CONRAD FRYAR
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jan 2004
Location: Northwest Georgia
Posts: 1621 |
Here is an article from the Canine Chronicle, It's funny to me that most hound breeders fined this way foreign? Outcrossing is foreign to most all serious canine breeders, and yes hounds are canines. This is a good read........
Outcrossing – If, When, and Why?
442 – November/December,2015
By William Given
Inbreeding and linebreeding facilitate our ability to establish our own strain within our chosen breed. These breeding systems afford us the opportunity to more easily fix the characteristics we desire most within our strain. They are, however, not the only methods of breeding available to us.
Outcrossing is defined as the mating of two dogs that are totally unrelated. There are some breeders who would define outcrossing as the breeding of two dogs with no common ancestors in a four generation pedigree. That definition seems reasonable because the genes affecting the resulting progeny are concentrated in the first four generations. Outcrossing does offer its advantages, but any breeder who is mulling over the idea of an outcross breeding should do so only for a specified purpose.
There are some very good reasons why an experienced breeder would choose to make an outcross. The first is to bring into their line a characteristic that is absent. And, akin to the first reason, to build on a strength and make a good trait – an exceptional one. The second is to mitigate any faults that are provoked by homozygous recessive genes. And third, outcrossing is absolutely necessary when a breeding program shows a loss of vigor (sometimes referred to as inbreeding depression) as demonstrated by a lack of disease resistance or infertility.
The Results of Outcrossing
Perhaps more often than not, the puppies of a first-generation outcross of two excellent show dogs display many outstanding traits of their parents. That is why, when a good number of the first-generation puppies from outcross matings are doing so well in the show ring, their breeders and others who have noted this, rush to conduct similar breedings.
It is after the first generation of an outcross breeding that a breeder stands to lose everything gained from a successful outcross unless he or she breeds back into his or her established line. To be successful as a breeder, one must seek to produce puppies which are genetically dominant for all of the qualities required by the breed’s standard. The closer a breeder gets to the ideal, the more uniform in type the puppies and dogs the breeder produces will be. When a breeder uses more distantly related dogs or dogs with no common ancestors in their breeding program, he or she must expect less uniformity in the offspring.
Any virtues that are obtained through outcrossing cannot possibly be considered a part of the genetic constitution of a breeder’s strain until those traits have been fixed within the line through inbreeding or linebreeding. A breeder should consider outcrossing, quite simply, as a means to an end. Contrary to the belief of some breeders, a successful outcross cannot and will not cure all imperfections in a bloodline in one generation.
The inevitable tragedy is the young of the succeeding generations of outcross breeding will be a comparably heterogeneous lot, displaying what could easily be an absolute lack of uniformity. This will not only prevent the breeder from maintaining proper type, but will subject their line and the breed to an increase in differing types in size and structure.
These breeders do a disservice to their breed, and in as much as they are the ones primarily responsible for the increased differentiation in type, open up themselves for damage to their reputation. Uniformity and predictability in the quality of the puppies produced is the goal and the trademark of a good breeder.
When To Make an Outcross
If you were to ask me, “After how many successive generations of inbreeding or linebreeding should I make an outcross?” I would respond by asking you, “What will be the six winning lottery numbers for Saturday’s drawing?”
There is an old wives’ tale that says it is not safe to inbreed or linebreed more than three generations without the introduction of an outcross. Virtually every colleague that I queried on this matter has had an anecdote to share with me about when the “golden words of wisdom” were shared with them and by whom. When the fallacy originated that it is not safe to inbreed or linebreed more than three generations without an outcross nobody seems to know, but it is just not a valid premise. Breeders who believe that an outcross needs be made at some finite point as, for example, the previously mentioned third generation are giving credit to the old wives’ tale, and it is one to which some breeders seem to be particularly devoted.
There is also a popular belief that, “It is just plain good to bring in fresh blood to a line every now and then.” Nothing could be further from the truth. It is inbreeding and linebreeding that (if correctly utilized) facilitate the elimination of recessive factors that produce faults, and provide for the purification within a line or strain. It is the close-up breeding on the blood of one or more superior dogs that allow breeders to rapidly minimize the influence of the more faulty forebears and contribute to the establishment of distinct type.
Dangers of Continued Outcrossing
When superior results are obtained in the first generation of an outcross, many breeders think the breeding was an unprecedented success and all that needs be done thereafter is to continue such outcrossing to become a great breeder with an established type of their own, producing a high average of very exceptional puppies. They could not be more mistaken, since the exact opposite is surely to occur.
As a general rule, the progeny of first-generation, outcross breedings are very often quite uniform in appearance. Many of the puppies being even more correct than the sire and dam. However, if not bred back into the original line, it is the puppies from succeeding generations of such outcrosses that can be particularly disappointing. This is because they carry so many genes for all of the characteristics in which their parents differed, that those puppies show great variation. This includes a sizeable portion of puppies of less than show and breeding quality.
I would inform some and remind others that, genetically, outcrossing and cross-breeding (Labrador Retriever to Poodle, for example) differ only by the measure of degree. Both involve the breeding of two individual dogs whose genetic composition varies so widely that there must be a significant rearrangement of genes in the offspring produced.
As breeders, we must be concerned not only with the physical conformation of the sire and dam, but also with the genes inherited from all of their more direct progenitors. It must be remembered that outcrossing is just as likely to weaken or diminish positive traits that are already fixed as to add those which were lacking and highly desired.
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Striving to breed balanced Treeing Walkers.
"Life is short boys, Hunt an intelligent hound"
Born in sin, convicted by the Word, saved by Grace.
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01-20-2018 12:08 AM
