# Controversial Question



## kudo2u

Hi all,

Let me preface this by saying a few things. First, all of my dogs are rescues. All have been altered. One (Tango) was used as a "breeding" dog and still suffers from the time she was mistreated in this way. I don't breed dogs, have never bred a dog, have no desire to breed dogs. My question is PURELY because I don't have this knowledge and would like to better understand.

So....there is a very heartbreaking thread going about the dangers of breeding if you don't really know what you're doing. And there is a lot of discussion about having the proper testing done, having the pedigree of all dogs involved, having many things that a lot of careless breeders don't have.

But here's my question. In SOME cases (not all, trust me I know that) a mixed-breed dog can be healthier, smarter, and more balanced than a pure bred dog, and this has been largely attributed to inbreeding with purebreds (from what I understand). And I do know some breeds have actually gone through periods of selective cross-breeding to bring in outside genes because the inbreeding was so severe.

So as a breeder, when breeding only the "best" to the "best" in an effort to better the breed, how do you prevent inbreeding? How do you prevent the lines becoming so crossed and double-crossed that you can't help but inbreed? Because I would think that eventually, if breeders truly are that selective about their breeding programs, eventually all of the dogs would be drawing from the same gene pool to some extent, which would lead to problems, not to better dogs, even with the most careful, most responsible breeders out there.

Please understand - I'm not trying to be critical, not trying to do ANYTHING except understand how these things can be prevented. And if it does get to that point, how do you go about breeding in outside lines to bring back health and eliminate the problems, but without diluting the breed?

Hope nobody takes offense to the questions.....I really, truly just don't understand! :bolt:


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## Havtahava

Actually, the comments about mixed breeds being healthier is a myth. The reason we know about health issues in purebreds is because we can track them with actual test results and databases, so we are actually knowlegable on what health risks are following our lines of dogs. Nobody tracks the health results of mixed breeds/mutts, so of course they are going to appear "healthier" when it comes to numbers.

Also, inbreeding isn't necessarily bad, especially when you've been following your health testing and know the faults of your dogs. Inbreeding can bring out the best traits (and the worst) much faster than breeding for several generations.

The key is to learn! Most good breeders attend every seminar they can, utilize mentors and study genetics.


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## karin117

Kimberly put this very well....


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## dbeech

I have a related question. We have several European members on the board with gorgeous dogs. Do US breeders ever buy puppies from Europe and vice versa?


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## Havtahava

Yes, Debbie.


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## kudo2u

Thank you for your explanation.

I can see how mixed breed vs. pure bred health could be a myth, and I can understand how that would be perpetuated.

What about intelligence? In humans, for example, if a brother/sister have children, the incidence of birth defects and the incidence of intelligence being impacted are significantly increased. Is it the same for dogs? 

Of course no breeder is going to breed a brother/sister. But I'm just wondering how that is impacted throughout the lines. I hope my question makes sense....

Again, not trying to say breeders are doing something wrong, so please don't take it that way!!! Just trying to better understand, that's all.


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## karin117

Debbie....yes
We do not have quite the same breedstandard but yes...

If you look at the pedigree of your dog...or one of mine you will find a lot of dogs from both continents..

This is the pedigree of my lovley Dora
http://www.havanesegallery.hu/pedigree_en.php?id=24115


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## krandall

You can't really equate human beings to domestic animals for one very good reason. Humans do essentially NO culling of bad genetic material. (well, except for Hitler, and that was looked on very poorly) With domestic animals, conscientious breeders do their best to remove poor genes from the gene pool. With puppies, they are sold as pets with spay/neuter contracts; with cattle the poorer specimens end up quickly on the dinner plate and don't make it into the breeding shed. 

In the wild, genetic selection is done by "survival of the fittest", but what "fittest" means varies from species to species. With hoofed mammals, one important aspect of survival is to be able to run fast soon after birth or become prey. So that is how the animals have evolved. With a number of tool-using animals, both mammalian and avian, being clever has become more important than being strongest or fastest. (humans are the prime example of this line of evolution!)


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## Havtahava

Kudo, actually some of the best breeders will breed brother/sister or parent/offspring. That's exactly what inbreeding is. Linebreeding would be breeding cousins, niece/uncle, grandsire to granddaughter.

In humans, if you look back in history at some of the royal families did a lot of inbreeding. I don't remember which family it was, but one of them found that they perpetuated hemophilia, but I don't think anything else has ever been shown.

Inbreeding will bring out the rare recessive genes, which can be very beneficial to a breeder because you will find out quickly what your dog's genetics are hiding and you can breed away from that. 

The biggest benefit to inbreeding is that you set traits (good traits). The biggest downsides to inbreeding is that you set traits (if you set faults or negative traits) and if you continue to do a lot of inbreeding eventually your lines will become extinct. I'm not sure if it has been proven, but theoretically, by continuing with inbreeding your dogs will produce fewer and fewer offspring and eventually the younger generations may even be sterile.


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## karin117

YES, if you do line breed you find out the flaws in your line quickly...but to what cost????
I am NOT in favor in tigh in breeding...and with modern tecnic...there is not that much use for it...


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## Julie

Fascinating---I'm learning new stuff today! Thank you!:thumb:


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## Havtahava

Karin, what do you mean "at what cost"? If you do tight inbreeding, you just bring out the recessive traits that will come out down the line anyway. Obviously, you don't breed to close relatives that have the same faults or known recessive genes that you don't want to perpetuate.


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## karin117

When I say at what cost, I mean that ther is puppys i that breeding...so IF thre is health issues...they are the produce of that.
YES you find out what is in your line...but you have puppies as a produce of that breeding...


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## Havtahava

Yes, but from everything I've learned, you can get those same "products" (the puppies with health issues) down the road. The inbreeding just brings out the recessive genes sooner.


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## ama0722

I think you have heard a lot of reasoning. After having friends who have worked for shelters and learned any "mutt" that comes in with any health problem is usually put down after the short waiting period. Unfortunately there are so many dogs that come in, they can't save them all and they know the likely hood of a dog with severe health problems being adopted is very unlikely.

Another thing, some breeds (herding and sporting) especially in other countries are bred more for intelligence and drive rather than physical conformation for a breed standard. I know a lot of people who have border collies from Europe. They went for breeders who breed for a working standard first (they are required to have working titles). One of the dogs that I know from Scottland also earned it's AKC championship as well but it took many shows as it was in standard but looked very different than most of the dogs in the ring.

On a side note, AKC is now starting to let spayed and neutered mixed breeds come play in the performance rings and I am very happy to see that!


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## Scooter's Family

I'm glad this thread was started, nice to learn a bit more as this is all new to me.

Thanks for all the info!


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## Tom King

Just breeding mixed dogs with few if any generations behind them of knowing what is there, is much more of a crapshoot than what experienced breeders are doing with linebreeding and even inbreeding with generations of known results. You not only lock what you want in, but can lock what you don't want out.

Of course with genetic diversity, more is considered better than less but even then known is better than guessing. You can have a large population with little genetic diversity or a small population with large genetic diversity. So much is being learned in genetics now, even weekly, than has been known forever before, that a lot of it is getting easier.

The whole canine genome has been mapped now so that they know what is where. All this research has not necessarily just been done for the benefit of the dogs, but rather, since the dog is such a good model and shares a lot of DNA with us, it's being done largely to try to help the future of human health.

The Havanese breed started with only a few dogs but it turns out that it's the most genetically diverse, by far, of any purebred dog that's had it's diversity studied. Probably there is no other breed with so many generations of health tested dogs, and with new genetic tests coming out almost weekly, it's becoming even easier to keep what you don't want out of a breeding program if you want to. 

Quote simply, anyone who says that mixed breeds are more healthy just doesn't know what they are talking about.

Intelligence is not an issue if intelligent dogs are being bred.


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## krandall

ama0722 said:


> On a side note, AKC is now starting to let spayed and neutered mixed breeds come play in the performance rings and I am very happy to see that!


Didn't I read, though, that they won't compete head to head, but in their own classes? I don't understand the reasoning there... if it's performance rather than conformation, why separate them?


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## ama0722

Karen,I think they get their own class but will perform at the same time but I think the hosting club decides- it wasn't discussed at mine as their trial has past. Some reasoning I have heard is- to encourage people to get purebreeds-akc takes this seriously, so people don't specifically breed for performance (go to flyball and see all the borderstaffies), and it just passed.

Personally I don't have an issue going head to head as long as they are spayed and neutered.


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## krandall

I hadn't thought of that aspect.

WHAT does a "Border-Staffie" look like!?!? The mind boggles!<g> Plus, I wonder what life would be like with one... An OCD dog with jaws like a crocodile and the power of an ox! (sorry, I know there are VERY nice dogs of both breeds... I'm (mostly) joking:laugh


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## AgilityHav

I feel Kimberly and Tom both make very good points. 

Also, I just want to point out, I work in a research lab. It works with genetics that have to do with Cardiovascular failure. We were talking the other day about this very same thing within my group of co-workers. One of my co-workers has horses, but has never been involved with dogs. Another co-worker was taking the point of perpetuating bad health problems, and the first co-worker made a very good point: how do we *really* know that inbreeding in humans causes IQ deficiencies? Is it something a researcher would like to try to find out? Thats the thing, we can't really compare animal breeding to humans because, well, there are so many ethical issues with humans that there is no way we could "experiment" on humans....that is a slight tangent, but you get my gist  Thats why a human/dog comparison doesn’t hold up all that well....


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## galaxie

^ I was actually just about to make a very similar comment. One can't compare developmental issues that occur in humans with inbreeding to dogs. 

There is a reason that it's illegal for humans to "breed" with their close relatives, research has shown that there is a highly increased risk of below average brain development, and further developmental issues. This does not simply mean IQs can be low, but it is common to have brain defects, birth defects (body development issues), etc. as well as other less serious issues.


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## kudo2u

galaxie said:


> ^ I was actually just about to make a very similar comment. One can't compare developmental issues that occur in humans with inbreeding to dogs.
> 
> There is a reason that it's illegal for humans to "breed" with their close relatives, research has shown that there is a highly increased risk of below average brain development, and further developmental issues. This does not simply mean IQs can be low, but it is common to have brain defects, birth defects (body development issues), etc. as well as other less serious issues.


I've read studies about this, and that's why I was confused that it would be OK to breed dogs this way. I understand that dogs and humans are different, but I would think that at some point, genetics is genetics. If that makes sense.

I obviously don't know much about breeding dogs! Good thing all of mine are altered..... 

I do appreciate everyone's insight. I guess there are just some things I'm not meant to understand. All of this has just led to more questions! But I don't want to get into some deep discussion that I know would take forever! So I'll just continue to adopt rescue dogs, and leave the breeding to the breeders!


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## Lina

Kudo2u, here's a good thread in which we discussed inbreeding in an evolutionary term 3 years ago:

http://havaneseforum.com/showthread.php?t=1031&

I did want to comment on the studies of birth defects in dogs vs. humans (that you seem to be confused about). The difference in this case is about knowledge and how much we know about the breeding parents. With humans, we don't know what genetic markers we are carrying in large part due to the fact that 1. we don't map our entire genomes for each individual and 2. humans live much much longer lifespans than dogs do. What does this mean? Well, let's say your great-grandfather was carrying a recessive gene for a disease that is hereditary... no one would ever know there was anything wrong with him by looking at him but he can still pass on this gene to his offspring. Then let's say that his grandson (your father) inherited this recessive mutation but he lucked out and married someone who didn't have this same mutation. Then you and your brother are born and both of you have this recessive mutation (this is possible, though not with 100% certainty) and you go and have a kid with your brother. In this case, this recessive mutation which allowed you to live your life totally normally and with no problems is duplicated and is now dominant - causing your child to be born with defects. If you had married someone else, it would *still* be possible that your husband would have that same recessive mutation, just a lot less likely than your brother having it. In either case (whether it would be a stranger or your brother that you passed on this disease with), it would have taken upwards of 100 years for anyone to know that your family had this recessive mutation!

Now, the same applies to dogs. Genetics is genetics, as you said. However, inbreeding dogs is different because they don't live as long. So it's much much easier to see defects more quickly than we would with humans. And in that way you can breed "out" the defects while breeding "in" the effects that you want or like. In this matter, you are using the short lifespan of dogs to create the exact type of dog you want.

Now as far as inbreeding producing defects, think about this. In laboratories mice are used to understand genetic defects. In order to do this, they need to start out with a perfectly "normal" sample - a pure specimen of sorts - and they do this by *highly* inbreeding them (mothers to sons, brothers to sister, etc.). When inbreeding a perfect mouse to another perfect mouse you're going to get out a perfect mouse. The same applies to a human or a dog or anything else. When you start with a perfect dog (and I use that term loosely - I mean a dog with no genetic defects) then if you breed to another dog with no defects this is a good thing as you're keeping all the traits you want and not breeding in any traits you don't. If you ever find a "perfect" human family, you can inbreed all you like (probably for hundreds of years) before anything bad happens - eventually all DNA mutates enough to change things, of course.

The problem is that it's very hard to tell if humans have any genetic issues whereas it's much easier to tell with dogs by looking at their traits and observing their offspring, etc.

I really hope all that rambling made some sense to you... I always tend to type up these things way too late into the night!


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## kudo2u

Lina,

That does make a lot of sense, actually. Thank you for taking the time to explain all of that. And for posting the link, as well.

This is all incredibly interesting to me. Not sure why, really.... But I have learned a lot from this thread - thank you for humoring my questions!


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## Havtahava

Kudo, I think it is great that you are willing to ask questions even when you think it may come across offensive. I don't think anyone found your questions to be offensive at all.


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## Sheri

Lina, I also found your explanation quite interesting and also understandable. Helps a lot to clarify the tiny ideas shooting around like pin balls in the brain.

Thanks. And, Kudo, I'm glad you posted your questions.


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