Why are breeds disappearing?

[ZaraD]

Hi

I sadley lost my grandmother on Wednesday and me and my family are heartbroken. She left behind a Skye terrier and a west highland white terrier. My mom has taken them both on as she understands terriers really well as she owns a Scottish terrier. They all get along really well. My dad joked maybe they all know there Scottish

It got me thinking how a lot of breeds are slowly disappearing and it saddens me to think that one day there will be no Skye's or westies .

Why are breeds in decline http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/getting ... ve-breeds/

And how likely do you think it is that westies and Scotties could one day be extinct? Growing up around them it just worries me?

[Erica]

Those breeds are on the decline in the UK because, presumably, people don't want them as much. Good breeders don't breed if they don't think they can find homes for all the puppies.

And note that those are dogs in decline *in the UK*. The bloodhound, for example, has been hanging around #50 most popular breed in the AKC for the past several years.

On a less demand-focused line of thinking, inbreeding sure is high in a lot of dog breeds, leading to various related problems. This article talks about some of the problems facing terriers specifically.

And here I chant my never-ending plea to kennel clubs: allow well-thought outcrosses to be performed and readopted into the books when they match breed standard! A single outcross won't help for long, but if there is a good amount of outcrossing overall, it should help keep the genetic diversity wider than it is now.

[ZaraD]

Thanks Erica

The link was a really interesting read. it made me more curious though the arrival tells you the inbreeding problem within the terrier group and other breeds but doesn't say if there are any breed or groups who have a lower case of inbreeding as I know any breed can be inbred but are there certain breeds or groups (e.g gundog group ect) that have a lower case of inbreeding as I can't find anything online?

[ZaraD]

Just been reading through some of the other info on the website you linked Erica and I found something saying that if the breeds average inbreeding % is higher than 5% then that is considered high and is Lilley inbred but if it's over 10% it's 100% inbred.

I then found this tool http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/service ... fault.aspx

That allows you to look at your breeds average I was shocked that the Golden retriever had a COI score of 9.4% which is over the 5% recommend . To confuse me more the Labrador was 6.5% you'd think the lab would be higher being more popular. My dad's breed GSD got 2.9% so lower than the 5% ?

Westie was just over the 5% and the Scottie at 6.4%. it all amazes me.

[Shalista]

They don't have rat terriers despite rat terriers being recognized by the UKC in 1999

that being said we're fairly new so the inbreeding is prolly low?

[ZaraD]

That surprised me shalista but then again the Jack Russell terrier has only just become recognised by the KC . I also forgot to mention when I was searching my dad was snooping at what I was looking at and he said the breed average is only a small part of the inbreeding story. He said GSD have a low score of 2.9% but when he's researched litters in the past he's come across litters that were over the 2.9% like one litter he looked at , at the time through researching the dam and sire he found there inbreeding score was 7.8% . All of this interests me.

[Erica]

I'm trying to find another link I had but I can guarantee you no popular breed, on average, has under 6% inbreeding coefficient genetically. With some creativity you can do breedings that, on paper, give you a COI (coefficient of inbreeding) of 0, but a breed with a closed studbook for any length of time will have inbreeding.

Off the top of my head, from the list of breeds ranked by genetic inbreeding, the Norwegian Lundehund had the highest at around 80%. The breed club is working on a project of outcrosses to start working on that -- yay for them!

The lowest was the Saluki with 6%. I'll try to dig it up again and bookmark it, as this is the third time I've wanted to pull it out and not been able to find it quickly

[Erica]

Whoops, it was the Sloughi, not the Saluki, with the lowest!

Inbreeding of Purebred Dogs Determined from DNA

This list does have info on the American Rat Terrier -- it's the 23rd most inbred breed of those tested

[ZaraD]

The GSD is quiet low at 2.9% and some of the breeders my dad went to have litters of 0.1% which is amazing.

[Erica]

The GSD is actually at 28th most inbred of the breeds tested in the above study, with a COI of about 40%, genetically. As I said, with creativity and resources, you can have low inbreeding on paper that is not reflected in the actual DNA of the dog. A closed studbook means there is no new genetic material coming into the gene pool, so it is only ever shrinking.

[Shalista]

nuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!! still prolly a terrible breed for me to have, still my fav breed =(

[ZaraD]

They certainly don't make it easy for us do they .

I based the GSD on the UK Kennel clubs breed average COI for the GSD which they have the breed as 2.9%

[Erica]

Frankly I was surprised the poodle was so low on the list! Still, the level of inbreeding is above that of a breeding from half-siblings (with no history of inbreeding). All the breeds have higher than ideal inbreeding, except for the sloughi. The sloughi was only added to the AKC last year, so I'm betting there was a more open breeding program previously. I bet the show lines of sloughi will quickly catch up to some other breeds in that particular aspect!

(If it's still unclear, I think closed studbooks are bad bad bad.)

Edit: Again, that's probably based on pedigrees rather than genetics. If you have a link to that listing, I'm interested in how they obtained that data.

[ZaraD]

So what does all this mean for new dog owners like me for example who's hoping to own a golden retriever one day?

[ZaraD]

Looking through the list again either my eyes are letting me down or I'm right I think there no Labrador retriever on the list