As a dog breeder, there is a responsibility to the animal to make sure they are well-looked after and their best interests are at heart. Regular scans via ultrasound imaging can help to establish pregnancy and determine the stage of gestation, as well as helping to detect any problems throughout the process. The type of dogs being bred should also be taken into account – using two individuals that are closely related could cause adverse effects further down the line. A paper published in the Journal of animal breeding and genetics by Windig JJ et al., ‘Limits to genetic rescue by outcross in pedigree dogs.’ on 2018 Jun;135(3):238-248 addresses this issue, and the abstract is looked at this week. The link to the full article can be found by clicking here.

In order to avoid any issues due to inbreeding, outcrossing (where dogs with different genetics are bred together) can be carried out, and this study looked at how this technique could impact the dogs in question following computer-based analysis.

Results revealed that inbreeding could be decreased in situations where outcrossing was introduced – the more outcrosses carried out, the lower the incidence of inbreeding was found to be. In contrast, where a technique called backcrossing was carried out (where dogs with similar genetics were bred together), the introduction of outcrossing was not found to be as effective.

This publication demonstrates that when breeding dogs, in order to avoid any of the pitfalls associated with inbreeding, outcrossing should be carried out on a regular and consistent basis. If you are thinking about dog breeding, take a look at our website to see the different kinds of ultrasound scanners we stock, or feel free to contact us.