I've been having a play today and put the parents of the golden retriever pup I have reserved through. The breed average is 9.5% and the mating comes out at 8.0% so I am quite pleased about that. I had already checked back quite a long way through the pedigrees for the hips, eyes, elbows. It's great what you can find out so easily on-line without having to go chasing about.

just a word of warning - for some breeds the average COI given is NOT accurate - my own breed ( Groenendael) has a COI of just 2.5% according to Mate Select - that's an impossibly small figure given the gene pool available - in fact we have so few unrelated stud dogs available that I have just done an intervariety mating ( Groen x Terv) the pups of which have a COI of 5.3 % which our own breed database grades as 'Low' - when I questioned this with the kennel club they admitted that all the founder dogs are classified as 'unrelated' right up to the 1980's (because they were almost all imported from Europe)- of course this was not the case and many of our founder dogs WERE related !! - does this discrepency matter ? - well yes it does not only does it not give a true picture for breeders planning their next litter but it alos confuses puppy buyers who would expect breeders to breed litter with COI's of lower that the breed average - in my case this would be an impossible task !!

I suspect this inaccuracy is repeated for most other realtively new breeds and especially for those with large numbers of early imports


far better for breeders to use specific breed databases which go back to the founding of the breed and give the true picture

here's ours :
http://baza.belgi.pl/

I think that somewhere in the Mate Select information it does say that the database information has been obtained from what has been compiled from records available from breeders etc. and there is the usual disclaimer. Although the more well known and popular breed's information is likely to be more comprehensive and largely accurate, there will be gaps and omissions, but I think what has been achieved so far is excellent and can be built up for the future. If the information obtained from using this tool is used in conjunction with other information available for a chosen breed and as a guide - not taken as absolute gospel - I think it is worth having, especially to someone who may not be an expert in a specific breed.

Very interesting... makes me think for my next pup!!
Jamie is 26.5% and Deacon is 17%.... Jamie's nephew is 33%!

Unfortunately as regards the above database, we're in a bit of a fix. There are very few British-bred Malinois on it, and I can't track any imported Malinois on the KC's Mate Select which makes it very hard to cross-reference.

However I think your warning not to trust the KC's inbreeding co-efficient is very wise..... I found one Malinois (long gone) on both databases which I could cross-reference, and the difference was alarming!

KC Mate Select - COI 13.5%
Breed database - COI 28.7%


So in many cases - especially where dogs have had imports in their pedigrees (and many have over the last ten or so years since Pets Passport) - do not believe what you read on the KC's database.

One of the things I found fascinating when I had a play for my bitches COI was that it said it was compiled from 17 generations with 6 complete. However her fathers says from 12 generations with 5 complete so this helps in seeing how accurate the calculations are likely to be.

If you calculated the COI yourself, either manually or using one of the sites that calculates COI, you'll find it won't tally with the KC one.

This is because the KC is calculating these COIs based on completely different parameters -

7. The average inbreeding coefficient for a breed is calculated on an annual basis by calculating the inbreeding coefficients of all individuals of the breed born during the selected year. The mean of the inbreeding coefficients is taken as the average for that year.

http://www.the-kennel-club.org.uk/se...t/sop-coi.aspx


I think this is extremely misleading and can give a false impression of the true figure, especially for breeds with low numbers registered and/or a lot of imported dogs in the background, since they are not counted in the KC's COI setup.

I agree that the breed average can be misleading. My bitch is much higher than the breed average but in reality she is I would think if anything a little below the breed average its just that she has a lot less imported dogs on her pedigree than many others.
Also the information may be misleading to some people using it to check dogs on their pedigree. It describes all the tests she has had but says her father has none. Now I know his hip & elbow checks were done in Germany as was his Kk1. but obviously no tests done abroad are mentioned.

I think this has to be used only as a guide not as a measure of good breeding.

If you have a dog with a low COI but all the dogs that are in the pedigree have health issues then it means nothing.

A high COI pedigree full of healthy dogs would be my choice over the other any day.

Not sure if this has already been discussed on here:
http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/3720/23/5/3
Let's hope it will be of benefit and people do use it.