Seraphina...that is what we have done with our horses for years and it has paid off,so that is why we have followed on thru with it for the whippets. :thumbsup:

 

[05whippet]

Hi, Here is a link to a site that has a race horse link on it
www,parispoodles.com/Inbreeding.html

There are lots of others if you google inbreeding coefficients racehorses,, most seem to say coefficient below 5%  in 10 generations is acceptable

Cant seem to find any well researched articles that say coefficiets over 6% in any livestock is advantageous but will gladly post if anyone else has!!!!!!!!

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Thanks for that Jan :thumbsup: now I shall head off for some more "heavy" reading!