PART XIII

OF PEAS AND PUPS

PART XIII

INBREEDING/LINEBREEDING (continued)

Measurement of Inbreeding.

...THE TENDENCY TO IMAGINE the degree of inbreeding in a certain case to be more prevalent among dog-breeders than among the breeders of any other animals. The cause may be that man and his dog, share a closer relationship with each other. The dog-breeder who mates first cousins, often does so with tongue in cheek, fearful that he may have overstepped the bounds of good taste....still thinking of his dog in terms of human conduct! Actually, he could inbreed first cousins for the next thirty years, without reaching the intensity of three or four parent to offspring matings....There are some few breeders whose experience has given them a sixth sense to "feel" what has taken place in a particular inbreeding but most of us make an uneducated guess, more often wrong than right...Since the consequences of inbreeding to breed progress is so great, it seems but practical to have some measure of what is taking place.

...SINCE INBREEDING is the mating of animals more closely related than average, and since it increases the number of like gene pairs in the pups, counting the number of additional like gene pairs in the pup would be a perfect measure. We know only the number of chromosomes and not the number of genes in any animal, so counting is out....We can however work in percentages as we did in estimating relationship (Part VII) and since both relationship and inbreeding are factors of homozygosity (like gene pairs) there is a correlation. In fact, for directly related mates the measure of inbreeding can be obtained merely by dividing the relationship between the mates by two, to account for the sample halving process of the genes as they go from parents to offspring....Sewall Wright figured this out around 1920. Thus when a full brother and sister who share 50% more homozygous genes than the average (for the bred) are mated, the pups are 25% more inbred, and share 25% more homozygous genes than the average....In mating half sibs, the relationship is 25% and the increased homozygosity is 12.5%. A grand sire and his granddaughter have the same degree of relationship as the half sibs and thus have the same degree of inbreeding, that is R_x 25, F_x 12.5, where F_x is the coefficient of inbreeding.

...MANY WOULD SAY that nutmeg was the most inbred dog in the above pedigree because IB'S name appears on it five times....Of course Ruffy is the most inbred, with Nutmeg coming second and Sis pulling in third. Since Nutmeg is only collaterally related to IB (not directly) we cannot estimate the degree of inbreeding by this simplified "half the relationship" method, but must use another plan which will be discussed below. We all know that parents each supply 50% to the pups, that the grandparents each supply 25% and that the eight great-grandparents each supply 12½% of the pups genes. With this in mind, we can estimate the intensity of linebreeding of Ruffy to IB by realizing that IB supplied 50% of Ruffy's genes as his sire, 25% of his genes as grandsire and 12½% of his genes as great-grandsire....Thus, Ruffy and IB were related by 87½% and Ruffy is inbred to half that relationship or .438....Sis was 50% IB as his daughter and 25% IB as his grandsire. Sis and IB were related by 75% and she therefore has an F_x of .375....Nutmeg has an F_x of .406, see if that's what you get when using the data in Figure 50.

WHAT DOES THIS "INBRED TO /375%" MEAN? It means that Sis probably has 37½% more homozygous genes than do average members of the breed. Using the figures we have followed throughout this series, although admittedly low, it would mean that where an average mating would produce pups carrying 10,000 homozygous and 10,000 heterozygous genes, Sis would have 13,750 homozygous genes and 6,250 heterozygous genes. it would mean that she is likely to be 37½% more prepotent (if these were all dominants) and that she would be 37½% more likely to show any defects she possessed. If you saw none, you would be 67% correct in assuming that she had none. Actually it would be more accurate to "67% of her has no defects" because we can "see" 67% of her genes....they are homozygous, but such a statement might require just about as much explanation for clarity as, "She's just a little bit pregnant".

...THE ILLUSTRATION ABOVE PERMITS one to visualize how many generations (left to right) are required to reach a certain degree of homozygosity (left-bottom to top) by breeding mates of the relationship shown. A dog generation is theoretically a year but for all practical purposes it is more like two, or even three, years. A further value to the above is this....take out a human actuary table and estimate your life expectancy from your present age. By studying Figure 49, you can learn what plan you must follow to reach your goal in the time allotted you...It may be biblical but somewhere it says, "The days a man spends afield with his dog are not counted against his allotted sp and this fact must be considered in your computations concerning the above.

...FIGURE 50, compares the formula for relationship and for the coefficient of inbreeding. Relationship was gone into in some detail in Part VII, which will help in understanding F_x too. A more detailed explanation may be had from many sources at your library, one good one is Rice & Andrews "Breeding and Improvement in Farm Animals' (McGraw-Hill 1957 NYC).

...THE PRECEDING FORMULA is satisfactory for most dog breeding but it fails to take into account the added homozygosity due to any inbred ancestors, this is accounted for by multiplying the added portion of the formula shown in the lower section of the figure. The Greek Sigma is the summation, which means that each line of relationship between sire and dam are figured separately and then the parts are added together. In the above n is the number of generations from sire C to dam A; n is the number of generations from sire to dam B, then plus 1, the genes are going still another generation, if they have not already gone. That's one relationship. The second is: dam (D) to sire (A) and dam (D) to dam (B), plus one for a total of 3. The coefficient of inbreeding (F_x) is a figure which expresses the probable increase in homozygosity (or decrease in heterozygosity) which results from a particular inbreeding.

U.S. BREED RECORD

...ONE OF THE IMPORTANT OBJECTIVES OF homozygosity is to build prepotency...having once gained it, to hold on to it without letting it slip through our fingers....We want to be able to pass it on generation after generation until the whole breed has been raised by the bootstraps of the really outstanding individuals, who crop up occasionally in all breeds. How well we, as a breed, have succeeded or failed can be determined from the record.....How many generations...successive generations, have we been able to maintain greatness once we have become aware of it? Remember now, that the breed has become popular in the U.S. only in the past few years and is less than 100 years old. These records compiled by the Albrecht's of Wichita give us some measure in the field trial game. This is not a list of all the Field Champions sired by these individuals, nor is it ALL the lines of FC's extending from these immortal dogs...it is only the longest in successive generations. None go beyond three generations although there are several close to the Fourth and these may appear before this reaches print....It is interesting to note that all of these dogs are imports. The #1, 2 & 3 below indicate the generations.

Field Champion (International)

FRANCO BECKUM (German Import)

1. FC & NFC Bobo Grabenbruch Beckum

2. FC Mitzie Grabenbruch Beckum

3. FC & NFC Onna v Bess (and other v Bess's)

Field Champion (International)

FRANCO BECKUM (German Import)

1. FC & NFC Bobo Grabenbruch Beckum

2. FC & NFC Von Saalfields Kash

3. FC Dixon's Rocky

Field Champion

GREIF VON HUNDSCHEIMERKOGEL (Austrian Import)

1. FC Karin v Greif

FC Yunga v Hundsheimerkogel (Karin and Yunga bred together to produce Gretchen)

2. *International Dual Ch.Gretchen v Greif

3. FC Heisterholz Helga v Grief

Field Champion (International)

MOESGARRDS IB (Danish Import)

1. FC Doktorgaardens Lucky

2. Dual ch. & NFC Moesgaards Dandy

3. FC Fieldborn Schatzy

...IT IS REASONABLY CERTAIN that among show champions the successive generations will extend farther, although I do not have the records to verify it; probably the Albrechts do have and will publish them in the News one day soon.

CONCLUSION

...TALK IS FINE but facts are better. "If inbreeding/linebreeding can do so much for the Shorthair, why doesn't everyone use it?" A good question. The answer...ignorance and knowledge. Ignorance, which is usually synonymous with prejudice, keep many from seeking its advantages. Knowledge keeps many other away, as it should....knowledge that their own stock is not up to inbreeding. If you don't know what you have, inbreeding will tell you. If you know what you have and it is not outstanding, you should not inbreed. We do not inbreed merely for inbreedings sake but we do inbreed superior specimens and this is where more superior specimens come from.

...AMONG THE SHORTHAIR FANCY as a whole, inbreeding/linebreeding is little used. In spite of this, if it is effective as it is claimed, it should show up somewhere in the records, and it does. Several outstanding litters resulting from the mating of full sibs and half sibs have already been given these were not single generation successes. Fine animals produced fine animals and will continue to produce fine animals. But lets take a closer look at the record (Fig. 51)....

here over several generations is the most linebred/inbred modern U.S. pedigree that you can find, we have not gone beyond F_x.439 in U.S. Shorthairs. Here in actual practice, is what we have been "preaching" throughout this series for about three years. Superior animals producing superior animals generation after generation, by increasing homozygosity and by building and maintaining prepotency....IB was a great dog, I saw him run, Dandy was a better dog, in my opinion. This strain is not dead...it's very much alive and kicking and you will see other great dogs spring from it as they are each year. I cannot be accused of kennel blindness here. I have no Moesgaards and have no intentions, at this time, of getting any. In the next and final part of this series I will explain why.

...FIND FOR ME IF YOU CAN another pedigree as brief and yet so filled with outstanding Shorthairs. Not nearly all the dogs are listed that could be and none of the titles are listed. This is because of the limitations of time and space. Recording all of the wins for the dogs listed would take considerable research and fill several pages, some indication of the caliber of these few dogs can be imagined from some of their titles....there are National Champions and runners up galore (AKC, AF, AF, Am.Natl') Double Regional Champions and Dual Champions; Top Field Trial Dog of the year (AKC-AF) for several years, dogs picked on the Sports Afield annual Shorthair team for several years, quintriple and double field trial champions to a point where the single FC feels like a peon...this could go on and on, it is enough to say that this is linebreeding/inbreeding that you can see and feel. It isn't something someone else is doing in another breed, these are Shorthairs, many of which you have seen run. Who said inbreeding never did anything for the Shorthair? Show me another pedigree which started with superior stock AND followed an intelligent program designed to perpetuate that superiority and I'll show you similar results. There are other strains which started with equally good animals but they have now fallen by the wayside....their greatness having been permitted to slip away, to become diluted by continued outbreeding (not outcrossing). IB himself did not just happen, he was not some fortunate quirk of fate. Check his pedigree....follow it back you'll run smack dab into the middle of Bob Koege, the great Danish "Danish Champion" whose pedigree we used as an example of inbreeding, linebreeding, backcrossing, percentage of blood, etc. way back in Part VII. So this thing has been building for years, through many generations, with many different breeders all of whom have had knowledge and experience and the same general idea of what makes a great Shorthair. Are they perfect? Of course not but they are as near that goal as the dogs of any other strain. The importance of individual strains will be covered in our final installment.

...I HAVE TRIED TO ENCOURAGE INBREEDING where the mates are above average because there is no other plan which can bring progress faster or maintain any progress once it has been gained. I have tried to point out why it succeeds or why it fails, but whether it succeeds or fails, I like the inherent honesty of inbreeding...its straight forwardness. It lets you know what you have, straight from the shoulder with no beating around the bush....it may be good or it may be extremely bad but at least you know and knowing is far more than half the battle....Outbreeding, on the other had, is a sneaky character, if not downright dishonest...It would be bad enough if the outbreeding machine stamped out liver and white ticked fortune cookies inside of which we found only a blank piece of paper....but oh no, it goes further in its deception. The note inside the cookies reads, "You've got a really great pup here, he may be the most outstanding sire the breed has ever known". Of course all of us like to hear such things about our pups and soon we think, "it could happen" and we become al-of-a-sudden positive of the omnipotent infallibility of fortune cookies....Oh, brother!

...We can paraphrase Lush to summarize the above...1)Inbreeding is the most reliable measure of the breeding value of any animal that we can make, and...2) Outbreeding usually results in individual excellence BUT low breeding worth.

...Where the mates are superior.....the intelligent use of inbreeding/linebreeding can bring more rapid advancement to the Shorthair in the next human generation than it has in the three generations preceding it.

Copyright 2001. Dr. James G. McCue, Jr. All rights reserved. Postscript: And his legacy lives on in the German Shorthaired Pointers of today. May they always be healthy and bred with forethought and planning.

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