Sooty Sam

[Esty]

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Can anybody out there tell me what they know of Sooty Sam? He appears a few times in my dogs' pedigree and I'm just being nosey, really! When you see adverts on the Internet, lots of people advertise their dogs as being 'from Sooty Sam' lines, but when you check on Whippet Archives, his offspring are everywhere! He must have been a busy lad.

I'm new to pedigree dogs so forgive my ignorance - is it normal for dogs to have the same ancestor appearing several times on one side of a pedigree, and for dogs and bitches with the same parents to be bred together? That wouldn't seem to be a good idea, generally!

Are some dogs (and I'm not pointing to Sooty Sam here!) 'overused' as stud dogs? :blink:

 

[Eceni]

That wouldn't seem to be a good idea, generally!

Welcome to the world of controversy. As someone once said, the world is divided into two types of people... those who think the world is divided into two types of people... and the rest...

and this is no exception.

From the veterinary side of this line, it's an exceptionally bad idea to breed close relatives. Malcolm Willis, a geneticist who used to work with the Kennel Club, has said that if you can see the same dog/bitch repeated more than once in the first 5 generations - I think , but it may have been 3, I can't find the reference just now - you should walk away.

More scientifically, we're looking for what's called the "Coefficient of Inbreeding' or CoI to be less than 2.5 over 5 generations, which is entirely possible and there are people now breeding whippets who conform to that, and are posting the CoI on their website.

With luck, this will become the norm and the buying public will know not to buy anything with a high CoI, in the way they (should) know not to buy a pup from a hip dysplastic breed without hip scoring.

but it's a minefield.

I can't tell you much about Sooty Sam except that looking at some of the pedigrees in which he has been used makes my hair stand on end, but doubtless there are people here who can tell you a lot more.

good luck

manda

 

[meddling]

I've often wondered about Sooty Sam too, I think from what I've gleaned from here is that he was a big boy, but very good at whatever he did (racing/coursing/working??????)

 

[peppermint lady]

i think he was a show bred dog :unsure: :unsure:

there was a big thread awhile back over his breeding, and litters that he may/may not of sired :unsure:

i might be wrong, but i think if a "racing" whippet has his breeding further back it causes problems getting them a passport to race....thats what i seem to remember reading :unsure: maybe :unsure: somewhere :unsure: once :unsure:

but i could be wrong :lol:

 

[jinnyfizz]

Four of my gang have Sooty Sam in their breeding :thumbsup:

Jinny is Laguna and Sooty Sam

Sooty Sam is the twins' great grandfather on their sire's side

And Sox is also Laguna and Sooty Sam on her dam's side, here she is at 6 months old

They are all excellent, tough working whippets with stamina to burn

You can see Sox's pedigree on Whippet Archives ......

http://thewhippetarchives.net/details.php?id=62807

Ask it to show 6 or 7 generations and you will see where Sooty Sam features :thumbsup:

Ella and Rosie are on it too ...... look up under my name as an owner, Jane Wood

Also, here is a link to Mike Brown's website. He was Sooty Sam's (call name Toby) owner, and still

breeds from Sooty Sam lines ......... http://www.webstoreuk.com/whippets.html

 

[bertha]

Sooty Sam was from show bred parents, but he was a working whippet and heavily used, or his off spring were and are, some working pedigrees are very inbred.

You can see that if you go onto the Whippet Archives.

 

[jayp]

That wouldn't seem to be a good idea, generally!

Welcome to the world of controversy. As someone once said, the world is divided into two types of people... those who think the world is divided into two types of people... and the rest...

and this is no exception.

From the veterinary side of this line, it's an exceptionally bad idea to breed close relatives. Malcolm Willis, a geneticist who used to work with the Kennel Club, has said that if you can see the same dog/bitch repeated more than once in the first 5 generations - I think , but it may have been 3, I can't find the reference just now - you should walk away.

More scientifically, we're looking for what's called the "Coefficient of Inbreeding' or CoI to be less than 2.5 over 5 generations, which is entirely possible and there are people now breeding whippets who conform to that, and are posting the CoI on their website.

With luck, this will become the norm and the buying public will know not to buy anything with a high CoI, in the way they (should) know not to buy a pup from a hip dysplastic breed without hip scoring.

but it's a minefield.

I can't tell you much about Sooty Sam except that looking at some of the pedigrees in which he has been used makes my hair stand on end, but doubtless there are people here who can tell you a lot more.

good luck

manda

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Manda, Just out of interest where do you get the COi figures of less than 2.5 in 5 gens from?

From all the research i have done it seems to be 10 generations needed to be of the best use. There is a fair difference if calculated only to 5

I feel we should be looking at 10 or as close to as we can get, i know sweden does 5 but only because their data at the moment dosnt go back far enough but is calculated to as far back as possible

For instance 25% inbred over 10 gens would be genetically equivalent to father daughter this is something anyone can see and is a pretty good comparison benchmark

I am more than pleased anyone is taking this into consideration My bitch is 11% in 9 gens, still too high for my liking but over 5 gens is only 3.4% If the two are compared by anyone not understanding the difference it makes in how many generations are used in the calculation one would appear to be less inbred than the other

I know this may appear pedantic but we all need to be doing the same thing.

This is why i feel the KC should provide a service we can all use, that calculates using the same data, to the same number of generations

This way the results can be published with no mistakes made in data input and therefore cannot be challenged or misread

jan

 

[Esty]

Thanks for all this!

Jane, have looked the link to one of your pedigrees - the g.grandfather Lord of the Knight is also g.grandfather to my two, but with Blue Lavender Lady as the g.grandmother. This is all on their sire's side. My pup Roscoe ('Joshs Boy' on whippet archives) has the typical Sooty colouring, mainly black with a white blaze, belly, feet and tip of his tail.

My concern was that my boy's two g.grandfathers on the sire's side are the same dog (Lord of the Knight) and five generations back, Sooty Sam appears 4 times and then once again 4 generations back! Half brothers and sisters have been bred together eg Motown Magic (Sooty Sam x Sally Honey)and Perfect Pitch (Sooty Sam x Rabbit Runner) to produce Blue Lavender Lady. I wonder why the Kennel Club showed approval of this by registering those litters a few years back, but I guess this is where the controversy lies. I love the fact they have these working lines but it's a tad incestuous! :blink:

On my boy's dam's side there is nothing like this - about a third in the red with Oakbark/ Savilepark and Pencloe Dutch Gold. Much more reassuring!

It's just my inquisitive nature on seeing the pedigrees that prompted this - I'd be much more worried if they were a breed that had known breed problems eg hip/ eyes etc. As it is they are just the most healthy and gorgeous pups in the world, although I'm clearly biased! I just wondered what was so fab about Sooty that hundreds of pups are sold on the back of being from his lines. My instinct if I had a fab dog like that would be limit his litters to keep them more special - or was the problem that people registered dogs as being by him when they weren't?? :wacko:

 

[tripletree28]

I don't think you could say Sooty Sam was a Show bred dog most of the Lagunas in his pedigree were noted hare coursing dogs he himself was line bred two sisters mated to different sires then a dog and bitch from each litter mated to produce Sooty Sam.

He was used so much because he was a prepotent sire who produced good working whippets. It's a strange fact that if inbreeding is as damaging as we are lead to believe how come you never hear of any Sooty Sam bred dogs with congenital defects in fact they seem to have more vigour and stamina than usual. Instead of worrying about how many times he is featured in a pedigree maybe we should be looking at what's in front of us ie. the offspring. I'm not advocating inbreeding I'm just looking at it not from what the book or expert might tell you but just from what you can see and hear and what I see and hear is there's a lot of happy owners of sooty sam bred dogs.

 

[Eceni]

Manda,  Just out of interest where do you get the COi figures of less than 2.5 in 5 gens from?From all the research i have done it seems to be 10 generations needed to be of the best use.  There is a fair difference if calculated only to 5

I feel we should be looking at 10 or as close to as we can get, i know sweden does 5 but only because their data at the moment dosnt go back far enough but is calculated to as far back as possible

For instance 25% inbred over 10 gens would be genetically equivalent to father daughter    this is something anyone can see and is a pretty good comparison benchmark

I am more than pleased anyone is taking this into consideration  My bitch is 11% in 9 gens, still too high for my liking but over 5 gens is only 3.4%  If the two are compared by anyone not understanding the difference it makes in how many generations are used in the calculation one would appear to be less inbred than the other

I know this may appear pedantic but we all need to be doing the same thing.

This is why i feel the KC should provide a service we can all use, that calculates using the same data, to the same number of generations

This way the results can be published with no mistakes made in data input and therefore cannot be challenged or misread

jan

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Jan, you're completely right.... when this was discussed at enormous length in several posts in the 'showing' thread, I was shot down in flames for suggesting 10 and I had thought the consensus settled on 5 - but to be perfectly honest, I got tired of being accused of voodoo science and rather lost interest.

5 generations is 32 parents in the final generation and I think is viable to do by hand.

10 generations is 1024 in the final generation which becomes a tad cumbersome -but is easily done by computer. I'd have said that with current computing power, it should be perfectly possible to work out the CoI of any given dog - back to the beginning of any given breed in seconds and that would be the ideal.

Why not do it if you can? After all, as you say, if your CoI is less than 2 up to 5 generations but then you discover that the 6th generation was all brother/sister matings - which is not likely, please don't assume I'm saying you would, but hypothetically, it blows your figures out of the water.

so, yes, 10 is better than 5. But some is better than nothing. What would be ideal would be to get to the point where an understanding of the need for genetic diversity went hand in hand with a ready understanding of CoI and a complete data base of all known and suspected hereditary diseases, without which, breeding becomes even more of a lottery than it is now.

If it were up to me, I'd try to get to a point where the licensing system was mandatory for accreditation, where it required a knowledge of health, genetics and early-life behaviour and where breeders were limited to a specific (low) number of litters per year having demonstrated that they used intelligent breeding programs and the best of current behavioural thinking in their raising of the puppies. The public would then be encouraged only to buy from licensed breeders.

we're a long way off and it would need a serious re-organisation of the hierarchy of the Kennel Club, but it's creeping slowly in the right direction

m

 

[Esty]

I don't think you could say Sooty Sam was a Show bred dog most of the Lagunas in his pedigree were noted hare coursing dogs he himself was line bred two sisters mated to different sires then a dog  and bitch from each litter mated to produce Sooty Sam.He was used so much because he was a prepotent sire who produced good working whippets.  It's a strange fact that if inbreeding is as damaging as we are lead to believe how come you never hear of any Sooty Sam bred dogs with congenital defects in fact they seem to have more vigour and stamina than usual.  Instead of worrying about how many times he is featured in a pedigree  maybe we should be looking at what's in front of us ie. the offspring.  I'm not advocating inbreeding I'm just looking at it not from what the book or expert might tell you but just from what you can see and hear and what I see and hear is there's a lot of happy owners of sooty sam bred dogs.

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You're right, that's why I was just doing it out of general curiosity rather than worry. My pups are handsome big bold lads, and already showing more intelligence than I anticipated in their house and command training - I am so pleased with them.