# Seen tons of comments regarding, so here is a theoretical



## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

First... I'm playing devil's advocate

Suppose I had a dog that I found wondering the city. I take him in, verify his health. I've got no pedigree obviously, but he sure looks like a full blood GSD and no one disagrees with that assessment. I decide, WTH, I'm gonna do SchH. So as it turns out, his abilities are off the charts, and we breeze to SchH3 and become well known as a top level grade competitor. I xray everything and OFA is perfect. Conformation is perfect as well. His SchH scores are consistently near perfect

Should I consider breeding this dog? Why or why not?


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## Good_Karma (Jun 28, 2009)

Who is going to want to breed with an unknown dog? It won't look good for them to have that in their lines. I don't think your hypothetical wonder dog will have too many really fine bitches lined up for him, just because they will have crossed their titled, champion dog to your stray (albeit talented stray).

But I don't know anything about breeders, maybe I'm completely wrong.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Wasn't there a 200 page thread on exactly this topic a few weeks ago?

No. I would not breed. You don't have any idea what genetics are in play so do not have a health history. For all you know, EPI and HD could be strong factors in the genetics and this dog just lucked out. Or you could have a high mix that isn't even a purebred.


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## Emoore (Oct 9, 2002)

There was a big long thread about this a while back (of course I've been on here for basically ever, so just because I've seen it doesn't mean everyone has.)

To me, it's not enough just to know the dog. You need to know its ancestors. A dog with great hips can throw a dysplastic pup and a dog with great hips can come from parents with terrible ones. With a dog of unknown ancestry, you only know the phenotype (what you see in front of you). You have no idea of the genotype (genetic makeup). Sort of like why it's better to get a pup with a parent who has Fair hips, but all that parent's, parents and siblings have Excellent, than it is to get a pup from a parent with Excellent hips but all its parents and sibings are Fair or Poor.


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

Without any knowledge of his pedigree, my answer would be no. 

When breeding, one thing that must be looked for is whether the dog's phenotype reflects his genotype and if his genotype supports his phenotype. In other words, is the dog a representative of his lines? Or is he a fluke?

IF the dog's pedigree supports what he shows, there is a good chance he will produce the same. But if he is a fluke, and his pedigree would indicate something vastly different than what he exhibits himself, there is no way to predict what he will throw. He might throw himself, but it's unlikely. It is more likely that he will throw what his pedigree says he would throw. 

Without knowing pedigree, you cannot determine if he represents it or not, and thus there is no good predictor of what he will produce. And you also can't get any clue as to what other traits are indicated in his pedigree, things he may not express himself but may well carry genetically and produce in puppies.

This is why pedigree research, not just direct ancestors but other close relatives (siblings, parent's and grandparent's siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc...) is so important to any sound breeding. It helps answer the question of whether the phenotype and genotype support one another, and also provides information about what other attributes of health, structure and temperament exist within the genetics of that family and how often they occur, what combinations they occur in, and what pedigree matches bring those hidden things to the surface and in what combination. All of which are very important, and every bit if not more important than the quality seen in any one individual dog.


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## BlackthornGSD (Feb 25, 2010)

In some countries, there are plenty of unpapered working dogs--they are often targeted toward working buyers--police departments, etc. 

I guess the better reason is why would you breed him? What would you do with his puppies? What would you breed him to? 

I think there should be more of an "open breed book" -- in an ideal world. For example, any dog could, theoretically, be registered as a border collie.... if it can work as a border collie, and go to a BC trial and perform on a certain level--and earn a "registration of merit."


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Hmm... so I will continue advocating for the devil

Lets assume some guy comes and says "Hey, thats my old dog". He has no issue with me keeping the dog, and shows me the sire is a GSD with an excellent pedigree, the dam a Malinois with an excellent pedigree (so there's no real concern about health). For some reason he conforms perfectly as a GSD. Should I consider breeding him now? Assume my only purpose in breeding is to contribute great genes to the gene pool, not profit motivated or anything like that.


Side note, is there no real concern about depleting the available gene pool? From a health & genetic abnormality perspective, would it not be wise to introduce some highly foreign DNA just to keep some variance?


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

I didn't know about the other thread, but I don't think there's any harm in discussing already discussed topics.


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## BlackthornGSD (Feb 25, 2010)

hunterisgreat said:


> Side note, is there no real concern about depleting the available gene pool? From a health & genetic abnormality perspective, would it not be wise to introduce some highly foreign DNA just to keep some variance?


Rumor is that it's already been done...


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

BlackthornGSD said:


> In some countries, there are plenty of unpapered working dogs--they are often targeted toward working buyers--police departments, etc.


True, but while the dogs may not be registered and thus they don't have an official pedigree printed on pink paper or with a fancy gold seal on it, those breedings aren't being done without knowledge of the dog's ancestors and relatives. Just look at a lot of the KNPV breedings. Sure, they often involve a miss mash of unregistered dogs, sometimes of various breeds. Yet the breeders doing those breedings still have very strong, usually first hand, knowledge, of those dogs, their parents, grandparents, siblings, etc... 

"Unpapered" doesn't equate to unknown. It's the knowledge of the dogs and the genetics they hold that makes the difference, and makes that an apples and oranges comparison with the hypothetical dog found wandering the streets where there is no way to obtain that knowledge.


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

BlackthornGSD said:


> Rumor is that it's already been done...


Which one? deplete the pool or introduce foreign dna?


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

hunterisgreat said:


> I didn't know about the other thread, but I don't think there's any harm in discussing already discussed topics.


I didn't say there was. Just that I thought there was a thread just a few weeks ago. Nobody is trying to rain on your parade.


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Chris Wild said:


> True, but while the dogs may not be registered and thus they don't have an official pedigree printed on pink paper or with a fancy gold seal on it, those breedings aren't being done without knowledge of the dog's ancestors and relatives. Just look at a lot of the KNPV breedings. Sure, they often involve a miss mash of unregistered dogs, sometimes of various breeds. Yet the breeders doing those breedings still have very strong, usually first hand, knowledge, of those dogs, their parents, grandparents, siblings, etc...
> 
> "Unpapered" doesn't equate to unknown. It's the knowledge of the dogs and the genetics they hold that makes the difference, and makes that an apples and oranges comparison with the hypothetical dog found wandering the streets where there is no way to obtain that knowledge.


Ahh but my above hypothetical dog is now of known roots... see above


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## BlackthornGSD (Feb 25, 2010)

hunterisgreat said:


> Which one? deplete the pool or introduce foreign dna?


There's a pretty strong belief/rumor that some of the Belgian GSDs have malinois in the family thicket. Like perhaps behind Verwin Blitsaerd.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

hunterisgreat said:


> Hmm... so I will continue advocating for the devil
> 
> Lets assume some guy comes and says "Hey, thats my old dog". He has no issue with me keeping the dog, and shows me the sire is a GSD with an excellent pedigree, the dam a Malinois with an excellent pedigree (so there's no real concern about health). For some reason he conforms perfectly as a GSD. Should I consider breeding him now? Assume my only purpose in breeding is to contribute great genes to the gene pool, not profit motivated or anything like that.
> 
> Side note, is there no real concern about depleting the available gene pool? From a health & genetic abnormality perspective, would it not be wise to introduce some highly foreign DNA just to keep some variance?


Why? You now have a known mutt. What are you adding to the breed? What are you trying to achieve by breeding a half GSD/half Malinois? How is breeding a mutt going to contribute to the gene pool?


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Jax08 said:


> Why? You now have a known mutt. What are you adding to the breed? What are you trying to achieve by breeding a half GSD/half Malinois? How is breeding a mutt going to contribute to the gene pool?


B/c if I had a dog that conformed to the breed standard, but wasn't "pure blood", but was a better example of the breed than most 100% "pure blood" dogs, then it could be argued that I would be contributing... remember they all started off as "mutts"... its not like we're blending species here


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## Chris Wild (Dec 14, 2001)

The problem is closed stud books. Such a mutt, even if it looks PB, is not going to be able to contribute to the genetic diversity within the breed because (unless a whole lot of lying and forgery was involved) it would never be able to be incorporated into the breed's bloodlines so it would have no impact on the breed whatsoever. Sure, it might produce nice working dogs for people who don't care about pedigree or whether something is a purebred, but it's influence would be limited to that very small niche market.


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## JKlatsky (Apr 21, 2007)

Like others have said KNPV Mals are frequently all over the place. I've seen dainty smaller Mals with pointy heads and big ears...And then I've seen Mals the size of a small pony with the jaws of a Pitbull.

These dogs however, are being created with background knowledge and purpose. I think the problem is that most often the breeder who will use an unpapered dog from unknown origin is a breeder who throws it with an avaliable female to sell puppies in the paper or on the side of the road. I think a quality breeder with a long standing reputation would be more able to justify their use of a dog like that...although then you run into the question of WHY would they??


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Chris Wild said:


> The problem is closed stud books. Such a mutt, even if it looks PB, is not going to be able to contribute to the genetic diversity within the breed because (unless a whole lot of lying and forgery was involved) it would never be able to be incorporated into the breed's bloodlines so it would have no impact on the breed whatsoever. Sure, it might produce nice working dogs for people who don't care about pedigree or whether something is a purebred, but it's influence would be limited to that very small niche market.


Do you view that as a good thing? Or do you feel the merit of a closed stud book out weighs the benefit of still allowing external influence? Since genetics inevitable wander, do you think there may come a time were we must re-open the breed (or any breed for that matter) so that we can make the corrections needed to get back to the breed standard?


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## wolfstraum (May 2, 2003)

Bottom line - it is a mutt. It will sire mutts. No papers = mutt. Half GSD and half Mali = mutt. 

Just like Labradoodless, shepadoodles, daneadoodles - cockapoos etc etc etc....

IMO - no papers - no breeding....even with papers - pretty much most dogs don't need to be bred anyway - so so many nice Sch3 dogs NEVER sire a litter or never sire one outside the owner's backyard/club.

Genetic diversity - mixing show lines with work lines with Czech - DDR dogs....when there is no backmassing for 10 generations - you might - in 2 or 3 generations get back on track....you don't need to bring in mali's to do it.

Lee


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

As a buyer - I wouldn't purchase a pup from a breeder who has created a litter that wasn't registered. Not only is it an injustice to me (as a buyer) because if I worked my butt off and had the wonder dog of the century, breeding would never be an opiton, but it is also an injustice to the breed because there will never be any formal record of the dog within the registry. 

If I were a breeder - and I came across said dog, and it was the wonder dog of the century and I knew it's entire blood line, then I'd search for a registered dog with the same lineage and see if I could produce the same wonder dog. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the goal of a breeder? To produce better then what they already have?


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## Emoore (Oct 9, 2002)

hunterisgreat said:


> Lets assume some guy comes and says "Hey, thats my old dog". He has no issue with me keeping the dog, and shows me the sire is a GSD with an excellent pedigree, the dam a Malinois with an excellent pedigree (so there's no real concern about health). For some reason he conforms perfectly as a GSD. Should I consider breeding him now? Assume my only purpose in breeding is to contribute great genes to the gene pool, not profit motivated or anything like that.


Assuming that you can prove the dog you found is the same dog that the guy says it is, through either tattoo or microchip. . . 

If he was an awesome dog that worked, and you bred him to another awesome dog that worked, and you had multiple working homes that wanted awesome working puppies, I personally don't have a problem with breeding non-papered working dogs. I grew up on a ranch with lots of non-papered working cattle dogs. 

But you wouldn't be contributing anything to the GSD gene pool because you'd be breeding mutts. Not GSDs.


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

wolfstraum said:


> Bottom line - it is a mutt. It will sire mutts. No papers = mutt. Half GSD and half Mali = mutt.
> 
> Just like Labradoodless, shepadoodles, daneadoodles - cockapoos etc etc etc....
> 
> ...


I'll reiterate... I'm just asking questions b/c I like to see how, what, and what people think.

Do you think we'll hit a point where keeping "pure blood" is causing the demise of the (or any) breed? Like the way royal families were arguably less genetically sound than regular folks breeding however they chose?


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Lilie said:


> As a buyer - I wouldn't purchase a pup from a breeder who has created a litter that wasn't registered. Not only is it an injustice to me (as a buyer) because if I worked my butt off and had the wonder dog of the century, breeding would never be an opiton, but it is also an injustice to the breed because there will never be any formal record of the dog within the registry.
> 
> If I were a breeder - and I came across said dog, and it was the wonder dog of the century and I knew it's entire blood line, then I'd search for a registered dog with the same lineage and see if I could produce the same wonder dog. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the goal of a breeder? To produce better then what they already have?


Well, could you not record the pedigree in say, pedigreedatabase.com, even if the dog is a mutt? If it's lines are known, even if a blend of breeds, they are still known, which is the important part


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

hunterisgreat said:


> Well, could you not record the pedigree in say, pedigreedatabase.com, even if the dog is a mutt? If it's lines are known, even if a blend of breeds, they are still known, which is the important part


Whereas I can follow your thought process, (IMO) if you truly love the breed, and want to do what is best for the breed, then there should be some resonsibility on the breeders part to keep accurate AKC records regarding the genetics of the lines you are creating. 

Within the equine world there are true genetic problems that can be traced back to a single sire. A very athletic, well known, historic horse. If they didn't record his registery and all of his offspring and their life threatening genetic faults then it said fault would continue to be produced. Now they can test for it. 

IMO - it would be very close minded to produce pups from a single dog based on what that single dog can do today - and not on the impact it will make in the future. I don't think any registry was created soley to benefit those who want to appear in the show pen.


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Lilie said:


> Whereas I can follow your thought process, (IMO) if you truly love the breed, and want to do what is best for the breed, then there should be some resonsibility on the breeders part to keep accurate AKC records regarding the genetics of the lines you are creating.
> 
> Within the equine world there are true genetic problems that can be traced back to a single sire. A very athletic, well known, historic horse. If they didn't record his registery and all of his offspring and their life threatening genetic faults then it said fault would continue to be produced. Now they can test for it.
> 
> IMO - it would be very close minded to produce pups from a single dog based on what that single dog can do today - and not on the impact it will make in the future. I don't think any registry was created soley to benefit those who want to appear in the show pen.


Interesting as a new guy at our club is a horse breeder of some kind and we were talking a bunch about horse breeding (don't know much about horses)

I certainly don't think people should be able to add in whatever they want and call it a GSD, but at the same time, in very skilled hands I think the breed can be improved. Further, I think a few hundred more years of closed stud books could make the breed something totally different than what it is today


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

hunterisgreat said:


> First... I'm playing devil's advocate
> 
> Suppose I had a dog that I found wondering the city. I take him in, verify his health. I've got no pedigree obviously, but he sure looks like a full blood GSD and no one disagrees with that assessment. I decide, WTH, I'm gonna do SchH. So as it turns out, his abilities are off the charts, and we breeze to SchH3 and become well known as a top level grade competitor. I xray everything and OFA is perfect. Conformation is perfect as well. His SchH scores are consistently near perfect
> 
> Should I consider breeding this dog? Why or why not?


No.

First of all, how would you know for certain that you were not breeding to his sister, or mother. You have no idea what the pedigree is, so you cannot for sure ensure that you are not closely inbreeding the dog.

Next, you will be producing dogs that cannot be registered. While that may not matter in schutzhund, most halfway decent buyers want to have the paper behind the dog.

Breeding is not just to create another one just like the one you got. It is about carefully matching dogs to other dogs to get the desired results, and then take the best out of that and carefully match him or her, to another, matching for particular traits, for strengths against weaknesses, for how bloodlines tend to produce.

Breeding a dog to get a litter will always make you a BYB. It is only when you breed with a purpose, with a plan for the future, for the litter, then if you ducks are all in a row, then you are breeding positively.

I just cannot accept that there are not enough dogs with excellent character, who can do what you want, that have papers, so you can research the bloodlines too.


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## Good_Karma (Jun 28, 2009)

hunterisgreat, I to answer your second question regarding bloodlines, I think you would have to consult a geneticist to find out at what population level a genetic bottleneck occurs (when population numbers are temporarily reduced to a level insufficient to maintain the diversity in the population.) I don't know how many AKC registered GSDs are out there, plus all the ones from foreign countries, but I suspect we are a loooong ways from that point.


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## Emoore (Oct 9, 2002)

Good_Karma said:


> I don't know how many AKC registered GSDs are out there, plus all the ones from foreign countries, but I suspect we are a loooong ways from that point.


I honestly don't think we're that far off from that point. If you do some clicking around on the pedigree database and look at the 6-generation view for lots of dogs, and then click back on those, back to like the 8th or 10th generation. . . . it's all the same names. Over and over again. It's *really* bad with the German Show Line dogs, but it's common with all of them. That's part of the reason you see advertisements for dogs that are Fero/Mink free, because it's so hard to find dogs that don't have those in their pedigree, sometimes multiple times. 


When I was 14, we moved to a small town where there were about 10 or 12 last names and everybody looked vaguely alike. The GSD breed is a lot like that. Sure there's a lot of them and they're not all first or even second cousins, but they ARE all related.


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## Good_Karma (Jun 28, 2009)

Oh wow, I didn't realize it was that bad. Still though, if they can bring back endangered and nearly extinct wildlife species, seems like fixing the GSD breed (without mixing in other breeds) would be possible if a real effort was put forth, and people all worked together on it.

Aaaaand then we can all sit around the campfire and sing "Kumbaya". Yeah, I see the problem.


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Good_Karma said:


> hunterisgreat, I to answer your second question regarding bloodlines, I think you would have to consult a geneticist to find out at what population level a genetic bottleneck occurs (when population numbers are temporarily reduced to a level insufficient to maintain the diversity in the population.) I don't know how many AKC registered GSDs are out there, plus all the ones from foreign countries, but I suspect we are a loooong ways from that point.


I am not in a position to really say much regarding that, but out of the likely millions of GSDs worldwide, its only a small subset that are breed in the show arena, and likely a similar scenario in the working realm. I have no idea what those numbers are. Part of what prompted my thoughts and discussion was reading about how CA trying to (or did they?) enacting a mandatory spay/neuter law, and how it would decimate working dogs b/c of immediate gene pool limitations, as no one can predict which dogs will be good workers as a pup or not... I don't have a link to the article, but the gist of it was that it would drastically reduce the gene pool and ruin everything.


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Good_Karma said:


> Oh wow, I didn't realize it was that bad. Still though, if they can bring back endangered and nearly extinct wildlife species, seems like fixing the GSD breed (without mixing in other breeds) would be possible if a real effort was put forth, and people all worked together on it.
> 
> Aaaaand then we can all sit around the campfire and sing "Kumbaya". Yeah, I see the problem.


Bringing back a near extinct species is not without its complications, and most of those are due to severe genetic limitations. My uncle works with large cats, and there was some extremely rare species of leopard or maybe subspecies? There were only a handful of specimens in existence, and a side effect is the (successful) breeding program will still result in major issues b/c of necessary severe inbreeding.

He also told me of some other species of which there were only 4 females... no known males existed... they were basically dna harvesting in the hopes down the road we can get saavy enough to "create" a male and female if required... but the same issues still remain.

He is a neonatalogist by day, and big cat enthusiast by night, so I image he knew what he was talking about


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## wolfstraum (May 2, 2003)

someone alluded to (I assume) HYPP in the Quarter Horse - Impressive bred horses - this is the epitomy of manmade genetic problems caused by inbreeding to fix some characteristic or type...one of the most terribly deformed (over in the knees, to the point of looking like he'd fall on his face!) was Mr King Air, an Impressive son who still got tons of breedings in spite of any obvious problem!! In GSDs people get on some bandwagon for a particular sire/line and as a result we have issues like hemophilia tracing back to a show line dog (WGR), and dogs with NZ hips, and dogs who had horribly weak temperaments, yet breeders line breed and back mass on a proven problem producing dog - and bring the problems forward...bottom line is that too many people are kennel blind and choose to use dogs with problems, dogs that continue to produce issues in a high percentage of dogs and deny to themselves that the issues are evident on paper before they do the breeding. To me, chosing breeding pairs has a definite element of reducing risk for common problems, not doing a breeding with excessive NZs or FNs in the pedigree or line breeding on dogs known for characteristics I personally do not enjoy working with (stubborn dogs for example).

Alot of people think - oh if so and so is in the pedigree - the dog will be good - I don't look at it that way - for example - I have a reputation of "not liking" Fero for example....but that is not strictly speaking true! I have dogs with Fero in their pedigrees, and have bred to dogs with Fero. I just am really selective of how Fero comes through...and will not bring a dog with Fero to a female who has none....I look way past the first 3 or 5 generations and weigh the backmassing of dogs and what they are reputed to produce.

Lee


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

wolfstraum said:


> someone alluded to (I assume) HYPP in the Quarter Horse - Impressive bred horses - this is the epitomy of manmade genetic problems caused by inbreeding to fix some characteristic or type...one of the most terribly deformed (over in the knees, to the point of looking like he'd fall on his face!) was Mr King Air, an Impressive son who still got tons of breedings in spite of any obvious problem!! In GSDs people get on some bandwagon for a particular sire/line and as a result we have issues like hemophilia tracing back to a show line dog (WGR), and dogs with NZ hips, and dogs who had horribly weak temperaments, yet breeders line breed and back mass on a proven problem producing dog - and bring the problems forward...bottom line is that too many people are kennel blind and choose to use dogs with problems, dogs that continue to produce issues in a high percentage of dogs and deny to themselves that the issues are evident on paper before they do the breeding. To me, chosing breeding pairs has a definite element of reducing risk for common problems, not doing a breeding with excessive NZs or FNs in the pedigree or line breeding on dogs known for characteristics I personally do not enjoy working with (stubborn dogs for example).
> 
> Alot of people think - oh if so and so is in the pedigree - the dog will be good - I don't look at it that way - for example - I have a reputation of "not liking" Fero for example....but that is not strictly speaking true! I have dogs with Fero in their pedigrees, and have bred to dogs with Fero. I just am really selective of how Fero comes through...and will not bring a dog with Fero to a female who has none....I look way past the first 3 or 5 generations and weigh the backmassing of dogs and what they are reputed to produce.
> 
> Lee


Just curious... how reliable do you feel selective breeding and such is in GSDs? Its not 100%, but certainly there is some confidence that breeding x by y should result in Z... or is it really a thing of, a few select skilled hands seem to produce consistent results, and most others just screw it up and are shooting from the hip?


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## Good_Karma (Jun 28, 2009)

hunterisgreat said:


> Bringing back a near extinct species is not without its complications, and most of those are due to severe genetic limitations. My uncle works with large cats, and there was some extremely rare species of leopard or maybe subspecies? There were only a handful of specimens in existence, and a side effect is the (successful) breeding program will still result in major issues b/c of necessary severe inbreeding.
> 
> He also told me of some other species of which there were only 4 females... no known males existed... they were basically dna harvesting in the hopes down the road we can get saavy enough to "create" a male and female if required... but the same issues still remain.
> 
> He is a neonatalogist by day, and big cat enthusiast by night, so I image he knew what he was talking about


Sure, if there are only 10 or so individuals left in a species, you are kind of screwed as far as avoiding inbreeding, but I think you could find a thousand or so A-list GSDs that you could use a basis for the next generation of shepherd. (I'm just throwing out numbers here, I don't know how many would be needed to do this safely). 

The thing is, any time humans have started tinkering around with breeding (plant or animals) it seems like we create as many problems as we solve. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to improve the breed, but we should do it with great care. Unfortunately that means we have to trust breeders who not only have to immerse themselves in studying pedigrees and searching out dogs to introduce to their lines, BUT also have to make money and be, if not profitable, at least break even. And title their dogs, and work with them and let them live in their houses.

All I'm saying is that I think breeders are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Maybe PB GSDs should cost more.

As far as mandatory spay/neuter, that is an interesting thought to ponder. What if the entire country went that way??? I wonder what the implications of that would be?


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

Good_Karma said:


> Sure, if there are only 10 or so individuals left in a species, you are kind of screwed as far as avoiding inbreeding, but I think you could find a thousand or so A-list GSDs that you could use a basis for the next generation of shepherd. (I'm just throwing out numbers here, I don't know how many would be needed to do this safely).
> 
> The thing is, any time humans have started tinkering around with breeding (plant or animals) it seems like we create as many problems as we solve. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to improve the breed, but we should do it with great care. Unfortunately that means we have to trust breeders who not only have to immerse themselves in studying pedigrees and searching out dogs to introduce to their lines, BUT also have to make money and be, if not profitable, at least break even. And title their dogs, and work with them and let them live in their houses.
> 
> ...


Thats their big concern... a nationwide spay/neuter would devastate every breed, the effective gene pool would be shrunk so fast. 

I don't think 1000 dogs is a wide enough gene pool anyway though


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## hunterisgreat (Jan 30, 2011)

wolfstraum said:


> someone alluded to (I assume) HYPP in the Quarter Horse - Impressive bred horses - this is the epitomy of manmade genetic problems caused by inbreeding to fix some characteristic or type...one of the most terribly deformed (over in the knees, to the point of looking like he'd fall on his face!) was Mr King Air, an Impressive son who still got tons of breedings in spite of any obvious problem!! In GSDs people get on some bandwagon for a particular sire/line and as a result we have issues like hemophilia tracing back to a show line dog (WGR), and dogs with NZ hips, and dogs who had horribly weak temperaments, yet breeders line breed and back mass on a proven problem producing dog - and bring the problems forward...bottom line is that too many people are kennel blind and choose to use dogs with problems, dogs that continue to produce issues in a high percentage of dogs and deny to themselves that the issues are evident on paper before they do the breeding. To me, chosing breeding pairs has a definite element of reducing risk for common problems, not doing a breeding with excessive NZs or FNs in the pedigree or line breeding on dogs known for characteristics I personally do not enjoy working with (stubborn dogs for example).
> 
> Alot of people think - oh if so and so is in the pedigree - the dog will be good - I don't look at it that way - for example - I have a reputation of "not liking" Fero for example....but that is not strictly speaking true! I have dogs with Fero in their pedigrees, and have bred to dogs with Fero. I just am really selective of how Fero comes through...and will not bring a dog with Fero to a female who has none....I look way past the first 3 or 5 generations and weigh the backmassing of dogs and what they are reputed to produce.
> 
> Lee


I was trying to find a picture of Mr King Air to see the fault... did you know google has already crawled and cached this thread??? amazing. Number one hit for whatever my search terms was your post above lol


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

hunterisgreat said:


> I was trying to find a picture of Mr King Air to see the fault... did you know google has already crawled and cached this thread??? amazing. Number one hit for whatever my search terms was your post above lol


 
Which was why I wasn't being specific when I first mentioned it...


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

hunterisgreat said:


> I was trying to find a picture of Mr King Air to see the fault... did you know google has already crawled and cached this thread??? amazing. Number one hit for whatever my search terms was your post above lol


Instead of looking for Mr. King Air, just google HYPP. I never did much research into it because my AQH does not have Impressive blood lines. 
http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/hypp.php

The only thing I know is it can be devastating, some horses are carriers of the gene but never develop clinical signs, and there is no 'cure'. That's if I'm remembering correctly. Lee could tell you far more. 

The point being that if these horses can be carriers, then dogs of unknown lineage could be a carrier of a genetic disease as well.


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