How to win The Health Test Game

By Carol Beuchat PhD
New technology has made it relatively easy to identify and test for single recessive mutations that cause genetic disorders in dogs. In fact, there are tests available now for well over 100 disease-causing mutations, and the list continues grows longer. DNA testing has become the badge of the responsible breeder, who only produces puppies from "health tested parents".
However, the notion that health testing the parents is the key to producing healthy puppies is incorrect. The reason is that we can only test for mutations we already know about. Every dog carries mutations that have probably been passed down for many generations and, as long as there is only one cop, the mutation usually has no deleterious effects. In fact, every dog carries some mutation you don't know about that can become a future health problem if a puppy gets two copies.
Breeders are now caught in a potentially endless loop in The Health Test Game. It goes like this:

​

Every dog in your breeding program has a recessive mutation you don't know about. (See The fiction of "knowing your lines".) It simply isn't true that if you breed only healthy parents, you will produce only healthy offspring. That's like assuming that it's safe to cross the field because you can't see any land mines. They are there, and if you tromp around long enough, you'll find them.
Over and over, we play the health test game and create new problems for ourselves. What can we do about this? How can we break this cycle?

​

Really, it's this simple.

"Health testing" will not eliminate genetic disorders in dogs. (See Why DNA tests won't make dogs healthier.) We know how to fix this problem. We just need to do it.

Check out
ICB's online courses

*******************

Join our Facebook Group
ICB Breeding for the Future
...the science of dog breeding
*******************

Visit our Facebook Page
ICB Institute of Canine Biology
...the latest canine news and research​

Continue reading...

 

Actually there is a misconception about inbreeding....The correct way to do it is to keep genetic mutations rare and keep inbreeding fairly high.....when one scatter breeds one just masks the genetic mutations, it does not lower it....when genetic mutation genes are masked one cant see the SYMPTOMS there fore one cant cull for it...........What inbreeding does is it brings the genetic mutations to the surface so that we can SEE THE SYMPTOMS because of the doubling up of the genes therefore we can see the DEFECT and CULL the defective dogs accordingly at the same time preserving the other siblings that do NOT carry the defect. In turn those inbred siblings who do not carry the defect now have a MUCH LOWER PERCENTAGE of carrying that defective gene and passing it on to there off spring.

1. KEEP MUTATIONS RARE
2. KEEP INBREEDING MODERATELY HIGH WITH OCCASIONAL OUT CROSS.
3. CULL ACCORDINGLY
4. THEN REPEAT TO LOWER THE PERCENTAGES EVEN FURTHER.

This technique is universal meaning it can even be done with humans if one believes in incest and culling the defective human. LMAO