February 15, 2007

Pedigree Analysis Service for Working Australian Kelpies

Inbreeding co-efficient factors and homozygosity percentages. Extended pedigrees and complete ancestor lists.

Invaluable for planned breedings and breeding for specific traits. Send or e-mail parents and grandparents registered names to Kathy Gooch. 

Postal address: Click Here

Email:  outlawkelpie@bigpond.com

Fee:  $15.00 (AUD) per dog

Preferred payment by:

(International payments) - Click Here 

(Australian payments) - Click Here

*Note* Please contact me for the email address to send PayPal payments to.

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An informative tool in planning your next Working Kelpie Breeding is a complete pedigree analysis. This printed analysis is drawn from a database of over 4,000 Working Australian Kelpie pedigrees. (Please note this is NOT the Working Kelpie Council database) Along with an awareness of the genetic problems of the Working Kelpie, comes a need to better understand the dynamics of the individual pedigree. This enables the breeder to track down possible carriers of undesirable genetic traits and to build on the desirable genetic traits. It also enables the breeder to set a “type” and produce consistent working dogs, with consistent traits.

To understand the information that the analysis presents one must be familiar with the following terms;

Allele

An allele is an instance of a gene as found on a chromosome. With the exception of the sex chromosomes in the heterogametic sex, all chromosomes come in pairs and so there are two alleles for each gene present in a cell. Each gene has a set of possible alleles - this is the allemorphic series for the gene. Different combinations of alleles can result in different physical traits in an individual.

Homozygosity

A gene is said to be homozygous in an individual when both alleles for that gene are the same.

Inbreeding

Dogs that have common ancestors are said to be inbred - i.e. inbreeding has occurred. Common ancestors are those that occur on both the sire and dam sides of the pedigree. The greater the number common ancestors, and more importantly, the closer they are to the individual concerned, the higher the degree of inbreeding.

The coefficicient of inbreeding is a percentage value which can be calculated given a dog's ancestors. It is a complex calculation. It expresses the probability that the same gene has been inherited from both the dam and sire.

The higher the degree of inbreeding in an individual, the greater the homozygosity of the dog concerned. Very high values tend to lead to problems such as deformities in offspring and often need to be avoided. Within relatively closed populations, such as often found with new breeds, inbreeding can be a significant problem. An animal with an inbreeding coefficient factor of higher than 25% is considered to be highly inbred. Type can be set when coefficient factors remain between 11% and 25%.

The following sort orderings in the Pedigree Analysis program are available:

• By Blood% - The ancestors will be ordered according to the proportion of genes that have been inherited by the dog in question.

• By Closest Ancestor - The ancestors are ordered according to their "distance" from the dog in question. So parents will appear first, then grandparents etc.

• By Homozygosity - The ancestors are ordered according to the probability that both genes at any given locus in the dog in question have both been inherited from the same ancestor. This will generally place the common ancestors which are closest to the dog in question at the top of the list.

• By Name - Sorted by alphabetical ancestor name, not including any title.

• By No. of Occurrences - The ancestors are ordered according to the number of times they have occurred in the given number of generations.

An ancestor’s analysis is a table of mainly statistical information about the ancestors of a dog. These analyses may also be generated for matings and trial matings.

The table contains the following columns.

Blood% - The proportion of genes that have been inherited by the dog in question from the given ancestor.

• Name - The ancestor's name, including title.

• Sex - A single letter giving the sex of this ancestor.

• Count - The number of times the ancestor occurred in the given number of generations.

• Hom% - The probability that both genes at any given locus in the dog in question have both been inherited from the given ancestor. Note that the sum of all values in the Hom% column can exceed the coefficient of inbreeding of the dog in question, because some occurrences of common ancestors may be counted multiple times by summing in this way.

• Inbreed% - The coefficient of inbreeding of the ancestor, computed using the system default #generations for inbreeding computations.

• First - The closest generation in which this ancestor occurred.

• Where - The number of times the given ancestor was found at each generation on both sides of the pedigree. E.g. S5:3,D4 means that it occurred 3 times in the 5th generation in the sire side, and once in the 4th generation on the dam side.

• Breed - The short breed description of this ancestor.

In addition to the table, the following summary information is provided:

• The number of generations found that were full (no missing ancestors).

• The maximum number of generations that could be found (theoretically) for this number of generations.

• The highest generation at which an ancestor was found.

• The total number of ancestors actually found (with duplicates counted multiple times).

• The number unique ancestors actually found.

• The number of unique ancestors that are common to both sides of the pedigree.