# Mother and Son breeding???



## Ziva Fl (Aug 4, 2014)

My 2yr old girl is a product of mother and son breeding Ziva Lieben von Ricktorious (on PDB) if you can look Is this a good or bad thing being so closely related? She was breed by a licensed breeder in NC Thanks to everybody for any comments She is a great dog but very hardheaded!! Thanks again


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## eddie1976E (Nov 7, 2010)

I don't profess to know much about genetic and breeding, but it would seem to me that there has to be something so extremely compelling to do a breeding like this. Something that few other mates can bring in. This male must walk on water to justify a breeding like this for me. Personally I don't believe that there is anything that compelling to justify such inbreeding. 

Glad the product of this breeding is a great dog.


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## Findlay (Jan 8, 2015)

Ziva Fl said:


> My 2yr old girl is a product of mother and son breeding Ziva Lieben von Ricktorious (on PDB) if you can look Is this a good or bad thing being so closely related? She was breed by a licensed breeder in NC Thanks to everybody for any comments She is a great dog but very hardheaded!! Thanks again


I just googled your question and there is information out there on mother/son dog breeding.
Mixed opinions.


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## MadLab (Jan 7, 2013)

Isn't that where breeds comes from. Inbreeding?


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## wolfstraum (May 2, 2003)

MadLab said:


> Isn't that where breeds comes from. Inbreeding?


But this is a breed established 110 or so years ago....

Bizarre - maybe an accident? 


Lee


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## MadLab (Jan 7, 2013)

Ah yea I know it is not a standard practice now a days.

It would be interesting to hear if it was accidental or intentional.


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## Doc (Jan 13, 2009)

Read Becketts "Planned Breeding". He submits several "advantages" to inbreeding especially to develop a particular "strain" in German shepherds. You don't have to agree with the practice but there is some merit to inbreeding according to Beckett. He was highly successful and produced many champions from his breeding plan.


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## Moriah (May 20, 2014)

My WGSL dog has a DDR line coming in through maternal grandfather where his mom was a the daughter of his father (father-daughter breeding/ both police dogs). This was a law enforcement breeding program, so I assume they were setting "type."


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## lhczth (Apr 5, 2000)

I am getting "No dogs found with that name" when I tried to search her name. 

In this day and age, I would guess either an oops breeding or a breeder who just breeds to what they have handy. It could also just be an error made by whomever put your dog's pedigree into the PDB.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Winifred Strickland also suggests close inbreeding if you are trying to set type. I don't think she favored it. It was just mentioned.

No, I think that for the most part, most of us would shy away from this close of a breeding. It would be 1-2 breeding on the dam, meaning the dam shows up on the first generation and the second generation in the pedigree. 

The SV allows 2-3 in breeding which would be like the pup's grandfather and great grandfather.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

lhczth said:


> I am getting "No dogs found with that name" when I tried to search her name.
> 
> In this day and age, I would guess either an oops breeding or a breeder who just breeds to what they have handy. It could also just be an error made by whomever put your dog's pedigree into the PDB.


Ziva Lieben Von Ricktorius


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## lhczth (Apr 5, 2000)

Actually the SV has changed their rules and it will no longer allow closer than 3-3, including linebreeding on siblings.


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## Doc (Jan 13, 2009)

It's no wonder breeders of show and sport dogs don't like it - the genetic bottleneck is so massive a large majority of the gene pool has been eliminated. When the norm became to have a saddleback red and black dog that all looked identical, those were the dogs that were/are breed to get more that are just alike. Their is t a great deal of genetic diversity left in the popular dogs anymore. So now breeders look to "out crosses". I.e. West German Highlines crossed with Czech dogs to get different genetic combinations - if they are lucky.


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## wyominggrandma (Jan 2, 2011)

With this type of close breeding you get the good and bad doubled up,but genetics will not tell you what good the puppies got and what bad the puppies got in percentage.
I question why this breeding was done. Nothing known on hips/elbows before they bred her either. 
questionable breeders in my opinion


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## Doc (Jan 13, 2009)

If a breeder doesn't know the genetic history of his lines then inbreeding is a crap shoot. However, if the breeder has the knowledge of the dogs and genetics that make up their dogs, then an intelligent decision about inbreeding can be made and the risk of "bad" genetic combinations can be minimized.


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## MythicMut (May 22, 2015)

This is called inbreeding as opposed to in-line breeding. In-line breeding will cross a dog that is X times removed from the sire or dam, the further away, the better. Inbreeding mates closely related dogs (mother/son, father/daughter, brother/sister, etc.) and is not a good thing to do as it can result in genetic anomalies, increased risks of displaying hereditary disorders, iffy temperaments, etc. Only an experienced breeder should ever do it and then only for specific reasons. 

On PDG, (Ziva Lieben Von Ricktorius) the inbreeding co-efficient is considered to be very high in your case. You say your dog is fine so I am glad you have a good dog. Enjoy her.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

MythicMut said:


> This is called inbreeding as opposed to in-line breeding. In-line breeding will cross a dog that is X times removed from the sire or dam, the further away, the better. Inbreeding mates closely related dogs (mother/son, father/daughter, brother/sister, etc.) and is not a good thing to do as it can result in genetic anomalies, increased risks of displaying hereditary disorders, iffy temperaments, etc. Only an experienced breeder should ever do it and then only for specific reasons.
> 
> On PDG, (Ziva Lieben Von Ricktorius) the inbreeding co-efficient is considered to be very high in your case. You say your dog is fine so I am glad you have a good dog. Enjoy her.


the breeders website is so annoying, I hope that isn't a representation of their experience and intelligence in making breeding decisions. 

OP, did you not know you were getting a pup from such a pedigree before you purchased?


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## Muskeg (Jun 15, 2012)

I think it can be done right by experienced breeders to set type and accentuate certain traits of the line. From what I've read, breeders who do this type of close breeding are prepared to cull- literally cull- any pups that get all the "bad". 

I believe this is fairly common practice by some breeders in some lines of working dogs. It is best if the pedigrees of the dogs being bred (mother-son for example) do not contain a lot of repeats or line-breeding. In some cases, a line-bred dog bred to another line-bred dog that is not closely related could have almost as close genetics and actually be more potentially problematic than breeding a mother-son that both have diverse pedigrees. 

Genetics aren't simple, I asked a friend who is a genetic counselor (for people) about close breedings like this and she basically said it could lead to recessive genes showing up more frequently, and a very uniform litter. If there aren't a lot of "bad" recessive genes in the lines, it could be a good thing, done once and done right. Meaning the pups from a close breeding like this aren't again bred to mother-son-sister-aunt (etc.). When I see an obvious type of dog from a certain long-time breeder, I often see very close breedings somewhere back in the pedigree. 

From what I've read close breedings are also fairly common in bird dogs and sled dogs.


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## Wanderer (Apr 9, 2011)

I've had some formal training in plant breeding. It is easy to be dispassionate about seeds, less so than animals, but genetics is genetics.

Inbreeding is a great way to set type with the attributes you are concentrating on. It's also a good way to accidentally double-up on a negative. Thing is, there are so many different traits it's impossible to keep an eye on them all, so you can end up dragging a lot of bad stuff forward inadvertently.

A mother-to-son breeding in a vacuum is not bad. Also interesting side-note...every single cheetah that is alive today appears to come from a single mother who had a few sons and somehow survived something that wiped out all the rest of the Cheetahs, and she rebuilt the population by mating with her sons and grandsons.

A big part of this is how closely related the mother was to the sire. (In fact there are instances where dogs could show no inbreeding for 5 generation, but all the dogs in generations beyond that are all very closely related. So you could have a larger inbreeding effect in a breeding declared free of inbreeding for 5 generations.)

The big picture can be different. Extensive line-breeding makes the entire gene pool much more shallow, which can have dire consequences. Once you have a very shallow gene pool there is no getting away from it (shy of bringing in total outsiders) and no amount of avoiding inbreeding back a handful of generations will have any impact because you go back far enough and everything is either closely related or the same individual.

In theory there could be a reason for a mother-son breeding of a GSD, and if done on the rarest of occasions wouldn't hurt the breed any worse than everyone having the same handful of great-great-grandsires.

In practicality, at best, it speaks of an 'oops' breeding to me by a novice who had dreams of being a breeder, got a bitch, found access to a sire, had a litter and wanted to keep the male intact, and couldn't keep the two apart when she was in heat. At worst, someone bred the two dogs intentionally because they can get AKC papers and there are a ton of people out there who think any papers/purebred is special.


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## nezzz (Jan 20, 2013)

Wanderer said:


> I've had some formal training in plant breeding. It is easy to be dispassionate about seeds, less so than animals, but genetics is genetics.
> 
> Inbreeding is a great way to set type with the attributes you are concentrating on. It's also a good way to accidentally double-up on a negative. Thing is, there are so many different traits it's impossible to keep an eye on them all, so you can end up dragging a lot of bad stuff forward inadvertently.
> 
> ...


Its totally different with plants. Most plants are polyploids and have multiple backups of their genes. Mathematically in effect, it means if you have lots of heterozygous dominant genes, you're more likely to amplify the effect of good genes and weed out the good ones. In diploid organisms like dogs, it is always 50/50.

To me, the only reason inbreeding needs to take place is IF you are trying to preserve a certain genetic type and only if it is highly worthwhile and reproducible. But considering the number of problems with the breed now, having an outcross to weed out problems is far more urgent than concentrating the gene pool even further.


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## Wanderer (Apr 9, 2011)

nezzz said:


> Its totally different with plants. Most plants are polyploids and have multiple backups of their genes. Mathematically in effect, it means if you have lots of heterozygous dominant genes, you're more likely to amplify the effect of good genes and weed out the good ones. In diploid organisms like dogs, it is always 50/50.
> 
> To me, the only reason inbreeding needs to take place is IF you are trying to preserve a certain genetic type and only if it is highly worthwhile and reproducible. But considering the number of problems with the breed now, having an outcross to weed out problems is far more urgent than concentrating the gene pool even further.





nezzz said:


> Its totally different with plants. Most plants are polyploids and have multiple backups of their genes. Mathematically in effect, it means if you have lots of heterozygous dominant genes, you're more likely to amplify the effect of good genes and weed out the good ones. In diploid organisms like dogs, it is always 50/50.
> 
> To me, the only reason inbreeding needs to take place is IF you are trying to preserve a certain genetic type and only if it is highly worthwhile and reproducible. But considering the number of problems with the breed now, having an outcross to weed out problems is far more urgent than concentrating the gene pool even further.



Not really different in plants. Yes, plants are more likely to be polyploid, but only 15% of Angiosperms (Flowering plants, basically anything that isn't a fern, pine, or moss) but that leaves a pretty solid swath. Granted, in full disclosure many of our most grown and studied crop plants are polyploids. Note, while polyploidism seems to be a nice check against a mutation making a mess of a specific gene (because you have 3 good copies, passing on either 2 good or 1 good and 1 bad) but much less help if you've been linebreeding concentrating on X then turn around only to find you inadvertently dragged some undesirable genes with you. 

Still, our end conclusions are basically the same. It's highly unlikely this is a good idea. At this point it seems we both agree that the percent likelihood mother-son breeding in GSDs is a decimal, at least one zero, and a 1. We just have a different view of how many zeros there are between the decimal place and the 1. Arguing on how many zeros, that just isn't going to be productive.


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