breeding dogs within the same family, is that ok?

my partner & i were just chatting about this.

say for example you had 2 german shepherds, both from different family trees.

you breed both of them with the same stud dog.

can you then breed one of each of the litters together? even though its the same dad, but not the same mum?


Thanks!! sorry if this is confusing!

This should only be done by VERY experienced breeders who know the lines behind the dogs in great detail...but it can be done.If done without the proper health/genetic research it could lead to disaster
Nikki

I'm afraid to say it'll be a disaster anyway. You can't tell what recessive genes the dog will carry that may be expressed in the pups. If you remember that almost all pedigree dogs have at least one significant inherited defect (and GSDs have several), then your chances of multiplying the defect are directly proportional to the degree of in-breeding.

From a purely genetic perspective, you don't want ever to breed from dogs (any animal) related more closely than the fourth generation. People do - a great many people do - but then those of us who are vets end up fixing the results.

Good luck

E

I'm going out on a limb here, and this is my understanding as of this morning. It be wrong and may change by the end of the day, but here goes.

My understanding is that you wish to breed - what we call "Half siblings" in Norway.
This will guarantee an inbreeding percentage (Wrights coefficient) of minimum 12,5%. Being German shepherds, there is a posibility og additional inbreeding within the two families, as pointed out by Eceni, and this will add to the value.

Inbreeding at four generations will give you a minimum of 3.125%.

Nav
And if I'm wrong, I'm sure Eceni will help us.

hiya thanks! some think its ok some think it isnt!!!

i only asked as my partners friend at work said his dad breed and did this!! years ago!

It can be done and produce fantastic puppies - or be a disaster - you have to know the pedigrees inside out - some of the best dogs around have this type of line breeding somewhere in their pedigrees.

My view is , this is an exceptionally specialist practice....and not to be taken on by the novice or hobby breeder.

It should only be done by a breeder who knows h/her lines inside out and back to front...

Some breeders will consider this if they are on the end of a linage, to keep their lines going.

But if I was asked generally is it OK, the answer would be NO!!

It's really a question of whether you want healthy puppies as a result. If you do, you have to cull with utter ruthlessness, otherwise, you're breeding a genetic disaster. The problem is keeping an eye on the later generations and ensuring that the same degree of ruthlessness pertains as they go on down the line.

The classic example of successful in-breeding is the population of Icelandic horses. They were brought there by the Vikings, and sometime about 850AD, the island government instigated a rule that pertains to this day that no further animals were to be brought in, and that if any animals left the island, they couldn't come back - ever.

So they were left with a relatively small population of horses running semi-feral in a relatively small land area. In-breeding of the kind you describe was inevitable - but the Icelandic geography, geology and meteorology was absolutely ruthless and only the fittest progeny survived the rough landscape and hard, hard winters.

so now, nearly 1400 years later - which is, say 700 generations, there's a population of uniform (ish) ponies with no obvious genetic defects, except that most of them get massive sweet itch (midge allergies) when brought to countries where cullicoides survives - no midges in Iceland, so no problem if there's a genetic predisposition to an allergy.

So that's what you need to do if for some reason you want to create incest in your dogs - cull and cull and cull - but if people did that, half the population of pedigree dogs would go - and some breeds would be extinct. (the clumber spaniel, for instance, never has a hip score of less than 50 on both sides)

Myself, if I were breeding, I'd breed for temperament and soundness and to hell with KC rules. But then I think there are enough dogs in the world already, and I wasn't planning to add any more, so the question's pretty hypothetical.

good luck if you try - and particularly to the owners of your pups.

E

It's not something I would choose to do myself but if you're experienced enough then I suppose it's possible.

Regarding the Clumber spaniel hipscore of never being under 50
I am afraid you are incorrect in this. The breed average is 40 and there are many Clumbers with hip scores significantly less than this, for example my girls hip score is 12. Also the stud dog we used when she had her litter also had a hip score of 12.
Yes the Clumber spaniel has a small gene pool so improving hips has to be a long term goal as dogs with a higher than average hip score do have many other attributes that are as important to the breed.
If you are interested this website has collated hip scores of Clumber spaniels from the late 1970's on http://www.abbyford.co.uk/UK%20Hip%20Scores2.htm.

Sorry I know this is off topic, but felt that I should put the record straight as it were