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I’m A Veterinarian And These Are The Types Of Dogs Most Affected By Inbreeding – It’s Shocking And Dangerous
A British vet talked about which dog breeds are most affected by inbreeding and why this is a problem.
Taking TikTok, the creator known as @ben.el.veterinariohe said he wants to “make people more aware of what purebred dogs are like.”
Ben explained, “I think if people really understood the situation they would be pretty shocked.”
He went on to explain that dog breeds are “a product of selective breeding that has been used to produce dogs that are suited to a particular job and have a particular appearance.”
He added: “And as part of this process of producing a breed of dog with its own unique characteristics, very similar individuals, often close relatives, will have been mated.”
A vet and TikTokker known as Ben the Vet made a video to highlight the problem of inbreeding in dogs and explain why this poses health risks to animals.
“But obviously the extent of this inbreeding will have varied a lot.”
Ben introduced the concept of the ‘reproduction coefficient’, or COI, which he described as ‘much less complicated than it sounds’ to further analyze inbreeding.
Referring to a table showing the effect of consanguinity between different relatives, he explained that if a father mates with his offspring (for example, father and daughter, or mother and son) or siblings interbreed, this results in a COI of 25. percent
Mating grandparents with grandchildren results in a COI of 12.5 percent, and that number drops with more distant relatives mating.
Ben said, “To get a 50 percent COI…you would have to mate two full siblings, for three generations in a row, to accumulate more inbreeding.”
The scientists previously used data from pedigreed dogs to calculate the COI. But, as the vet points out, the data “only goes back a limited number of generations.”
“Recently, a group of researchers used DNA analysis to calculate a genetic coefficient of inbreeding for dogs,” he explained.
They studied almost 50,000 dogs from 227 breeds and found that the average CMI was 24%.
The vet referred to research looking at the COI of dogs, which found that several breeds, including Cavalier King Charles Spaniels (pictured), have a COI of more than 40 percent.
“We know that 25 percent is the same amount of inbreeding as two siblings mating together. That is very inbred.
More worryingly, there were several dog breeds that had a COI of more than 40 percent.
Ben listed some of these breeds, including the Airedale, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, English Setter, Pug, Scottish Terrier, and Irish Wolfhound.
Ben noted that inbreeding is “well documented as bad for health and fitness.”
He continued: ‘These are levels considered well above what would be safe in humans or wild animal populations.
‘In humans, high levels of inbreeding [would be considered to be] only three to six percent.
Another breed that was found to have a COI of over 40 percent was the Pug (pictured). This level of inbreeding presents a variety of health risks to the animals.
The average COI in the study you were citing, 25 percent, has been “associated with a higher prevalence of complex diseases, as well as other conditions.”
Ben added: “It is also well documented that certain breeds of dogs are highly predisposed to particular health problems, including certain types of cancer.”
“The study also showed that dogs that were more inbred required more veterinary treatment, meaning they got more sick than dogs that were less inbred.”