THE REALLY REALLY SHORT VERSION:
If you don’t have a lot of time to read, here’s the quick one-page TLDR:
Genetic diversity helps prevent the undesirable effects of past inbreeding. Most purebred dogs have a lot of inbreeding behind them—not necessarily in their immediate pedigree, but from way back when their breeds were first created. If a breed never introduces any fresh blood, the effects of that inbreeding never go away. In fact, if a breed is not well-managed, things can get worse, which is why it’s rare these days to hear about a “healthy” breed of purebred dog. Some of the undesirable effects of inbreeding include more genetic disease, weaker immune systems, reproductive problems, and higher infant mortality.
The ISSA Shiloh Shepherd breeders all worked together to get a huge portion of our dogs into the UC-Davis study. We were seeing the beginning signs that our dogs were too related—more genetic disease popping up, more C-sections, and smaller litters. Our Shilohs were still pretty healthy—but it was taking careful management to stay that way.
Sure enough, the study proved what we suspected: ISSA Shiloh Shepherds have less genetic diversity than any other population of dogs in UC-Davis’s records. Our careful breed management had helped us to spread out the little diversity we did have. But now, we need to embrace this tool and move forward proactively.
A very small number of dogs were used to create our breed, and all of them were at least partially related. The UC-Davis study findings completely support this daunting fact. However, the study allowed us to locate the rare pockets of genes in our breed, so we can now work to save them. The idea is to keep our population healthier while we explore options to add fresh diversity (you can read about what we’re working on here).
But does this sort of thing really work? Absolutely. Zookeepers working with endangered species have been using this type of information to preserve rare animal populations. Even livestock farmers have been using this technology to keep their animals healthy. So, we as dog breeders are a little late to the party…but with so many other programs like this having proven success, we have high hopes for the future!
That’s your short view. For more information, check out the UC Davis Diversity page!