The Issues with Inbreeding

 

When animals are inbred, it can cause many a health issue (not to mention the loss of genetic diversity). However, there sometimes can be some benefits to inbreeding. One of them being, you can have better chances of getting a desired trait. For instance: if two cat siblings have a brown coat color (homozygous recessive gene), and you want a kitten with a brown coat, the best chance to get that trait is with two homozygous recessive parents. That leads into my next benefit- speed. Inbreeding concentrates the gene so its occurrence increases quicker than if you used non-related parents. However, I believe there are more downsides to inbreeding than benefits.

Whenever I think of inbreeding, I think of what humans have done to many dog breeds within the last 100-150 years. Many of the perfect pooches we know today are nothing like they were in the early 1900s. Dogs have always been somewhat inbred in order to get their desired breed characteristics, but this accelerated in the early 1900s. People began breeding for the looks, however non-functional it would make the dog. There are many examples of this I could go into, but I will only do a couple. German Shepherds are one I think of a lot with the issue of inbreeding. As shown in the picture, German Shepherds used to have a much straighter, flatter back- you know, like a normal dog. However, due to the want of desired traits, this breed now has a sloped back, which ends up causing hip joint pain and arthritis for many of them. 

Another example is the English Bulldog. While they may be charming in their smooshed up face for some, I can only see health issues when I see a bulldog. For starters- that cute, pushed in schnoz causes the dogs to have a shorter airway. This breed basically has to pant its entire life just to get enough oxygen to their lungs. And not a cute pant either; a loud, obnoxious "heughghhh, heughhhhhh, heuuugggghh". Another issue with that wrinkly face is that those wrinkles are so deep, you have to clean them regularly to keep irritation, bacteria, and infection out. Finally, one of the worst results of inbreeding on this poor animal is the fact that their ratios are so jacked up, they can basically only give birth via c-section. The puppies' heads are usually too big to fit through mother's pelvis. That's right, almost every bulldog you know was delivered by c-section. Very rarely can they have a natural birth; the c-section option for this breed ends up being much safer for the puppies and for mama. That is about as unnatural as you can get for an animal. 










Comments

  1. Haley BurnsOctober 6, 2021 at 11:56 AM

    Wow. I had no idea Bulldogs were delivered via C section. That's really sad. I also mentioned dogs in my explanations of inbreeding. Inbreeding can be positive for concentrating certain genes but eventually what good is that when their joints are breaking down like Dachsunds with their long spines and short legs?

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  2. Emmary's Blog: EvolutionOctober 7, 2021 at 12:06 PM

    Thank you for sharing the examples of inbreeding in dogs! I had no idea bull dogs have to give birth via c-section. I wonder if people would still continue to buy the dogs if they knew... hmmm. Additionally, you mentioned how inbreeding can quicken the occurrence of a certain gene. I am curious on how long it would normally take, without inbreeding, to get this desired concentration. It must be substantially long, or people wouldn't risk the health of something in order to get what they want.

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  3. Caroline GatschetOctober 10, 2021 at 9:51 AM

    Hey Katie, the history of dog breeding is such a good example of the negative effects of inbreeding. I had no idea that all bulldogs had to be delivered with c-sections - that's certainly about as unnatural as one can get. It seems as if the more humans try to "play god" the more negative consequences begin to arise! Hopefully, in the coming years, breeders will realize how bad inbreeding has been for certain dog breeds and begin to attempt to reverse some of the negative effects. In the end, I think the overall health of these dogs is more important than how appealing they look to humans.

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