Evolving Our Attitude on Selecting Stud Dogs

BY PERI NORMAN

For many decades, the prevailing advice to bitch owners about selecting a stud dog involved picking a mate that had the phenotypic attributes called for in the breed standard. Visions of pups destined for championships, specialty wins and Best in Shows danced in our heads as we struggled with analyzing pedigrees to figure out which of our can- didates were most likely to produce the smaller ears and darker eyes that might prove to be the missing piece of the puzzle. After a train wreck or two involv- ing acquisition of the missing trait along with devas- tating health problems like epilepsy or autoimmune disease, we learned to include a hopefully thorough investigation and analysis of health concerns as well.

As the concept of a preservation breeder gains mo- mentum in the world of dogs, we are forced to once again re-evaluate many of the truisms that have been accepted over the last forty to fifty years. Plummet- ing populations of purebred dogs, extreme loss of ge- netic diversity within breeds, and increasing numbers of onerous diseases appearing within families of dogs have led many to warn of the importance of main- taining and increasing the diversity within our breed- ing stock.

J. Jeffrey Bragg in his essay Principles for the Breeder recommends the following, “The breeder should strive to ensure that at least two of every litter (unless it should happen to be one of those litters that really had best be forgotten) contribute to the next generation; half the litter should be the ideal, though perhaps a difficult one to maintain. In every instance in which only one progeny from a given mating con- tributes to the next generation, automatically and in- fallibly half of the available genetic diversity in that line is lost permanently! If two progeny contribute, the theoretical average loss is reduced to 25%, still less if more littermates contribute. This single point is a major source of losses of genetic diversity among purebreds, yet it often goes totally unconsidered by the breeder.”

While a dedicated and established breeder could conceivably have two, or even three bitches, out of a quality litter bred, another challenge presents itself in what is commonly call “the popular sire syn- drome”. Dr. Jerrold Bells explains, “An important issue in dog breeding is the popular-sire syndrome. This occurs when a stud dog is used extensively for breeding, spreading his genes quickly throughout the gene pool. There are two problems caused by the popular-sire syndrome. One is that any detrimental genes which the sire carries will significantly in- crease in frequency – possibly establishing new breed-related genetic disorders. Second, as there are only a cer- tain number of bitches bred each year, overuse of a popular sire excludes the use of other quality males, thus narrowing the di- versity of the gene pool.”

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Posted by Alex on Jan 19 2017. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.