The first part in deciding what to look for in a partner is determining the priorities of your breeding. This involves taking an honest look at your dog to determine its strengths and potential vulnerabilities that could be passed down to offspring. Including if it is truly a good candidate for improvement of the breed as a whole and every future parent of your puppies. A successful breeding often involves offsetting the strengths of one dog to complement the vulnerabilities of another. For instance, if one dog has a history of allergies in the family a major priority should be to find a mate without that same background of issues. Another fundamental consideration in the beginning of a breeding process is examining genetic compatibility. Genetics are the basis of a dog’s health, looks, lifestyle requirements, temperament, and so much more. Knowing the background behind these traits is not only important for a breeder’s understanding of their own dog, but also for understanding what partner would be optimal for breeding. This means that when combining the genes of each dog, breeders should make sure that the genetic combination of partners will have a decreased susceptibility to diseases and unwanted traits.
The process of partner selection is not easy, as there are many things to keep in mind. Not only should breeders be looking for healthy ways to breed their dogs for desired traits, but they also need to keep in mind undesirable traits. Even if a potential partner has the perfect genotype for appearance, they may be predisposed to diseases and poor temperament that would be detrimental to puppies. Even if both dogs don’t display a disease or bad temperament, they could be carriers. The risk here is that by combining the genotypes of two carriers, some of the offspring could end up with duplicate copies of a harmful allele leading to unhealthy traits. Ignoring underlying traits or breeding solely for looks is dangerous, detrimental to the litter and species as a whole. This impact can be seen in the influx of shelter dogs that resulted from the trend of breeders emphasizing looks and winning show titles instead of health and temperament. Although the dogs they bred may look the way they were intended to, faults in their temperament made offspring difficult to manage for their future owners.
Physical conformation and observable temperament should also be considered. A big problem in the breeding industry that has impacted the long-term health of our dogs is breeding for show qualities and titles, instead of health and temperament. A prime example of this is the German Shepherd. While practices are improving dramatically, in the past it was thought to be desirable for a German Shepherd to have a sloped back and legs. As time went on we learned that this conformation is a driving factor in hip dysplasia. It is a major risk for the breed that significantly decreases the quality of life and creates an extra risk of developing other ailments related to their joints and muscles. This was such a common goal at one point it changed a large portion of the population’s gene pool and trajectory for the entire breed. This caused shorter lifespans, decreased quality of life, and increased cost to help our dogs deal with health issues that humans had a large role in creating.
As mentioned earlier, understanding the basics of genetics and how they work is also incredibly important in ensuring the best breeding outcomes. One key part of understanding genetics is the difference between dominant vs. recessive traits and their impact when breeding two dogs to create new genetic profiles in the puppies. Dominant traits are those that are “controlling”, meaning if they are inherited they will show through. The presence of a dominant trait also means that an individual is either homozygous dominant or heterozygous. Recessive traits are those that are ‘hidden’ by dominant traits and don’t show through unless an individual is homozygous recessive. Meaning they have 2 copies of the recessive trait from each parent carrier. If a breeder wants to breed for specific traits, they should research what traits are dominant, which are recessive, what genotype their dog is, and what genotype their dog needs to be bred with in order to get the desired result. Historically, dog breeders are familiar with this concept but it can be limited. As time progresses and technology allows us to analyze genetics on a deeper level, it’s important to go a step further with these considerations. A tool to dramatically help identify a dog with a complementary genetic profile is Embark or reputable other DNA profiling companies. Important aspects of these genetic analyses test for breed-specific health vulnerabilities as well as an accurate measure of the similarity between the genes of 2 dogs. The resulting number to measure this is known as COI, or Coefficient of Inbreeding. With purebreds, in many cases family members have mated because they exhibited desirable traits on the outside that wanted to be reproduced. Unfortunately, mating related family members leads to a high risk of genetic mutations which are the underlying cause for many common diseases our dogs deal with today. To read more about this critical part of breeding and how you can use it to help you click HERE for our section breaking down COI.
Age is one more in the the long list of factors. We don’t want to breed dogs too young. Older dogs provide the benefit of having lived a longer life and health history to make better informed decisions. It is not recommended to breed any dog under the age of 2. Organizations such as the Orthopedic Foundation For Animals will not provide official certificates of a healthy analysis until after this age.
There are many important aspects that go into a well-planned, healthy breeding that begin with selection of a partner. These can be broken down to observable and genetic categories. Finding the right mate in all aspects is what all breeders should strive for. To learn about these topics on a deeper level head over to the Breeder’s Den for more wise information and tips.
