O.k. as most of you know I have been looking for a ACD OR BC to train to herd on the farm .I've been looking and looking .Found one lady who proudly inbreeds last litter was brother and sister.And if I send her a deposit right away she will breed mother and son , by the way she is 11 to top it off.I know this is sometimes done with farm animals , but am I right it still isn't a good idea in dogs ? We have done line breeding with dogs witch turned out mixed results at times but INBREEDING ? Needless to say I am not buying .

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), October 16, 2000

Answers

Patty, Inbreeding is done in canines. The AKC reconises many registered breeds that are products of selective inbreeding in past generations. The bullmastiff is an example of ancestorial selective and inbreeding performed hundreds of years ago. What I have read on the subject, it takes many generations to selectivly breed a canine line to produce desired qualities and personality. Recent inbreeding as you describe could produce more unwanted and vicious traits and the animals should not be offered to others, but instead kept in a control group untill lineage traits can be properly patterned. Also, with intense inbreeding, life span and immunibility of the line is generally compromised.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 16, 2000.

Jay , to my understanding line breeding is ok say mom and dad have the same great grandfather .You will double up hopefully on his good traits but can also double up on bad say light eyes bad hips ect .You might get a great head but its a chance .Genetics is a funny thing and I believe you are playing with fire when you breed to closly .Does akc register pups from a breeding of mother and son ?

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), October 16, 2000.

Of course they register them. AKC is a registry, not a conscience. They are interested in your registration fee and whether the parents both have AKC numbers. They do have some restrictions on age of parents, but I think 11 years on a bitch is acceptable. In regard to line/inbreeding, parent to child is so common, as is grand parent to grandchild and doubling up on parentage on both sides. Most often, it is daughter to sire, because you want to see how the male is maturing before putting him into the breeding program. But siblings is very risky. Inbreeding is a good way to secure some of those wonderful traits that you want to keep, but it can backfire when bad genes match up. I've known of several sibling litters and often the puppies die within the first year from undisclosed maladies, guess you could track down all the reasons with a post-mortem, but most folks don't bother. I'd be more concerned about whether the mom has been bred on every cycle and what kind of food she gets and whether the breeder is willing to share the names of people she has sold to. Also, every breed has a national club. Find out if the breeder is in good standing or has been suspended by them or AKC.

-- melina b. (goatgalmjb1@hotmail.com), October 16, 2000.

To me 11 is pushing it for the dogs health .Would you want to have a baby at 50 ?

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), October 16, 2000.

patty, stay away from them. way to close for their own good. my male and female share a great grand mother and great grand father, this litter now wont show it on their papers but i always tell people. everyone i have talked to say as long as it is 2 gen. back and alot of new blood has been added the new genes will cross out the doubles. i have seen way to many gp inbred to the point that they loose the good things, no extra dew claw, no clue how to "work" . 11 is way to old, our gp female is 31/2 and i will not breed her again.i think 5-6 is pushing it on large breeds, mothers will kill their young instead of raising them just because of the mothers age. female pups out of "old" moms have a hard time raising their own because they do not learn from mom. gl

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), October 16, 2000.

I have seen some line breeding that actually was inbreeding due to poor research and the result is an animal that ntakes a long stick to feed. As you say, its messing with some complicated stuff. A point to remember, the dame will normally reject an offspring that is trying to sire with her, the breeding generally is forced if it occurs.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 16, 2000.

patty, in any species, inbreeding has the smae results; it increases the frequency of the genes that are being inbred on. I would be more interested in what genes there are in this line, and in what the mother is like, how she works, whether she has any faults or bad traits. I wouldn't dismiss this breeding out of hand. At 11 years old, it sounds like she has proven her worth, I don't know if she is still working, or how her offspring have turned out. If she is an excellent specimen, the best way to get more just like her is to inbreed or linebreed! another thing to ask is whether this lady culls out the poor ones. Culling is even more important when inbreeding. You increase the frequency of the genes, both good and bad, when inbreeding. So, you might get 2 fantastic puppies that are just as good as their mother or better, 4 average, and 2 duds that sem to have inherited all her faults and none of her good traits. Recessive genes show up more in inbreeding, but recessive genes are neither good nor bad, they just take more work to get them, and they can be very hard to fix( make them stay) without inbreeding. I think the suggestion to check out her references is a good one. By the way, I have seen mothers accept their sons when they were in heat, willingly. Sorry to run on so long, I've been studying genetics lately and find it fascinating!

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), October 16, 2000.

I'm sorry dogs are not just livestock and I don't believe in culling or taking chances in my breeding .I breed to produce the best possible pups all of them not just a couple .I breed for the overall package .Leave tight genetics to the experts not the back yard breeder .This womans dogs wern't titled or anything else , no genetic testing for hips, eyes or hearts .She was out for money , she wanted a deposit before the dog was breed .

I will not take deposits until pups are 2 weeks old and do not breed after 7 , its not fair to the dog .I do test for heart, hips and eyes and everything is guarenteed .Not for a year but life .To me such practices of inbreeding is no better than a puppy mill puppy .Thers a reason that in most states you CANNOT marry your brother or cousin .

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), October 16, 2000.

Line breeding is good as long as it is done with common sense. In the Border Collie breeding book it says 'two or three like ancestors in the second and third generation' is desirable, as these have been know to 'click'. Now we are talking about working dogs, not dogs that have no interest in working, common sense here. My General's mom was bred to her father, Line breeding, and he is the smartest dog I have ever known. All the folks who get pups rave about how smart they are and their working ability. But the girls are not close to him, back to great grandmother once out of 8, but some still in the line. And I send out the girls sometimes to other dogs I like. Inbreeding, in my opinion, is not good. ABCA will register the pups, I don't know why, and I was shocked really when I saw that they did. One girl wanted to trade pups, and I would not, cause the pup she had was result of brother/sister. Don't be shocked by line breeding, as these great dogs are a result of it. It's been practiced for generations, and it works, with common sence. 99% of how a Border will turn out, when bred correctly, is in the raising. Leave it to grow up alone in the barn or a yard, and it won't be a good dog, but it's not its fault. Spend tons of time with them from day one, raise in the house with you as pup, play with them, teach them games, love them and praise them and you have one fantastic dog. Zip is 16 weeks old, and she has been in the house all along. She has always had the run of the house, but she won't touch a thing. She goes out several times a day to play for 30 min. or so, but then she has to come back in and quiet down, and she does. If I left her outside with the others all day every day, she would be a different dog, she wouldn't listen to me, she would want to be running with the others having fun. Borders turn out to be what you teach them to be. All mine were raised in the house, and they are the best. And they do not drive you crazy if they are not working! That is just un- true. They like to be with me, doing anything I am doing. During bad storms, all my dogs come in, go in the bathroom by themselves, lay down and go to sleep. Borders are just not like other dogs, that energy has to be taught to behave untill needed, and I even have the pups trained at 6 weeks to be nice, and teach the people that get one what to do.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), October 17, 2000.

Be careful here! Inbreeding, done carefully, can lead to very fine animals, although my experience is limited to sheep, Siamese cats, and dogs. You must be willing to cull if necessary, although I have never seen a problem in the first generation, and have never gone beyond that. Get sloppy in your records or procedures, and you will wind up with an animal that should never be allowded to breed, and should be a tasty repaste on the table. Unfortunately, Algore's mother wasn't too swift, and allowed him to reach what she consider's adulthood. But we all make mistakes! GLK!

-- Brad (Homefixer@SacoRiver.net), October 19, 2000.

Patty, I've been thinking about your last reply for a few days, and I don't want to offend you, but- I don't think people ought to breed anything, plant,pet or livestock, unless they are willing to do some culling when necessary. That said, by culling I don't always mean knocking it in the head. Culling can simply mean removing the animal from the gene pool, for example spaying or neutering all but the best. I do think that in some cases the animal should be put down, as in a puppy that has a nasty, viscious disposition. Culling is vital to any breeding program to maintain the quality of the population. You can start out with the best stock in the world, and if the offspring is never culled, it won't be too long before they are back to mediocre again. The practices of the lady you mentioned do sound a little questionable, but that doesn't mean that all inbreeding is bad and unethical. I think it would be safe to say that most of the finest breeds and bloodlines in livestock are the result of careful inbreeding and linebreeding, with plenty of culling. It is almost impossible to establish a bloodline that will come true to type and be consistent without some kind of linebreeding.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), October 20, 2000.

Yes you are right every litter will not produce show quality pups .The rest should be spayed .But breeding so you get 1 good pup and the rest have 3 eyes is not exceptable .I am coming from the point of a good breeder .I will breed to better the pups .2-3 out of my litters will be show quality , the rest pet .But there are not major defects, the pet pups will live a long and healthy life .I sell my pups on limited registration so I have control of which ones will be breed .

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), October 20, 2000.

Patty, you said you were looking for a working dog. If your interest is in SHOW quality, then an AKC Border is what you want, but AKC Borders aren't always bred with the working still in them. People who have ABCA dogs won't allow breeding to AKC. ABCA pups needs to come from 2 working parents, AKC does not. AKC only recently allowed Borders in the shows, and they adopted a registry, one other than ABCA, to be their partner registry or something to that effect. I can double register my dogs up till Jan. 2001 with AKC. However I won't do this, as people looking for dogs to work the livestock don't want AKC at all, and most do ask. And I'm not sure, but I think once you register the female or male AKC, it's offspring cannot go back to ABCA. I didn't check it all out because I was not interested.

Show people raise AKC. For Bench winners. It's an entirely different breed of dog than working Borders. Ours are about 70% to working farms and 30% to family pets or agility or frisbee. And many do buy the pup with no papers, it's their option, and it's cheaper. Most farmers don't care about the papers, they want a dog to bring in the cows at milking time. And 99.9% have no interest in breeding pups at all. Just a good dog. I don't look at a litter at 6 weeks and pick out Show or Pet. The people pick out their pup, the one they just sort of click with. And some people have a specific look or marking in mind, like 'the one they had when they were a kid'. Just some thought again, Cindy

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), October 22, 2000.

Cindy, just thought I would comment that if your General's mom was bred to her father then she is inbred not line bred. Inbred is when they are directly linked such as brother/sister, father/daughter, mother/son, etc. with no intervening dog between them. Linebreeding is when there is at least one dog away such as grandfather to granddaughter or a bitch that is bred to her dam or sire's littermate. As a breeder of great danes we firmly believe in linebreeding. It helps to control the traits that are being produced and is more likely to bring out the negative traits as well so you can eliminate them from your breeding program. Outcross breeding without any attempt at line breeding is just a crap shoot and can produce good or bad dogs without much hope of predicting what will be produced in future litters. Linebreeding helps the breeder to determine the traits their lines produce and becomes more predictable in what will be produced. But it takes a lot of studying and evaluation of what is being produced to determine if you are being successful. Inbreeding will magnify the good and the bad and should only be done when there has been much research done on what you are expecting to accomplish and only from linebred dogs to start with so you have an idea of the traits you are doubling up on. It should only be done in the rare instances that a breeder feels it can solidify some excellent traits in their lines. If this breeder has done an inbreeding for a particular purpose and is a knowledgeable and experienced breeder this may not necessarily be a bad thing. But you need to research the breeder more thoroughly. I also feel that eleven years old is too old to breed a bitch. Having a litter is stressful and she should not be put through that at her age. This may be a tip off that they are not reputable breeders but just interested in pumping out as many puppies as they can get out of each dog.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), October 24, 2000.

Add goat to the above post and it is great Colleen? All but perhaps the age at breeding, goats can have very successful kiddings and lactations beyond 11 :)

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), October 24, 2000.

Line breeding and In breeding are only separated by the breeder. In true genetics, it is all in-breeding. Any two animals related in ANY way, when bred, are in-bred. There are so many different opinions here, its like a maze. For years I have always considered siblings or half-siblings to be in-bred. I have read that Intense Line-breeding is 4 same grandfathers with 4 different grandmothers?? Now this is more intence than father/daughter. And cousins breeding actually come out more intense the further back you go. It really matters the most the further back in the pedegrees, so go figure. Borders are bred this way on purpose. But one side close with the other side not close makes the pups not too inbred. Both sides very close like that and they are.

Some people claim out-breeding is the best, some claim it's more harmful than good. Same is said for in-breeding, it's just in what breed you are reading. Close in-breeding in one breed is considered not close in another breed. Borders are bred for keen eye, alertness, quick movement, and stance, in addition to disposition and breed likeness. Collies that display that keeness, and can pass it on are bred. Ones that don't are not. They want those like ancestors in the pedegrees cause they work. Not all breeds are bred the same at all, especially Collies. I know breeders who bred father/daughter and had great dogs, never known one to do mom/son or brother/sister at all, or even halfs. Some of the great Borders came from halfs years ago. I have know this breeder 10 years and he has always had great dogs. With total out-cross, your chances are slimmer of getting great Collies.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), October 24, 2000.

Hi folks,,sure enjoyed all the input and comments on dog in-breeding and line breeding. I am so excited to find a lot of dog fanciers here in the Forum. I raised Shelties for over 20 years and still do a little dog stuff. Shows, training and a litter once in awhile, although not Shelties at this time.***In Shelties it is a regular normal practice to line-breed the best to the best. Doubles up on the good features and improves the line. Skip a generation,,,ike Grandfather to grandaughter is a good breeding if the GF is exceptional. We got our best pups for show from such breedings. Just be careful to know your "breeds" needed conformation and the faults that are undesirable. Don't want to double up on faults..Patty what breed do you raise? I see Cindy raises Border Collies. Always ready to "talk" dogs. :-),,,

-- Patsy (cozyhollow-gal@care2.com), February 21, 2001.

Actually, inbreeding and line breeding are the same technically. They are the combining of a dog's predacessors to produce a puppy/litter.

Anything can be good or bad in breeding. Would I breed two dogs that were blind at age 2? Hardly a possibility! Would I breed two dogs that were sound in every way, great working ability, and great temperament? Sure. What if they were full brother/sister, mother/son or father/daughter? If they are great animals, sound and healthy, and they are bred, they should produce themselves "great animals, sound and healthy." It is not the inbreeding part that makes them bad. It is the selection that makes them bad. If the selection is not harsh, exact and correct, the quality is diminished because the person selecting doesn't know what they are doing.

The problem with inbreeding is that nobody knows for sure what they are doing. Dogs have, if I recall correctly, 78 chromosomes. When you breed, picture that you get one side from mom, and one side from dad (simply put though they don't necessarily carry a complete side and often intermix I believe). If you get singles on both sides (from mom and dad) and it is for working ability, that dog is going to produce working puppies (if that ability is a single gene to the two parts received -- one from mom and one from dad). It isn't the fact that the genes are doubled that is so bad. What is bad is that the two parts can represent something really bad in the lines--i.e. blindness.

If a person is inbreeding, and if you want a puppy, you had better be very, very sure that they are experienced, know what they are doing, and very familiar with the lines behind the inbred pair. Only in the knowledgeable inbreeding (or sheer luck) can a breeder produce sound puppies when inbreeding.

-- Kay Holzwordt (kythe_berners@yahoo.com), August 16, 2001.

I still stick to any good breeder would NOT line breed that closely.I do not and will not think it is ok in dogs .There are to many what ifs and you are risking someones{buyers} lives if you goof.A cow or goat or pig , you just have it for dinner .

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), August 16, 2001.