How Close Is Too Close (Breeding Question)?

[Grange]

I'm asking this question at the request of my parents. First let me apologize for the complexity of this post. They asked me not give names or post the pedigrees so I will respect their wishes, but that makes the question even more difficult to ask.

Background: My parents have a male brittany and just got confirmation that they are getting a female brittany from a different breeder than the one they bought their male from.

Their male brittany and the new female puppy have different parents, but they have the same grandparents on the male's sire's side and the female's dam's side. In other words the male's sire is a full brother to the female's dam.

To further complicate things the male and the female have the same grand sire on three of the four sides. The males grand sire on his sires side is the same as the females grandsire on both sides.

I'll use fake names to see if I can confuse everyone even more.

Bill = Parent's male brittany
Sara = Parent's new female brittany

Frank = Bill's Sire
Lisa = Bill's Dam

Mike = Sara's Sire
Molly = Sara's Dam

Albert = Frank's, Mike's and Molly's Sire thus Bill's and Sara's Grand Sire.

Molly and Frank are full brother and sister (don't know if from the same litter).

So the question is could my parents breed the male (Bill) to the female (Sara) or would their bloodlines be too close? Or is this what I hear people call line breeding?

[Karen]

Check the pedigree in my signature for Tessa. Hope's Autumn Sno Storm and Autumn Sno's Steppin Out are full brother and sister....Tessa's grandparents.

Is that what you're talking about? If so, it's line breeding....but then anything is line breeding as long as nothing goes wrong. If something goes wrong, then it's inbreeding.

I'd be comfortable with that breeding

[Grange]

Yes. That is what I'm talking about. Hope's Dream Weaver would be the same as any offspring from my parent's two dogs if they were bred together.

[Maverick]

Line breeding can be a great thing, especially if there is something there really great you want to keep or really bring out in a dog. Just remember the opposite is true as well. Any flaws are also brought forward and can be made worse.
Make sure you know what you want out of the breeding before you do it and evaluate what you hope to get from it.

Mav........

[WildRose]

By definition line breeding does not involve siblings, half siblings, father/daughter or Son/mother. Those are all in breeding and those type matings carry an extremely high risk of problems genetically.

Linebreeding however, (which involves any combination of relatives other than those above) is something that is often and carefully done by breeders trying to concentrate the strong points of a given sire/dam.

A breeding two individuals sharing the same grandparent three out of four times is one that will likely produce offspring similar to that common grand parent. It is not by any means considered to be inbreeding but one has to be careful when linebreeding because at the same rate you are increasing your chances for traits you want to reproduce to appear, traits you might not want to appear in the offspring can be duplicated at the same rate.

If/when you line breed and even more so when you inbreed you have to be prepared to make some very tough decisions as far as culling goes. Whele is to many in the dog world regarded as the master of line breeding and inbreeding but it wasn't beyond him to keep entire litters for a year or more then cull them ruthlessly to eliminate the "genetically deficient" offspring. CR

[ezzy333]

The breeding youare talking about should be fine unless there is some glaring fault you do not want to carry to the next generation. After trying it, just like any other breeding you have to decide if it produced dogs that meet your approval or not and if it doesn't don't breed them again.

The answer is do it as there should be no great problem. Most of my dogs over the years were tightly line bred and there was only one breeding I wouldn't repeat.

Ezzy