Hi,
Does anyone know how close two dogs can be to safely breed together? If the bitches great grand father is the dogs father is this ok?

What is 3rd generation breeding?

Thanks all

Apart from mother son, father daughter and sibling breeding I honestly think it is the knowledge of the breeder that counts, if they know what they are doing the how close will be their decision.

My first litter the bitches grandfather was the studs father, this pairing was planned by my mentors who knew their lines inside out.

To do close mating you need to know the dogs, 3 generations or more, not just on paper, you don't want to be doublimg up on faults and have someone very experienced involved in the final decision.

I think it also depends on the breed and how large the gene pool is in general/genetic variance in the breed...

Sorry but I am Leary of buying off breeders  who inbreed/line breed- us humans don't do it why do it to the animals- I just think its gross- My own opinion

I bought a Boston Terrier who was bred that way, bought breeding rights ect on him so paid a good penny-  He also would have been 4th generation to my bitch- poor lil guy had umbilical hernia which needed an op.
Contained teeth which needed removed, tumors starting on his body which would of needed biopsy done, contained testicle- all this b4 he was 8 months old.
Plus many more problems. I paid a very good price for him and told my breeder wanted to keep him if she would have gave me back some money- basically
wanted pet price and would have put all that into him- which would of cost me a lot more in the long run. Nope she sent a check in the mail but it was the full price
with a letter to ship him back. Saddest day ever cause I had him all that time & grew very attached to him. He did have an awful attitude- rule applied to him to
leave sleeping dogs lie cause if you disturbed him he would bite.

But if breeders do not line breed then the quality goes, continually out breeding will not produce the best results and an individual breeder would never have the knowledge of the animals they were using if they continually out breed.

I am sorry you had such a bad experience but it is important that the breeder knows what they are doing and just putting two dogs of the same breed together will in a very short time result in poor quality dogs and loads of faults creeping in - it is just the same if you line breed with no understanding of the way genes work.

100% Nova!
I'm also a fan of line breeding - it's the way to cement consistency - but knowledge of all the dogs behind is imperative. :)
I cringe when I read "I've checked the pedigree and there are no same relatives"!  Unrelated dogs can be carrying the same defects and if the dogs aren't know, the breeder wouldn't anticipate this. :(

Sorry but I am Leary of buying off breeders  who inbreed/line breed- us humans don't do it why do it to the animals- I just think its gross-

Certainly in my main breed no dogs would exist if there was no linebreeding. You'd never be able to buy a pup from anywhere in the world if you didn't accept linebreeding in the pedigrees. They are a very healthy breed indeed.

People are allowed to marry their cousins and have children together, that's linebreeding too. :) Look at many countries' royals, definitely a clear case of linebreeding.

Although I agree with many points made here,but it is important that no generalisation is made of those NOT line breeding ......that they are "just putting two dogs together".
Two of my UK champions are out crosses and the stud dogs were chosen VERY carefully..obviously.
There are sound reasons to not line breed in some breeds.

Of Course, there is a place for out-crossing just as there is a case for breeding very close and all that in-between - as I said in my first post the important factor is the knowledge of the breeder.

> Sorry but I am Leary of buying off breeders  who inbreed/line breed- us humans don't do it

Actually we do, in most societies first cousins can marry and the resultant children would have an inbreeding coefficient of 6.25%.

A mating where the sire/dam is a half brother/sister to one of the dams parents (half uncle to niece), or grandparent to grandchild would give the same result.

Any more distant relationship will give less inbreeding assuming there are not multiple relationships.

To the OP, why not use the Kennel clubs mate select tool to see what COI this mating gives, and if it is less than the average COI for the breed.

This of course assumes that the other important deciding factors of whether the pair are a suitable match have been ascertained.

> Look at many countries' royals, definitely a clear case of linebreeding.

and we can see both teh positives.

Look at the Queen and Prince Phillip and the deceased Queen Mother, for longevity, adn the Queens children seem fairly healthy with parents who are cousins (though not first cousins). 

On the other hand you hand the Hemophilia issue in the Victoria line, with the last Russian Tzar's son.

Though recessive Health issues can equally occur in people with no known common ancestry.

> and we can see both teh positives.
>
>

that should have read:

and we can see both the positives, and negatives.

The old saying was 'Twice in, once out'.   

Think perhaps like so many old sayings this one has become outdated by scientific evidence and increased genetic knowledge. Although it was not that far out just far too simplistic.

I think it can work very well if the breeder knows the dogs involved in depth and applies a little common sense.

IMO the problems occur these days when the people breeding have little knowledge of what's behind dog and bitch.  Anyone with a bitch thinks it's their right to produce puppies rather than serve their apprenticeship and take the time to learn.  :(

interesting post. So back to the op original question yes thats fine as long as the breeder really knows their lines. Have I got that right ?

Love the breeding co efficient comment it just amused me to see our royals in that way. Gosh i wonder what others of us would be ? 

There ae on-line COI tools you can use, so anyone who has the Queens childrens pedigrees could do one, anyone want to have a go?

not sure what my pedigree would turn up lol

Tried & tested, I would say, rather than an old saying.

I agree. 
I'm not into these co-efficient numbers.  You can have a low percentage but if the dogs are carrying the same defect then it will rear its ugly head regardless of the low number! :(  For me it's knowledge that matters. :)

And scientific evidence can prove whatever you're looking for.  I've been eye testing for 30 years and have made no improvement because genetics only tells me the 'probability' not what's actually going to be produced.  And of course there's always the element of error.........

I wonder just how well the line-breeding proponents "know their lines"  That would actually involve knowing the health status of ( not just assuming because no-one has contacted you ) every single puppy ever bred by you.Assuming you arnt mating your own dogs over and over again that would also mean every dog produced by the sire you are using. It defies logic to say outcross is not good because you dont know the lines as well and then say actually its fine to do it every third generation....and then line breed on the offspring to bring together the recessives you didnt know were there.

I know as a Health Officer of many many ill dogs and the pet owners dont even think to contact the breeder, especially once the dog is older, so the breeder is unfortunately linebreeding under the mistaken belief they know all their dogs problems...not so

It would rely on the stud dog owner whether line breeding or not to also have the same absolutely healthy dogs and to know it for certain ....can you be sure this is so ?

Some diseases have incomplete penetrance...so the dogs can be symptom free but still
pass on the deleterious genes

Plus an understanding of the MHC genes...which are inherited as a group rather than singly is an important consideration. A dog needs a huge army of immune complex genes to function, respond to outside infections, leave its own bodily functions alone ( auto-immune diseases) when linebreeding with high Cois you are effectively increasing the chances that the dog inherits the same set from sire and dam....effectively halving its army of immune genes necessary for a healthy life

Oh and I wouldnt cite the Royals as a good example of successful mating of relatives...the Hapsburgs had serious health issues, died young and had physical deformities...the Egyptians didnt fare much better either by trying to keep their wealth "in the family"  Plus many ethnic groups that allow cousin to cousin marriage are far from healthy as a group

Just Google inbreeding avoidance .....

 

> Oh and I wouldnt cite the Royals as a good example of successful mating of relatives

As I said with oru present royals, they seem to have hit the lucky side of things with Longevity, I also quoted the other side with the unwitting passing on of the Haemophilia gene.

Re cousin marrige, the occasional such marrige will not usually impact unduly, but the larger number of deformities and health issues in societies where this is practiced ferequebtly we are talkigna botu generatiosn of cousin to cousin marriage, that is cousins marrying cousins whose parents and probably grandparents had also married close relations.

I would call generations of cousin to cousin marriage linebreeding myself

If it is practised generation after generation tehn the inbreeding becomes very high, once only with full cousins would be 6.25% COI giving a 1 in 16 chance of inheriting the same version of a gene from both parents.

> If it is practised generation after generation tehn the inbreeding becomes very high, once only with full cousins would be 6.25% COI giving a 1 in 16 chance of inheriting the same version of a gene from both parents.

That's assuming it's a recessive gene. Dominant genes can wreak more havoc in this case, especially ones where the effects of the gene are only seen in later life (i.e. after breeding) and those with incomplete penetrance can do a lot worse. A particular type of haemophilia in humans (as in one of the royal lines) is also sex-linked, so that can travel down the descendancy on the female line unseen, only showing itself in male offspring. An outcross there would probably not solve anything.

I was referring to the previous comment that generations of cousin to cousin pairing is linebreeding, an occasional cousin marriage yes, systematic multi generational such pairings result in serious inbreeding.

> yes, systematic multi generational such pairings result in serious inbreeding.

and my point was that it doesn't have to be systematic, or inbreeding, for genes of a certain inheritance type to take hold.
It would be so much easier if all the bad genes were recessive, but they're not ....

Surely with dominant genes it is easier as their effect is apparent in the individual and therefore can be removed.

It's the recessive traits that cause insidious havoc once they reach high enough incidence that two carriers are likely to be mated and affected offspring produced.

Surely with dominant genes it is easier as their effect is apparent in the individual and therefore can be removed.

Depends on what it is. Now this is cats, but a good example. I had been breeding for about ten years when people started talking about a genetic kidney disease that had been found in my breeds in America. Alongside many other breeders I just shook my head and dismissed it, saying that well I don't have American blood in my cats, and they all seem healthy and live to decent ages. Sure the odd one had died from kidney problems at about 9 years of age (never sooner), but no vet had ever suggested there could be anything wrong with that, and I'd had cats living to 15 as well from the same lines. So I did nothing. It took another four or five years before testing started to become widespread in the UK and I took all mine to be tested. Still was sure I had no problem as my cats were all healthy. Well 50 % of all my cats tested positive. With a disease that is dominant, with one clear parent you can of course end up with litters that have both negatives and positives, so it's pot luck, and in this case, symptoms might not show at all for several years. The earliest I had symptoms in a cat was one, the latest 9. Imagine how many offspring, grandchildren etc you can get in 9 years from an animal you believe is healthy. It took me 5 years to get back to showing again as I lost all my show quality animals and in order to not lose the lines, had to breed from ones that had tested negative but that did not have the right looks. I am STILL seeing the effects today. In 2001 I made up 5 Champions in the one year. (That was before I had tested my cats.) In recent years I have only made up ONE title holder. But at least now my cats are healthy.