If inbred dogs weren’t cute before they were irreversibly destroyed, would traditional well intentioned idiot breeders still inbreed? For that matter, would you feel differently about your cute little pooch if you could actually see all of their inbred deformities, and they weren’t nearly as cute?
Would you adopt this cute Doberman puppy…
…if you knew that his heart looked like this:
Would you buy this adorable German Shepherd puppy…
…if you could see that his spine was as deformed as this:
And would you welcome the following Portugese Water Dog into your home…
… if you knew his glands were as malformed as this:
Inbreeding is like a cancer deep in the body. It goes un-noticed until it’s too late. It’s not obvious until it’s pervasive. And by the time you figure out that you probably have a problem, the ability to fix it is long gone. You only have so much time to live, but it’s just going to get worse and worse every day.
We feel disgusted by birth defects not only because they are aesthetically hideous, but because we are the ones who cause them while our innocent youth are the ones who must pay the price. No one wants to pass along defects, but the belief that they are rare and that our breeding choices aren’t risky allow them to persist.
In the cult of dog breeding, we have internalized the concept of Original Sin: that imperfection is inherent and inherited from our ancestors, that the sex act itself is suspect and shameful, and that the only way to reach salvation is to have faith in the teachings and adhere to the doctrine in every other aspect. Despute all the faults that we just can’t get rid of, the goal is still perfection and we should feel ashamed every second we don’t achieve it.
We have also internalized the creation myth that men matter much more than women, such that we allow the inbreeding of a very select few founding members and we conveniently forget about where most of the women came from. This intentional memory loss gets interpreted as “no new blood” by later generations, and we march down the road to crippling disease and mediocrity. But gosh isn’t it cute?
Christopher
Kathy Bittorf
Jana
Kathe
Dave
What research on inbreeding can you post? I am interested on the demonstrated effects of inbreeding in dogs. Specifically I would like to know about border collies or Australian Shepherds.
The first thing you need to read is this:
http://www.bcdb.info/article1/WSN1c4.htm
Then, read the whole site.
I really wish that the ABCA would publish their stud book so that such an analysis could be done on American Border Collies. This work is crucial and it took one non-establishment guy in the Netherlands to do it. I’ve bought several pedigrees from him, but that’s still not enough to thank him for his brilliant contribution to the breed.
After you read the above, I’d encourage you to start your investigation with these topics:
* Inbreeding Depression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding_depression
* Genetic Effects of Small Population: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_population_size#Genetic_consequences
* Mutational Meltdown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutational_meltdown
* Muller’s Ratchet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muller's_ratchet
* Hybrid Vigour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vigour
http://dogdimension.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=wiki:logo_page
Edward- join any large mailing list dedicated to canine reproduction and you see many, many instances of inbreeding depression. Small litters in lines that formerly produced large ones, bitches than cannot get pregnant or carry to term without being on antibiotics because their immune systems are not able to keep normal amounts of bacteria in check, etc. etc. etc. These problems are so common that many breeders do not even recognize them as problems and wouldn’t even consider not breeding such a bitch.
There are some papers on Pubmed, but you have to look carefully, because the connection with inbreeding is often hidden. Usually you will see something like ‘condition was associated with a higher COI.’
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