In a recent study published in Canine Medicine and Genetics, an international team of researchers led by University of California, Davis, veterinary geneticist Danika Bannasch show that the majority of canine breeds are highly inbred, contributing to an increase in disease and health care costs throughout their lifespan.
"It's amazing how inbreeding seems to matter to health," Bannasch said. "While previous studies have shown that small dogs live longer than large dogs, no one had previously reported on morbidity, or the presence of disease. This study revealed that if dogs are of smaller size and not inbred, they are much healthier than larger dogs with high inbreeding."
The average inbreeding based on genetic analysis across 227 breeds was close to 25%, or the equivalent of sharing the same genetic material with a full sibling. These are levels considered well above what would be safe for either humans or wild animal populations. In humans, high levels of inbreeding (3-6%) have been associated with increased prevalence of complex diseases as well as other conditions.
"Data from other species, combined with strong breed predispositions to complex diseases like cancer and autoimmune diseases, highlight the relevance of high inbreeding in dogs to their health," said Bannasch, who also serves as the Maxine Adler Endowed Chair in Genetics at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
Journal Reference:
Danika Bannasch, Thomas Famula, Jonas Donner, et al. The effect of inbreeding, body size and morphology on health in dog breeds [open], Canine Medicine and Genetics (DOI: 10.1186/s40575-021-00111-4)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @02:24PM (16 children)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @02:32PM (9 children)
I know you are flaming here, but for the sake of scientific accuracy, Jews are a highly inbred race.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @02:33PM (8 children)
Flaming ? No, merely discussing the females of their dog eugenics program.
*cough*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @04:53PM (7 children)
Again, for the sake of scientific accuracy, an article on human inbreeding:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/go-ahead-kiss-your-cousin [discovermagazine.com]
The megarich Rothschild family is highly inbred because the founder wanted to keep the wealth "in the family." You had to marry within your family, or else you wouldn't get your cut of the money.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @05:27PM (3 children)
First cousin marriages are OK as long as it doesn't go on for too many generations. Do it for 300 years and you've got European royalty.
Egyptians married their siblings all the time, and they had all kinds of genetic problems.
But, marrying a second cousin isn't a big deal. Third cousins are about the best you can do in a group the size of Dunbar's number, and no two people with the same national ancestry are much more distantly related than fifth cousins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @05:44PM
Cool info. Thanks!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 04 2021, @02:15AM
Also, maximal fertility happens with 2nd or 3rd cousins, implying this is actually the ideal -- enough similarity to not have genetic conflicts, not so close as to expose too many recessives.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday December 04 2021, @05:29PM
technically, I don't think it is the inbreeding that is the problem. Much of inbreeding can just be looked at as sped up evolution. The problem is when you used this powerful technique and also allow the failed specimens to live and reproduce. Their is nothing magical about inbreeding, it just allows you to improve or destroy genetics at an increased rate.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday December 03 2021, @06:50PM
Is their family tree worse than this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @07:14PM (1 child)
and Saudi Arabia is here too, no need to go to weirdo clans,
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/world/saudi-arabia-awakes-to-the-perils-of-inbreeding.html [nytimes.com]
do you now know why they keep boys and girls separate? It's not just because of "sexy" but how else do you get your first cousins to marry? Of course, make sure they never see each other except after their marriage has been arranged and finalized. It's also why they now have genetic screening programs for prospective coupled (mostly for the parents), so they can choose which children can be married without resulting in terrible recessive conditions.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @08:16PM
You don't think the Saudi Royal Family is weirdo?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @03:07PM (1 child)
Oops, guess I offended some Nazis. Shucks, I'm just gonna have to feel terrible about that..wait, no I don't.
How about a nice game of cribbage?
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @03:10PM
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @06:48PM (1 child)
"Nazi" is a communist Talmudic Jew, anti-White slur. We will get justice for what the Jew rats and their useful idiots did, especially to the women and children of Germany. Whether it's melting them into the asphalt via Allied bombings or raping them multiple times a day with Soviet soldiers, you will get yours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 05 2021, @12:26AM
^ runaway see what company you ride with? That is what happens when you blindly accept propaganda like "everything bad is socialism because that would mean rich people having to contribute to society." Wish there was more to it, but nope.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @07:54PM
MTG
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @08:20PM
What do you mean "were"? Case in point: all the southern (and western) white bitches that have fallen for the "Q-anon" shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @02:25PM (12 children)
Is that why all dogs are as dumb as milk bones?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @02:35PM (7 children)
No. It's because most breeds have been bred specifically to do anything their master tells them, which makes most breeds really dumb. Then you have the dogs bred specifically for fighting, which are dumb because they are bred to not avoid the fight. Border collies are commonly held to be one of the most intelligent breeds because while they do have a job to do, they are given a lot of leeway in how to accomplish it. Retrievers are kind of dumb because their job is simple.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @02:51PM
Thanks for tha SQUIRREL!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @04:58PM (3 children)
Retrievers aren't dumb, they're just easily entertained. Goldens and labs are on the smarter side, and poodles (who started out as retrievers but then were adapted as performing dogs) are smarter than any other breed except collies. Herding breeds tend to be the most intelligent as a group, not a surprise since their job needs it.
The dog breeds that are less intelligent are the ones that were bred as lapdogs, which makes sense, because they don't have to do much of anything, and hounds, who are pretty much sniff-seeking missiles. On the low end of average you have the dog athletes, Dalmatians, greyhounds and the like, and guard dogs.
In the middle you have the working dogs.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @05:58PM (2 children)
I guess I was a bit biased from past experiences with Labrador Retrievers when I said retrievers weren't smart. For a DOG, I suppose they are smart, but in terms of stupidity as to what they will eat, they are champs. Had a neighbor whose lab swallowed a dish towel. AN ENTIRE TOWEL, WHOLE. They had to drop thousands on surgery to extract the towel. I owned a lab that swallowed a long popsicle stick from a corn dog. I just let it go and figured it might come out the other end. Sure enough, a day or two later, the dog shit it out whole. I was amazed. Those labs will literally kill themselves by eating the dumbest objects. I can't think of another animal that will do this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 05 2021, @12:28AM (1 child)
Maybe you haven't heard about humans that have eaten even stupider things, or worse the ones that stuck shit in their ears or asses and needed a medical professional to help them out.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday December 05 2021, @02:01AM
Well sure, but humans are among the stupidest of animals - just look at how dedicated we are to destroying our ecosystem in a myriad of entertaining ways.
Sure, we're also the most intelligent animals, but contrary to popular belief intelligence and stupidity are not mutually exclusive. In fact the smartest people can often also be the most astoundingly stupid.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 04 2021, @02:18AM (1 child)
Speaking as a canine professional, I can attest that you don't know what you're talking about.
You might want to attend a retriever field trial or hunt test someday. I guarantee that you, as a human, cannot do what those dogs do routinely.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 05 2021, @01:30AM
You're right, I can't shit in the yard like a genius retriever while staring at the nearest person for approval while doing it.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday December 04 2021, @03:32AM
All dogs? Spend some time with a border collie.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday December 04 2021, @04:17PM (2 children)
Most dogs are smarter than you, dumbass. NOVA just covered the question of how wolves became dogs. Dogs are intelligent enough to pass the "pointing" test when some of our closest primate relatives (baboons, you, chimps) can't.
I thought humans turned wolves into dogs, but according to NOVA the wolves did it themselves, having a genetic mutation that makes them love humans. It turned out to be a valuable mutation for both species.
Most dog breeds originated in the last 300 years, which explains why so many are inbred.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday December 05 2021, @02:18AM (1 child)
I'm not sure how breeding a slave race to be able to understand commands necessarily translates to any wider intelligence...
Tolerating humans helped wolves live alongside us, but don't kid yourself that there wasn't a LOT of human-guided selection pressure to get turn cohabiting wolves into what we now know as dogs. It was hardly a single-mutation magical change.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday December 05 2021, @06:38PM
That's common sense and what I would have thought, but the scientists said otherwise.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday December 03 2021, @03:07PM (20 children)
A shelter mutt is probably going to be healthier than any purebred dog. And as an added advantage, you're funding your local ASPCA or Humane Society or government animal control, as opposed to funding puppy mills that tend to go for the more profitable purebreeds.
And really, "purebred" should be replaced mentally with "inbred", because that's how you get a dog breed.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @03:40PM (3 children)
You don't know what behavior characteristics you are getting with a YOUNG shelter mutt. As for an older mutt, still a bit of a gamble. Also, I don't mind if some guy breeds dogs to make a living. If nobody did, the dog would die out except for feral dogs we allow to live off our scraps, and let's be honest, nobody wants feral dogs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday December 04 2021, @11:58AM (2 children)
You don't know what behavior characteristics you are getting with a young purebreed either: Just because the breed has a certain behavioral reputation doesn't mean that the particular dog will match that reputation.
Just in my lifetime, I've met:
- A sweet, affectionate, pit bull
- A stand-offish not-at-all-friendly golden retriever
- A scared and rather stupid border collie
- A rather lazy beagle who hated running around
If you have a purebreed you raised from a puppy and love dearly, great, have fun, glad you got lucky with your best friend, but that's not a guarantee, at all.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday December 05 2021, @02:54AM (1 child)
I seem to recall hearing that pit bulls tend to be very sweet dogs when raised well, but due to their reputation and breeding they're a favorite of people who raise them as guard/attack dogs.
The fundamental problem is that regardless of temperament they are also extremely *dangerous* dogs - those combat instincts and that super-powered jaw is like giving a handgun to a two-year-old. First time they throw a proper tantrum, or mistakenly consider someone a serious threat, someone who doesn't deserve it is getting injured or killed. Many may never throw a tantrum, but you've still essentially got a toddler packing heat, and gambling other people's lives like that is... discourteous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 05 2021, @11:09AM
Used to have a staffy. One of the friendliest, goofiest dogs out there. Great pets. One day I had a 2' length of 1.25" hardwood, and I had the ends and he had the middle and we were sort of wrestling with it. He got a bit too enthusiastic and suddenly I was holding two 1' pieces with teethmarks in one end. They are good natured lovable dogs, but if one puts some effort into it he'll take your leg off.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 03 2021, @03:41PM (10 children)
Dog owners and dog breeders have known for almost forever that the smartest dogs are usually mutts. And, as time goes on, the difference between them grows larger. The pure breeds need a little outbreeding now and then. Or, in common vernacular, they need a little strange from time to time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @04:21PM (9 children)
The inbreeding gets worse over time because breeders select for evermore exaggerated breed traits.
One example is the modern trend for German Shepherds with really sloped backs. When they walk, they look like they are climbing. Bizarre.
https://www.allshepherd.com/german-shepherd-sloping-back-vs-straight-back/ [allshepherd.com]
They have done the same to cats. Consider the Siamese Cat:
https://www.thaitreasures.ca/siamese-appearance [thaitreasures.ca]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 03 2021, @06:12PM (8 children)
FWIW, there have been some efforts to import new German Shepard stock into the US. The populations have diverged, and some breeders want to bring the US breed closer to the German breed. I'm not part of the effort - I'm not even a breeder. But, once my attention was drawn to it, I've noticed that American dogs are lighter in color, more docile, and many do display that sloped back. German dogs are generally darker in color, a little larger, somewhat more aggressive, somewhat more attached or loyal to their master/owner, and they don't seem to be as slope backed.
Of course, an anecdote involving a couple of breeders doesn't mean there is a major movement to improve American stock. Obviously, the trend has been in the opposite direction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @11:04PM
are they bringing in puppies or just dog cum?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 04 2021, @02:56AM (6 children)
Okay, I gotta sneak in here. You don't know what you're talking about. German Shepherds diverged, all right, but... there used to be a site that had a huge body of original writings, photos, and history of individual dogs. From that source:
1) Old German type. Bred as man-killers for the German army. (They were never herding dogs.) These were most similar to today's Malinois. They were selected for aggression. Some were dark, but most were "wolf-colored" which is to say, grizzle or only lightly saddle-marked. (One of these original foundation dogs gave us inherited pancreatic insufficiency, which still plagues the breed to this day.)
2) Later German type. Heavier-built and longer-bodied but still with level toplines, good rears, and big heads. Mostly black-and-tan. This is the type that was imported into America after WW2, and was pretty well preserved by American breeders up until the craze for imports in the 1970s (tho they did breed out most of the aggression).
3) Late in his life, Max von Stephanitz (the guy most responsible for the breed) actually wrote that he wanted to breed more "curve" into the dog's back, which with typical European exaggeration, became today's deformed "banana backs".... and came to America with German imports, which every show breeder in America promptly bred to, radically changing the type. (Because if your dogs are not what judges expect to see, you can't win... and there was a concomitant craze for importing German judges for specialty shows.)
4) But there are still old-type dogs in both America and Europe, from bloodlines maintained as army and police dogs, and those are the dark, leggy, level-backed dogs that you're thinking of as current imports, but they also have the old type temperament. (The Czech-bred dogs can be so aggressive that... well, I know of a whole litter that was imported for police work, and were so bad they were all put down.)
The divergence really is show type vs working type. And contrary to popular perception, most of the exaggeration is coming from Europe. It's the same in every breed I'm familiar with. As soon as imports become all the rage, the type changes in America thanks to pressure to match the ever-exaggerated type that has already happened in Europe, and quickly becomes the only type that can win in the show ring.
Pretty much the same thing happened with my primary breed, the Labrador Retriever. What you see today as English-type show Labs have severely diverged from the original working type, and thanks to the import craze, that type has completely taken over the show lines worldwide (including America). Even so, the original working type has been very well preserved by American field breeders. (Less so by English field breeders, but at least you can still tell it's the same breed. Why that's so is a different topic.)
Original working type Labrador, born 1902 (England):
http://www.longplain.com/dogphoto/flapper_1908.jpg [longplain.com]
(Identical to the "show" dogs of the era)
Fieldbred "American type" Labrador, born 2018 (U.S.):
http://www.longplain.com/dogphoto/lukas_01093.jpg [longplain.com]
Modern "English type" show-bred Labrador, born 1997 (Scotland, exported to Philippines):
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/labrador_retriever/dog.html?id=1375509-veyatie-driving-along?_v=20100910121422 [pedigreedatabase.com]
Note: I'm a canine professional with over 50 years experience.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 04 2021, @03:44AM (3 children)
I'm not a fan of the American Kennel Club, but their account of the German Shepard's origins differs from your own.
https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/dog-breeds/german-shepherd-dog-history/ [akc.org]
They were created o herd sheep, and apparently they were hugely successful at that. Just watch the video, I can't add anything to it.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 04 2021, @04:32AM (2 children)
AKC's accounts tend to be sanitized. And no, GSD were not bred to herd sheep (that's a myth, probably promulgated as part of the effort to distance the breed in America from its original work in Germany). Von Stephanitz's first dog was acquired after seeing it work stock, but that wasn't what interested him; he was more impressed by its willingness to take direction.
Any dog that can be taught to handle (take remote direction) can be taught herding, in the competitive sense (which is what you see in AKC demos). Handling in retriever field trials originated as the same taking-remote-direction (from a guy who'd formerly trained Border Collies). Having the instinct to head or heel or bunch stock is a separate thing. Original-type Labradors are descended from a flock guardian (per DNA studies, U of Portugal) and some of the old type still have that instinct to bunch up stock and keep it safe. A friend has a Golden Retriever with a Herding Instinct certificate, got on a whim because the dog wanted to herd the neighbor's sheep; Goldens have a bit of what we now call a Border Collie behind them. But GSDs, absent immediate human control, are more likely to be stock killers, and tho they take direction well enough to learn all the moves, generally lack herding *instinct*.
Myself, I quit using AKC when they stopped being a registry, and started thinking they were some sort of canine-SJW-enforcer.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 05 2021, @01:39AM (1 child)
Parent said:
"But GSDs, absent immediate human control, are more likely to be stock killers..."
Amen. They are more like a wolf than anything else.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday December 05 2021, @04:15PM
Actually, that was part of the problem with the Czech imports... they've got wolf in the gene pool, rather close up.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday December 05 2021, @11:18AM (1 child)
SMH. Labs used to be great dogs. Look at that third one, what are they trying to do, turn them into oversize insane corgis?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday December 05 2021, @04:30PM
That's what happens when the way you win in the show ring is to "stand out" (rather than to be typical, which is to say, ordinary), because the average eye, including judges' eyes, can only see extremes; it can't see "typical" as the superior specimen. Standing out means being a little more of everything, all the time, rinse and repeat until exaggerated all out of proportion. It's originally a European thing. American breeders were not prone to this until the import craze got going, and of course the imports were all "a little more of everything" (actually, already a lot more) and suddenly an old-type, American-bred dog could no longer win, and of course everyone wants to breed to winners. And once the influential American breeders jumped on the bandwagon, well, as you see today.
And then the spay-neuter craze came along, and that balancing gene pool that used to be available in every back yard vanished. Funny how the breeders who are most on that bandwagon also complain the loudest about their small gene pools and are in a panic to find "outcross" blood. You can't have it both ways, people!
I watched all this happen firsthand. This, NOT inbreeding, is what destroys breed integrity, and shrinks gene pools. As it turns out, DNA studies on wild animals found they had an average COI [coefficient of inbreeding, higher is more] of about .25 (d'ya really think that buck cares that half the does are his daughters?), whereas purebred dogs average around .04, or around .08 for performance lines (which generally have fewer problems). What's relevant isn't inbreeding, but natural selection. Cull that weak puppy, don't raise it and fall in love with it and show it and breed from it, and the problem goes away. There was a huge breeding study back in the 1950s (over 15,000 puppies) that found once you cull all the defectives out of the gene pool, the inbred strains were actually healthier than the outcrossed strains... because once cleaned up, the inbred strains were not constantly introducing new defects.
This is exactly my own observation and experience. And most of the serious defects in Labs actually originated from a crossbreeding. Most breeds are not so simon-pure as they'd like to believe, but few breeders today have the historical knowledge that was routine among the old-timers, and have no idea that, say, that horribly-exaggerated modern show Lab type originally derived from a Rottweiler cross, or that a certain famous dog was actually sired by someone other than who it says on the tin so won't produce what you expect, or that the reason you don't linebreed on Famous Dog X is because his great-granddaddy was actually a pointer, and that makes for bolters (dogs that panic and run over the hills and gone at the slightest stress, very much NOT an original Lab trait).
And contrary to popular belief, mutts usually carry about twice as many serious defects (naturally, since no one tries to breed them out) and it's only sheer dumb luck keeping those defects from being expressed. But spend a day in a vet's waiting room observing what comes through the door, and you'll notice that mutts are the backbone of every practice, even tho they're a minority of the pet population.
TFAs like this'un make it sound like breeding is simple if only you follow certain rules, but it's rather more like building an OS starting from someone else's mess... there's a zillion bugs from old code, and a ton of compatibilities that need to be maintained, and you can't just compile for another platform and expect everything to work. It's a skill and an art, and it's rapidly being lost.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday December 04 2021, @11:02AM
This is why I have a genuine WTF, which changed breeds at least three times as it matured, currently it's some sort of big friendly... dunno, maybe a bit of staffie? Whatever's gone into it there's no problems with inbreeding, I reckon it's got a bit of every dog breed in a 50km radius of the shelter in it, and possibly a cat that didn't run quickly enough.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Saturday December 04 2021, @05:46PM (3 children)
Their is as much trouble with inbreeding as outbreeding. Your shelter mutts are not just wild dogs that were caught, they are what happens you have some violent inbred pitbull bred and with an unstable german shepherd, neglected for a few months and then abandoned when it bit someones kid.
First off, we take the worse gene's imaginable, then we add in that their is too much genetic variation so we see outbreeding depression.
Even if outbreeding depression did not exist, a mutt is not some magical creature than can just ignore the horrendous genes that were used to create it. To even attempt to fix inbreeding depression you do not breed a rabbit with a hamster, you breed a Canadian rabbit with an American rabbit that are like 20 generational cousins. And if they are not pedigreed award winners, you don't even try as they have no good genetic material worth saving.
Here is my recommendation. If you cannot see the genetic heritage of the dog you are looking to buy back 5 generations, don't buy it. The difference in cost is like 1 trip to the vet, just spend the extra ~$1k.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday December 05 2021, @03:04AM (1 child)
>. And if they are not pedigreed award winners, you don't even try as they have no good genetic material worth saving.
Um, those are usually the ones with the most damaged genes, NOT the best.
If you want good genes, go find a working dog from a long line of totally off-breed good working dogs.
"Good pedigree" pretty much translates to severely inbred with a horrendous number of damaging mutations that were selected for because somebody influential thought they looked nice, and a bunch more unwanted recessives that can't be bred out of the line without losing the prize-winning "features".
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday December 05 2021, @05:12PM
Good working dogs of any breed are invariably the original type, before contrary selection solely for physical traits, lack of culling defectives, and most destructive, crossbreeding as a quick fix.
But physical type matters too -- behavior and appearance are strongly linked. Good example among the herding breeds. When you see an Aussie line that regularly produces uppy ears, it's a pretty good bet they've got too much bite for sheep -- because those uppy ears most likely came from a Heeler, along with enough bite to hold rank cows.
Inbreeding actually selects against mutations, IF you cull the defectives and let natural selection do its job (wild animals are actually very inbred compared to domestic animals, but nature culls the weak). But nowadays we've got the no-kill nonsense and veterinary care for every possible problem, and the incentive to knock them on the head has evaporated.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday December 05 2021, @05:43PM
Exactly so. The big problem with shelter mutts is the utter lack of quality control; indeed, if they were good dogs, someone would have wanted them and they'd not be available to foist on an unsuspecting public. As of the last stats CDC compiled, "rescues" (now mostly imported street dogs and sometimes purpose-bred for the rescue industry, because we no longer breed enough domestically to fill demand) -- were about 18% of the pet population, but committed 50% of the serious bites. (I know of two cases where a "rescue" killed its new owner within a couple days of being "adopted".) There's a good reason most of what languish in shelters are pitbull mixes; they tend to lack bite inhibition.
You also get the problem of conflicting instincts. Cross a herding dog with a flock guardian, you don't get the best of both worlds; you get stock killers (all the chase of a herding dog, and all the externally-focused aggression of a flock guardian. This is a real example; the entire litter were eventually put down, because they were dangerous, both to people and stock.)
The trouble with outcrossing and crossbreeding is that it introduces a whole new set of defects into your gene pool, which come back to bite you a few generations later. Example: there's a huge hoo-rah over "silver Labs" (dilute coat colors) and much screaming and finger-pointing that someone musta crossed 'em with a Weimeraner. Er, no. (There's been an English Pointer cross, but never a Weim.) The relevant cross was an Elkhound done during WW2 (there was no meat to feed dogs, so many were put down and whatever male they could find used to continue what they could of their lines, but it messed up the pedigrees), and the mating was witnessed and documented by one of the Old Timers of the era... but it took several generations for dilute to start popping up (first ones I know of were in 1962), and several more generations for it to become common enough to get noticed (starting in the 1980s).
And the joke is on the people screaming the loudest, because transmission to the present (easily determined by cross-checking pedigrees) is via Famous English Show Dogs, and that's how it came to America.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Touché) by ikanreed on Friday December 03 2021, @03:12PM (2 children)
My dog is royalty?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday December 03 2021, @03:44PM
More like a royal pain in the gluteus maximus.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday December 03 2021, @04:10PM
My dog is spoiled.
I may hire a detective in an effort to discover who is responsible for that.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @03:46PM
This study was funded in part by... cats.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @03:54PM (15 children)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @04:12PM (11 children)
Your pointless insult to the innocent people who reside in West Va. is the sort of input that makes SN such a pit.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @04:25PM (5 children)
Agreed, now call out the conservative bullshit when NY or CA gets slammed for no reason. Clean dat pit!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @04:57PM (1 child)
The answer is not to "call out", but rather, to not post crap. I try to do my part. I know this is basically an unsolvable problem at the population level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 05 2021, @12:35AM
Then please, do explain this. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @07:44PM (2 children)
citations needed
There are a million reasons to slam NY, and another million to slam Ca. And, that is a very conservative estimate!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 04 2021, @08:16AM
Out of those million, one reason is that 43% of voters in California supported legislation in 2020 that would legalize discrimination by race and sex. But to be fair, the remaining 57% of voters opposed those bigots. [usatoday.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 05 2021, @12:30AM
Then there are two million reasons to criticize West Virginia. Fookin bigots, always an excuse for your hatred. Jesus weeps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @07:29PM (3 children)
[not American] I presumed it was a reference to the dialect of English that emerged in the Appalachians as a result of being isolated in remote uneducated communities away from major populations where standard American English crossbred. As per the movie Songcatcher.
Or simply snobbery? You have 50 states and unflattering stereotypes about each and every one, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @08:03PM (2 children)
People love a good slur. Makes them feel SUPERIOR. In America, it is taboo to slur any race but the white: that is actually encouraged. And what is one of the whitest and poorest states in America? West Virginia. Plus it is a small state with a small population, and odds are good the person saying the slur has never set foot there nor knows anyone from there, so it becomes especially easy to slur away in ignorance. It fills a psychological need, and nobody will ever call you on it. (Except me, apparently.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @11:36PM
If it makes you feel any better, I came here to make a post about Alabama, not West Virginia. I don't do it to feel superior though, just that it's funny 'cause it's true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 04 2021, @05:43AM
One of the first things I had to get used to when I moved out of flyover country is that people don't take pride in being stupid dumbshits.
Did a 34 hour sabbatical in Nitro once. West Virginians are dumb as fucking shit. Nice people but dumb as shit.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Friday December 03 2021, @10:27PM
(foghornleghorn)
It's a joke son!
(/foghornleghorn)
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday December 03 2021, @04:25PM (2 children)
Since went do roadside plants, herbs and tree bark cataplasm cost anything?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @07:56PM (1 child)
"Magic Dirt"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 04 2021, @09:52AM
great band.
Adalita is a babe.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @04:44PM (9 children)
Every purebred dog has some kind of disease they're predisposed to, whether it's autoimmune problems in poodles, cancer in goldens, or eye problems in chihuahuas. Mixed breed dogs not only have fewer serious diseases, they're just healthier in a general way.
Both of my dogs are mixed breeds (I'm fortunate that they both have wonderful fluffy coats despite being mixes) and while neither dog is perfect, they're both healthy, even though the older one is 11 years old.
I used to have a purebred poodle, and while he was the most gentle, loving dog anyone could ask for, he wasn't healthy a day in his life. Teeth, eyes, thyroid, spine, something was always wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @04:55PM (7 children)
Dog breeders value conformation over health. How do you get new blood into the breed if the resulting dogs look less than perfect? The same problem exists in horses and cattle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @05:11PM (6 children)
It isn't just a question of looks. If a dog isn't purebred (read: inbred), they're considered a mixed breed, and not eligible for show. Of course, most dogs aren't show dogs, but most breeders are involved in dog shows or at least associated with people who are. So the rules coming out of that world tend to influence everyone else.
Unfortunately, people breeding mixed breeds (goldendoodles and what have you), even though they are only intended as pets, are considered enemies by the purebred world - even though the real villains are the puppy mills, who breed at least as many purebreds as mixes.
We've also lost a lot of ground with overall genetic quality over the past three decades or so. Prior to that, there weren't so many puppy mills, but a lot more pet dogs had puppies. Most of those dogs were basically healthy and well bred dogs, whose puppies got healthier because those accidental puppies were almost always mixes. Now we have spay/neuter campaigns - it's pretty hard to adopt a dog that hasn't been sterilized - meaning that most of the well bred, well cared for dogs aren't reproducing, and a lot more dogs originate in puppy mills, that don't care about genetic quality at all.
So while pet overpopulation is improving, it's coming at the expense of the health and overall quality of the dogs we have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @05:47PM
It's almost as if the organizations who put themselves in charge WANT pets to become extinct. Is that the ultimate "animal liberation" from their "slavery"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @07:54PM (4 children)
So, what would stop a group of citizens from coming together and doing shows, handing out awards etc, for mixed breeds? Call themselves the Dog Improvement Society, throw two shows a year with mixed-breed being the only entry requirement, and life would be grand.
I mean, what could the old guard pure-bred folks really do about it? Bitch, whine, moan, gnash their teeth, boycott, whatever.. they wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on if they tried to stop it from happening, right?
There must be some reason it hasn't been done yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @08:09PM
There is no breed standard for mutts. There's your problem with your solution as you suggested. One way to solve the inbreeding problem is to start a "new" breed that is a return to the older, less inbred version of the same breed. This has been attempted with, for example, German Shepherds and Siamese cats, just to name a couple.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MostCynical on Friday December 03 2021, @09:00PM (1 child)
confirmation bias from people buying dogs...
"it doesn't look like a ... [dog breed]"
If you are buying a dog, you have to convince every decision-making member of the family that the shelter animal is healthy and safe and good with children, and "trainable", AND the younger members of the family have to want a dog that looks like ... whatever.
Far easier to select a dog based on criteria, check up on breeders, buy puppy, which comes with papers, certificates, xrays, three or four generations of confirmed health... (depending on your country, local regulations etc etc)
Quite easy to avoid the puppy mills, if you do your research, meet the breeder, etc etc. The smaller, good breeders want to meet the prospective owners and may even visit the house to check it is suitable for the dog, as well as letting you meet the 'parents' of the dog you wish to purchase.
people don't do proper research on electoral issues, health issues - why would we expect them to research pets properly?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday December 04 2021, @03:38AM
I've always gotten shelter dogs, but there is genuine uncertainty about their backgrounds and mental health. The lady who runs the big dog park where I live says that with so many people doing COVID adoptions there has been some severe barrel-scraping going on to find pets for them all.
Someone from a background of abuse will be an unpredictable pet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 04 2021, @12:56AM
They'd be cat-a-tonic.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday December 04 2021, @05:58PM
You have the chickens before teh egg here.
We know exactly what diseases and conditions every breed of dog is predisposed to
We have no idea what your chiwawa, Pitbull, GS is predisposed to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @06:15PM
all in-breds think they're the right race.
(i like the cat comment; that's funny)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Friday December 03 2021, @06:19PM (10 children)
Some of the traits for which they breed are really awful and pointless. I don't even have or want a dog, it's just not my thing; but any human being who isn't heartless and sick should hate the kind of breeding that goes on. This topic comes up from time to time in various forums so you can't help but hear about it. Look at what they did to German Shepherds. A good enough breed, even if shorter lived as most large breeds are, but they had to go and give it ridiculously short back legs for God only knows why reasons. So of course now there are sick GS dogs all over.
Then there are the small dogs, I forget which, pugs I think that can't breathe right because some other idiot thought a scrunched face was cute, so they kept pushing that until the poor things have restricted airways... by design!
I'm of the mind that we should let capitalism work until it fails, then regulate. Plainly, it's failed here. You breeders have earned yourself a government body that shall determine what traits for which you may not breed, and the degree of relationship that's permitted in pedigrees.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @07:40PM (2 children)
Where I live, the trend animal is a stumpy-legged thing called a French Bulldog - seems to struggle walking.
Designer dogs, no thanks. Who buys a fashion accessory costing hundreds or thousands because they have a 'cute' face?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @11:38PM (1 child)
Hugh Hefner?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 04 2021, @12:30AM
He had trouble walking after attending his very regularly scheduled orgy.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 03 2021, @07:52PM (4 children)
I'll add that I've never, ever, once seen an American German Shepard used as a shepard dog. All of my favorite dog breeds started out as shepards. I love the qualities of any good sheep dog. But here in the US, German Shepards are used as guard dogs, attack dogs, police dogs, or at best, companion dogs. Never met one used for it's intended purpose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @07:58PM (1 child)
Controlling the "Sheep"?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 03 2021, @08:10PM
I hate when you 'baaahhhhh' at me. You know I can't understand anything you say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @08:14PM
They have been bred for other purposes, and they are good at it. (They all came from the gray wolf originally, and we don't judge dogs by how well they hunt deer.) So maybe your complaint is with the name: perhaps it was just too confusing to rename the German Shepherd to the German Police Dog.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday December 04 2021, @05:55PM
This is probably due to the environment, most likely they were used to fight off wolves or rival tribes, but guns mostly solved that issue.
Nowadays, German Shepherds are too human bonded to live with the flock, and the smaller collies are probably just superior in all ways for herding. Perhaps they were always very human centric, and they lived with the human herdsmen, which we also don't do anymore because of fences.
GS work well as a work dog bonded to and working beside a single person. which lends it to the roles it has taken on in modern society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 03 2021, @08:16PM
Dogs have been bred into all sorts of forms before capitalism existed. Consider the portraits of the pets of royalty from the feudal age. Get off your hobbyhorse.
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Friday December 03 2021, @11:17PM
This is a problem that seems self-regulating.
If you ignore all of the pain experienced by the animals in question (and we all know a lot of people do) then it boils down to supply and demand. As the demand for a certain breed goes up the supply is more likely to be produced in the cheapest way possible: inbreeding. As inbreeding increases, both supply and demand will go down. Who wants a dog that only lives for a few years due to poor health? Maybe a lot of people do. See caveat 1 above.
I'll see myself out.