Pedigrees?

[DOITALL]

I've always read the classifieds on hound boards. The dog will be listed as X breeding,if you read the ped.and see that particular hound 4,5 or 6 generations back. How much of the X hounds
"Greatness" will actually help the pups ability? I,m not sure if people do it just to sell for a profit or what.
I understand line breeding but just to have 1 certain dog 4 generations ago does it really help?

[nmplott]

Do research on Punnet squares, once you understand those you will have your answer. I attached a link that briefly explains the punnet square which works well to explain one gene.
http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_2.htm
Basicaly everytime you cross you dilute, the more you keep a certain dog the less dilution but you still dillute the gene pool. The concept you are referring to is called line breeding:
Line breeding is when the sire and the dam are distantly related: grandsire to granddaughter, granddam to grandson, second cousins, half cousins, uncle to niece, aunt to nephew. The general strategy is that there is a common ancestor that is being doubled up on both sides. So the desired dog appears several times in the pedigree which is of excellant quality in everyway.

This is probably the most common strategy in breeding purebred dogs (and in developing new breeds, for that matter). Through this method, new genes are slowly introduced and unwanted genes are slowly replaced. The actual rate varies by how strongly you line breed. It sacrifices little overall quality in terms of show quality. Usually the puppies are rather close in general conformation. The only problem with this method is that it often takes several generations to get poor genes out, (or adding desired genes in) resulting in many puppies that have the same genetic problems (or virtues) that their parents have. And then because some breeders are more interested in winning, they do not place the affected puppies on spay/neuter contracts. This is both a blessing and a curse for the breed. If the breeder is very careful, affected pups can be used wisely to prevent loss of quality, but still remove the affected genes by only breeding the affected pups to known non-carrier relatives. This way the breeder can again try to "edit out" the bad genes. This process results in dogs that will often reproduce their same level of quality. This is refered to as reaching homozygous litters (more genes of the same kind apparent in the puppies) and thus more uniformity.

Inbreeding and linebreeding really differ only in degree. Linebreeding is less likely to cause harm than inbreeding. Inbreeding is not for novices. Knowledge of genetics and the breed is required for success. For good results it must be well-planned and breeders must be ready for whatever problems it presents.

[DOITALL]

Thanks for the info. Very interesting stuff.

[michael.magorian]

People just say their pup is X bred to sell it. That is what has wrecked so many names of good breeders. Idiot A will breed his female to Idiot B's male because Idiot B's hound has hound X five generations back in the pedigree, so Idiot A can advertise his pups as X bred even though niether one of the hounds bred together were worth the time spent doing this. When all is said and done, you end up with a bunch of hounds that the X hound name as a registered name and the original hound is only on one side of the pedigree and five or six generations back and there are twenty some other sub-par hounds in the pedigree adding to the traits of the pup. In the end somebody that has spent years perfecting his line of hounds gets a bad name because a couple of idiots advertise their hounds using his line as an advertisement. This has happened to quite a few good houndsmen that did have a good line, but people breed for the name rather than the traits.

[driftwood blue]

People just say their pup is X bred to sell it. That is what has wrecked so many names of good breeders. Idiot A will breed his female to Idiot B's male because Idiot B's hound has hound X five generations back in the pedigree, so Idiot A can advertise his pups as X bred even though niether on of the hounds bred together were worth the time spent doing this. When all is said and done, you end up with a bunch of hounds that the X hound name as a registered name and the original hound is only on one side of the pedigree and five or six generations back and there are twenty some other sub-par hounds in the pedigree adding to the traits of the pup. In the end somebody that has spent years perfecting his line of hounds gets a bad name because a couple of idiots advertise their hounds using his line as an advertisement. This has happened to quite a few good houndsmen that did have a good line, but people breed for the name rather than the traits.

Yes sir!
and if they are doing that the punnets square and the inbreeding quotients do not amount to a hill of beans.. one still has to test them in the woods to see if anything is there BEFORE breeding.

[nmplott]

totally true! When dealing with working dogs like hounds I feel that before they hit show champion they should have to prove they can hunt to.