This week, Tony takes a deep dive into dog genetics to explain not only how they affect aesthetics, but also all sorts of positive and negative behaviors we might not fully attribute to their bloodlines.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Foundation's podcast. I'm your host
Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about understanding genetics
and why that matters to our relationship with our dogs.
It's so many different and unexpected ways. You know, some
topics in the dog world, and I guess I should
say in the world in general, are often talked about,
but you know, kind of rarely fully understood or even
(00:26):
partially understood. Honestly, there are a lot of memes out
there about, you know, how people become sudden experts at
whatever hot topic their political parties interested in or their
political rivals are focused on. And it's sort of true.
We love to pretend we know what's going on because
it's more fun than being like, well, I don't have
a freaking clue and where am I going with this? Genetics?
(00:48):
Dog genetics specifically, this topic is wide reaching, often kind
of not well understood, but plays a huge role in
our relationship with our dogs. It's something I'm going to
dive into right now. A lot of you find listeners
might not know this, but yours truly is a space geek.
(01:11):
Now by that, I don't mean I wear a spock
Star trek suit. And go to conventions to nerd out,
but really just space in general astronomy, understanding the universe
and trying to understand how people way weigh way smarter
than me actually figure things out when you're working with
distances of millions and trillions and billions of miles lots
(01:32):
of miles anyway light years. I love that stuff, and
I pay attention to the various companies as well as
NASA that are working hard to make space exploration cheaper
and more accessible to the masses. My wife, on the
other hand, does not know shit about space, and so
it was with immense pleasure that I recently got to
listen to her try to explain to somebody how we
(01:53):
as a species are trying to make it to Mars.
It would kind of be like if I try to
explain to you guys how internal combustion engines REA work.
You know, I could be like, well, fuel gets injected
into a chamber and then a spark plug blows the
whole thing up and it moves a piston, and you know,
then the car goes forward and we all get blizzards
at the Dairy Queen drive through. Now, while I might
technically kind of be correct. That's pretty surface level stuff.
(02:17):
I could go off on topics like this forever, but
I won't. I'll get to the meat in the old
Potwatoas of this whole podcast, which is genetics, we understand
that a dog's genetics are somewhat of a predictor of
a lot of things, but also kind of a mystery
sort of. So let's start with the basics and head
back to fourth grade science class. For any of you
(02:38):
maple syrup slurping neighbors to the north, that's grade four
if you're confused. Now, if you took a look inside
most cells with a powerful enough microscope, you'd see DNA
deoxyribonucleic acid. This is a chain like molecule that contains
four bases adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. These pair up
(02:58):
always adding to I mean in site is eniguani. A
gene is just a section of DNA that is considered
one basic unit of inheritance, and it's also coded for
a specific trait or characteristic. In dogs, that might mean
they have a gene for a short coat or for
yellow fur, but most genes are coded for proteins that
(03:20):
do specific jobs In the dog's body. Dogs get genes
from their parents in certain patterns called modes of inheritance. Literally,
the parents pass down a whole bunch of programming that
makes them what they are, which is why you want
to know what kind of dogs are being used to
create the litter from which you'll snag your necks pupster.
(03:42):
DNA is not perfect, though, and creating newer versions of
ourselves isn't a perfect process. There are mutations that happen
all the time, mostly because there are billions and billions
of opportunities for that to happen. Now, these are generally
viewed as a negative, but mostly they're just a neutral.
They don't cause anything good or bad to happen. They
(04:03):
are just small, inconsequential mistakes. They happen all the time.
Some aren't, though, and they can bring on some serious
health risks or traits that you just don't want in
your duck. Mutations and genes are the driving force behind
evolution as well, which is often misunderstood. Evolution isn't a
conscious process to produce better organisms. It's a result of
(04:23):
genetic mutations occasionally resulting in something beneficial that provides a
reproductive advantage when mixed with a specific environment of that organism.
A simple way to look at this would be to
consider giraffes. They are tall, but some aren't as tall
as others. Now, if you had a region where the
trees were the most nutritious leaves on them were only
available to the tallest of giraffes, the taller ones would
(04:47):
probably make more baby giraffes because they'd be healthier. They'd
be able to fight for territory and mates more effectively
than a short ass giraffe who can only reach the
less nutritious leaves. It's not intentional, it's just how go now.
Alleles are variations of DNA sequences, and chromosomes are long
(05:07):
strands of DNA that live inside the nucleus of a cell.
While humans have twenty three pairs of chromosomes, dogs have
thirty nine. The genome is a complete set of DNA
in an organism, and it is mind blowing that we've
mapped the entire genome in a whole bunch of different critters.
Now you have dominant and recessive alleles, which is where
(05:30):
we start bumping up against things that actually matter to
people who are buying dogs. Recessive alleles will only be
expressed if a dog has two copies of them, Otherwise
there will be a recessive and a dominant one. And
guess who wins out there. To understand this, consider the
lovable Labrador retriever. While there are quite a few designer
(05:50):
coat colors out there now, the lab is generally considered
to have three options, black, yellow, and chocolate. And I know,
I know there's reds, and there's all kinds of stuff
out there, and their silvers and everything else, and I'm
not going to get into it because I don't care
right now. Black, yellow, and chocolate are what we're talking about.
So for potential puppy buyers looking for a black or
a chocolate lab, consider this. Black is a dominant allele.
(06:16):
It's going to win out every time unless each parent
contributes the recessive alleles associated with chocolate coats. Now, for
one or both parents contributes to black dominant allele, you
get a black pup. This is one of the reasons
why an awful lot of the best labs to ever
hit the scene over the years have been black, because
they aren't generally bred for their color. Black is just
a default setting. It shows up a lot chocolates, on
(06:39):
the other hand, are often bred for color because you
have to try a lot harder to match up two
parents who will specifically contribute that coat color and make
a litter of little brown pupsters happen. The gene that
determines yellow coats and labs is different from the one
that makes the decision on black or brown. Yellow pups
come from both parents contributing a different specif and if
(07:01):
they don't, you get a black or a chocolate Also,
in a crazy twist, when you get a yellow coated dog,
the genes still express themselves as black or chocolate pigment
in the dog's skin, just not the hair. All of
this is kind of surface level stuff For a reason,
it's a hell of a lot easier to understand genetics
when you're dealing with the aesthetics of a dog. Because
(07:22):
coat coloring and general size and shape are easily visible
to us, they're easy to understand. We can see dogs
with short snouts and understand that their parents had short snouts,
and it all kind of makes sense. What about personality traits, though,
This is where it gets a little harder to understand,
But there is important stuff here. Think about something like
natural hold and carry. A lot of good trainers will
(07:43):
tell you that natural hold and carry gives them a
lot to work with right out of the gate, because
a puppy that wants to do that can be rewarded
for doing something we generally want them to do, which
is pick up and hold something. So if you have
two parents that can't not have something in their mouths
at all times and they make a litter, will you
have ten adorable pupps just fighting to pick up sticks
and toys and whatever else right out of the gate.
(08:06):
Not for sure, but it's a hell of a good start.
The behavior of finding something and picking it up is
pretty much standard across dog babies and well, human babies.
They take in the world that way, at least partially.
But to have one a puppy, not an infant human,
that likes to carry something around for quite a while
is a different thing, a more complex behavior that is
(08:27):
far more difficult to accurately predict. Now, as you can imagine,
since we all love dogs so damn much, some of
this stuff is pretty well researched and studied. Most of
this heavy lifting science about dogs, you know, comes from
standardized tests. You know, the kind that you know, controlled
environments where they tease out as many confounding variables as possible.
(08:50):
These have been used to test for heritability in dogs
for crazy things like gun shyness and labrador retrievers. Now
you might think that's bonkers, and you're probably not totally wrong,
because you can make any dog gun shy if you
really want to, but please don't. You also probably wouldn't
want to start with a dog that has inherited the
traits that might make it more likely to develop gunshiness
(09:12):
from stimuli that maybe wouldn't get it to stick in
other dogs. If genetics has a fighting chance of predicting
some level of gunshiness potential, you can bet your ass
that it's going to allow you to count on some
behaviors and potential pups think about barking, prey drive, general intelligence,
(09:43):
problem solving skills. These traits are heritable, and while they
aren't one hundred percent predictable, you can certainly hedge a
hell of a lot of your bets on what you'll
get in a puppy, and that's important. When you talk
to a good trainer, they'll talk about potential. A lot
dog has a ceiling for what it can be taught
to do. But you want that ceiling to be as
(10:04):
high as possible when you start. If you take two
low prey drive dogs, you get them together, and you
make a litter of puppies with them, you're probably gonna
have low prey drive in those newborn pups and it's
going to be pretty easy to find the ceiling on there.
And that ceiling is going to be lower than you want.
But you might think that's all fine and dandy because
(10:24):
the dog will be a couch potato at home, probably,
but it'll also be underwhelming during training and during hunting.
You can work with whatever you've got, but if there
isn't much there to begin with, there isn't much there
to work with. You can't win a NASCAR race in
a two thousand and three four tourist, no matter how
good of a driver you are. Genetics are responsible for
(10:45):
the best traits we really want in our dogs. They
are also responsible for the worst, and this is where
we often get into trouble. This is no more evidence
than by the purebred label. What does that mean to
you to have a purebred dog? Hopefully not as much
as it used to twenty or thirty years ago. Now,
I'm not saying you don't want a purebred wire hair
(11:06):
or GSP or English cocker or whatever, because you probably do.
But purebread alone can mean many things. It's a qualifier,
but it's also a broad statement and can hide some
stuff you definitely don't want any your dog. Stuff like inbreeding. Now,
we make a lot of jokes about inbreeding because inherently
we know what it can lead to. In fact, I
made a joke to a woman not that long ago
while I was the designated pitcher in a big game
(11:28):
of whiffle ball, where she swung the bat like someone
who had never even heard of the concept of baseball.
So I asked her if her parents were cousins, And
it turns out they were like third cousins, but still
it was pretty awkward. No one wants an inbred dog,
but you know what, inmbred dogs are all over the place,
and you know what inbreeding does. You know why it's bad?
(11:50):
It reduces genetic diversity. The system of inheritance that relies
on dominant genes to show up and take charge is
also subject to those recessive genes meeting genes in them
taking charge Like that chocolate lab coat color, for example.
But if you have related mates, those are sessive genes
that couldn't get a chance to get called up to
the big leagues before now have a better chance of
(12:12):
doing just that because both parents are most likely to
have them because they're related. This is where the puppy
mill thing gets really bad. Well on top of the
whole host of other reasons why they are bad, like
the general condition of the dogs and on and on.
But a breeder who is solely intent on producing more
litters of pups to sell because you know, cute Golden
Retriever puppies bring in a certain amount of money, is
(12:34):
bound to be careless with the bloodlines. They're not there
at the end of the dog's life, just at the
beginning where they want to make money. There's base level
capitalism at play there, and it doesn't bode well for
those puppies in their quality of life or their average lifespan,
or the owners who have to deal with them. Take
your pick of ill effects here. You can get metabolic issues,
(12:54):
blood disorders, orthopedic problems, fertility issues, I cite problems, certain
kinds of cancer, and on and on down the line.
Genetics matter a lot, and this is where the danger
lies in thinking about dog breeds all as one kind
of thing like uh, German short hairs are high drive,
lovable goofballs that will get the zoomies one minute and
then being your lap the next. While that certainly describes
(13:17):
plenty of gsps, it's mostly like which specific GSP which
dog will be this thing or do that thing, or
have this trait, but not that one. Now, no one
who knows anything about business or dogs wouldever advertise their
dogs as inbred. But you do also have line breeding,
which is kind of a weasel word way to say
the same thing. Line breeding is inbreeding with extra steps
(13:40):
where the dogs share some kind of distant ancestor. Now,
this isn't as dangerous as putting a couple of littermates
together to produce the next round of puppies, But it's
not so simple. Now. A lot of breeders will argue
that line breeding can produce clear bloodlines, because they can.
They certainly can. But genetics is a game of potential outcomes.
Some are certainties and some are just higher or lower
(14:01):
in their likelihood. Knowingly, breeding dogs with the same ancestors
is a game that hinges heavily on how many ancestors
are involved and how far back they are in the breeding. Again,
it's just genetic diversity. It matters a lot here. This
is one of the reasons why you hear so much
about mutts being healthier than purebred dogs. In general, the
(14:23):
likelihood of a pair of recessive genes that call for
some heritable disease is just very, very low when a
Schnauzer gets busy with a Great Dane or a monster
Lander spends Valentine's Day with a Springer Spaniel. So what
does all this mean to you? Probably not much until
it's time to get a new puppy, or your dog
starts to develop some kind of issue and you realize
(14:43):
their health isn't great, or your bird dog falls into
your footsteps ten minutes after you step into the field
and try to scrounge up a limited roosters. Genetics matter
a lot, but they aren't easy for the average person
to understand when it comes to what they mean to
specific dogs. A great way to sort of work around
well this is to fine breeders who seem to understand
genetics well, ones who work hard to not only source
(15:06):
the best dogs they can, but to keep things nice
and diversified in their breedings so their dogs don't all
of a sudden start to develop hip displays at six
years old. This is also something we should pay attention
to in our dogs as much as we love them.
In fact, that's the topic I'm going to get into
in two weeks, which basically means I'm going to break
down how easy it is to overlook flaws in our dogs.
(15:27):
But we shouldn't do that because it can lead to
a whole lot of negative outcomes. Instead, at least right now,
think about what you like about your dog and what
you don't. Most of those issues, aside from general training problems,
I guess, will involve some genetic component. We aren't at
the point yet where you can just order up a
dog with very specific traits that has been created in
(15:49):
a lab via crisper, But that shit's coming. Until then,
it's a good idea to just take stock in your dog.
Are you sick to death of it barking at every
person who walks past your house? Maybe you're a next
puppy will come from a litter, you know, where they're
not known to be loud, They're known to be very quiet.
In general, the parents are quiet. You won't guarantee yourself
a non barker this way, but you will have a
(16:10):
better shot at getting just that if the parents aren't
particularly vocal. Maybe you're sick of you're eighty five pound
lab eating two bags of dog food a week and
knocking most of your stuff off your end tables with
its giant tail and big dumb head. Perhaps there's a
litter of fifty to sixty pounders that might be more
of your style. Maybe you just struggle to train your
current dog to do some of the basics or some
(16:32):
of the higher up advanced stuff, and you want a
dog with some more horsepower between its ears. Intelligence and
problem solving aren't all that easy to read in a pedigree,
But then again, if you see a whole bunch of
field trial and hunt test champions in the mix, it's
pretty likely that the intelligence is there, because otherwise the
parents and grandparents wouldn't have been able to get titled.
(16:53):
If this sounds like a bridge too far and you
kind of like the mystery of getting a dog without
having to have a PhD in genetics, think about how
we often consider this on a lower level, almost everyone
focuses on the look of dogs, at least partially in
their choice, and that hinges entirely on genetics, size two
and health. Of course, we are already there on a
(17:15):
basic level with our artificial selection of dog breeding. So
why not dig a little deeper and try to find
a dog that will really be what you're looking for.
You know you're gonna love it anyway no matter what,
but maybe it'll be that really special rockstar dog that
changes the course of your life or at least helps
you fill your freezer with green heads in late October.
(17:36):
Think about that, think about coming back in two weeks
because I'm going to talk about how we all have
blinders on with our dogs. I'm going to tell you
a couple of stories. They're going to piss you right off,
and I'm going to just go into this super important
category that I think we should all be aware of
so we can do better with our dogs. That's it.
(17:56):
I'm Tony Peterson. This has been The Houndation's podcast. As
I always, I want to thank you so much for
listening for all your support. You know, it was about
a month ago when we had dog Week here at
Meat Eater, and you guys showed up for the photo contest.
It was great. You consumed a bunch of the content.
We dropped a ton of articles, I dropped extra podcasts.
It was a big deal. Was awesome. You're still here,
(18:16):
You're still supporting us, and we truly appreciate that. If
you want more content, the mediator dot com has you covered.
We dropped new podcasts, new films, new articles, new recipes,
new all kinds of stuff. Literally every day there's new
content going up the mediator dot com. Go check it out.
Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Foundation's podcast. I'm your host
Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about understanding genetics
and why that matters to our relationship with our dogs.
It's so many different and unexpected ways. You know, some
topics in the dog world, and I guess I should
say in the world in general, are often talked about,
but you know, kind of rarely fully understood or even
(00:26):
partially understood. Honestly, there are a lot of memes out
there about, you know, how people become sudden experts at
whatever hot topic their political parties interested in or their
political rivals are focused on. And it's sort of true.
We love to pretend we know what's going on because
it's more fun than being like, well, I don't have
a freaking clue and where am I going with this? Genetics?
(00:48):
Dog genetics specifically, this topic is wide reaching, often kind
of not well understood, but plays a huge role in
our relationship with our dogs. It's something I'm going to
dive into right now. A lot of you find listeners
might not know this, but yours truly is a space geek.
(01:11):
Now by that, I don't mean I wear a spock
Star trek suit. And go to conventions to nerd out,
but really just space in general astronomy, understanding the universe
and trying to understand how people way weigh way smarter
than me actually figure things out when you're working with
distances of millions and trillions and billions of miles lots
(01:32):
of miles anyway light years. I love that stuff, and
I pay attention to the various companies as well as
NASA that are working hard to make space exploration cheaper
and more accessible to the masses. My wife, on the
other hand, does not know shit about space, and so
it was with immense pleasure that I recently got to
listen to her try to explain to somebody how we
(01:53):
as a species are trying to make it to Mars.
It would kind of be like if I try to
explain to you guys how internal combustion engines REA work.
You know, I could be like, well, fuel gets injected
into a chamber and then a spark plug blows the
whole thing up and it moves a piston, and you know,
then the car goes forward and we all get blizzards
at the Dairy Queen drive through. Now, while I might
technically kind of be correct. That's pretty surface level stuff.
(02:17):
I could go off on topics like this forever, but
I won't. I'll get to the meat in the old
Potwatoas of this whole podcast, which is genetics, we understand
that a dog's genetics are somewhat of a predictor of
a lot of things, but also kind of a mystery
sort of. So let's start with the basics and head
back to fourth grade science class. For any of you
(02:38):
maple syrup slurping neighbors to the north, that's grade four
if you're confused. Now, if you took a look inside
most cells with a powerful enough microscope, you'd see DNA
deoxyribonucleic acid. This is a chain like molecule that contains
four bases adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. These pair up
(02:58):
always adding to I mean in site is eniguani. A
gene is just a section of DNA that is considered
one basic unit of inheritance, and it's also coded for
a specific trait or characteristic. In dogs, that might mean
they have a gene for a short coat or for
yellow fur, but most genes are coded for proteins that
(03:20):
do specific jobs In the dog's body. Dogs get genes
from their parents in certain patterns called modes of inheritance. Literally,
the parents pass down a whole bunch of programming that
makes them what they are, which is why you want
to know what kind of dogs are being used to
create the litter from which you'll snag your necks pupster.
(03:42):
DNA is not perfect, though, and creating newer versions of
ourselves isn't a perfect process. There are mutations that happen
all the time, mostly because there are billions and billions
of opportunities for that to happen. Now, these are generally
viewed as a negative, but mostly they're just a neutral.
They don't cause anything good or bad to happen. They
(04:03):
are just small, inconsequential mistakes. They happen all the time.
Some aren't, though, and they can bring on some serious
health risks or traits that you just don't want in
your duck. Mutations and genes are the driving force behind
evolution as well, which is often misunderstood. Evolution isn't a
conscious process to produce better organisms. It's a result of
(04:23):
genetic mutations occasionally resulting in something beneficial that provides a
reproductive advantage when mixed with a specific environment of that organism.
A simple way to look at this would be to
consider giraffes. They are tall, but some aren't as tall
as others. Now, if you had a region where the
trees were the most nutritious leaves on them were only
available to the tallest of giraffes, the taller ones would
(04:47):
probably make more baby giraffes because they'd be healthier. They'd
be able to fight for territory and mates more effectively
than a short ass giraffe who can only reach the
less nutritious leaves. It's not intentional, it's just how go now.
Alleles are variations of DNA sequences, and chromosomes are long
(05:07):
strands of DNA that live inside the nucleus of a cell.
While humans have twenty three pairs of chromosomes, dogs have
thirty nine. The genome is a complete set of DNA
in an organism, and it is mind blowing that we've
mapped the entire genome in a whole bunch of different critters.
Now you have dominant and recessive alleles, which is where
(05:30):
we start bumping up against things that actually matter to
people who are buying dogs. Recessive alleles will only be
expressed if a dog has two copies of them, Otherwise
there will be a recessive and a dominant one. And
guess who wins out there. To understand this, consider the
lovable Labrador retriever. While there are quite a few designer
(05:50):
coat colors out there now, the lab is generally considered
to have three options, black, yellow, and chocolate. And I know,
I know there's reds, and there's all kinds of stuff
out there, and their silvers and everything else, and I'm
not going to get into it because I don't care
right now. Black, yellow, and chocolate are what we're talking about.
So for potential puppy buyers looking for a black or
a chocolate lab, consider this. Black is a dominant allele.
(06:16):
It's going to win out every time unless each parent
contributes the recessive alleles associated with chocolate coats. Now, for
one or both parents contributes to black dominant allele, you
get a black pup. This is one of the reasons
why an awful lot of the best labs to ever
hit the scene over the years have been black, because
they aren't generally bred for their color. Black is just
a default setting. It shows up a lot chocolates, on
(06:39):
the other hand, are often bred for color because you
have to try a lot harder to match up two
parents who will specifically contribute that coat color and make
a litter of little brown pupsters happen. The gene that
determines yellow coats and labs is different from the one
that makes the decision on black or brown. Yellow pups
come from both parents contributing a different specif and if
(07:01):
they don't, you get a black or a chocolate Also,
in a crazy twist, when you get a yellow coated dog,
the genes still express themselves as black or chocolate pigment
in the dog's skin, just not the hair. All of
this is kind of surface level stuff For a reason,
it's a hell of a lot easier to understand genetics
when you're dealing with the aesthetics of a dog. Because
(07:22):
coat coloring and general size and shape are easily visible
to us, they're easy to understand. We can see dogs
with short snouts and understand that their parents had short snouts,
and it all kind of makes sense. What about personality traits, though,
This is where it gets a little harder to understand,
But there is important stuff here. Think about something like
natural hold and carry. A lot of good trainers will
(07:43):
tell you that natural hold and carry gives them a
lot to work with right out of the gate, because
a puppy that wants to do that can be rewarded
for doing something we generally want them to do, which
is pick up and hold something. So if you have
two parents that can't not have something in their mouths
at all times and they make a litter, will you
have ten adorable pupps just fighting to pick up sticks
and toys and whatever else right out of the gate.
(08:06):
Not for sure, but it's a hell of a good start.
The behavior of finding something and picking it up is
pretty much standard across dog babies and well, human babies.
They take in the world that way, at least partially.
But to have one a puppy, not an infant human,
that likes to carry something around for quite a while
is a different thing, a more complex behavior that is
(08:27):
far more difficult to accurately predict. Now, as you can imagine,
since we all love dogs so damn much, some of
this stuff is pretty well researched and studied. Most of
this heavy lifting science about dogs, you know, comes from
standardized tests. You know, the kind that you know, controlled
environments where they tease out as many confounding variables as possible.
(08:50):
These have been used to test for heritability in dogs
for crazy things like gun shyness and labrador retrievers. Now
you might think that's bonkers, and you're probably not totally wrong,
because you can make any dog gun shy if you
really want to, but please don't. You also probably wouldn't
want to start with a dog that has inherited the
traits that might make it more likely to develop gunshiness
(09:12):
from stimuli that maybe wouldn't get it to stick in
other dogs. If genetics has a fighting chance of predicting
some level of gunshiness potential, you can bet your ass
that it's going to allow you to count on some
behaviors and potential pups think about barking, prey drive, general intelligence,
(09:43):
problem solving skills. These traits are heritable, and while they
aren't one hundred percent predictable, you can certainly hedge a
hell of a lot of your bets on what you'll
get in a puppy, and that's important. When you talk
to a good trainer, they'll talk about potential. A lot
dog has a ceiling for what it can be taught
to do. But you want that ceiling to be as
(10:04):
high as possible when you start. If you take two
low prey drive dogs, you get them together, and you
make a litter of puppies with them, you're probably gonna
have low prey drive in those newborn pups and it's
going to be pretty easy to find the ceiling on there.
And that ceiling is going to be lower than you want.
But you might think that's all fine and dandy because
(10:24):
the dog will be a couch potato at home, probably,
but it'll also be underwhelming during training and during hunting.
You can work with whatever you've got, but if there
isn't much there to begin with, there isn't much there
to work with. You can't win a NASCAR race in
a two thousand and three four tourist, no matter how
good of a driver you are. Genetics are responsible for
(10:45):
the best traits we really want in our dogs. They
are also responsible for the worst, and this is where
we often get into trouble. This is no more evidence
than by the purebred label. What does that mean to
you to have a purebred dog? Hopefully not as much
as it used to twenty or thirty years ago. Now,
I'm not saying you don't want a purebred wire hair
(11:06):
or GSP or English cocker or whatever, because you probably do.
But purebread alone can mean many things. It's a qualifier,
but it's also a broad statement and can hide some
stuff you definitely don't want any your dog. Stuff like inbreeding. Now,
we make a lot of jokes about inbreeding because inherently
we know what it can lead to. In fact, I
made a joke to a woman not that long ago
while I was the designated pitcher in a big game
(11:28):
of whiffle ball, where she swung the bat like someone
who had never even heard of the concept of baseball.
So I asked her if her parents were cousins, And
it turns out they were like third cousins, but still
it was pretty awkward. No one wants an inbred dog,
but you know what, inmbred dogs are all over the place,
and you know what inbreeding does. You know why it's bad?
(11:50):
It reduces genetic diversity. The system of inheritance that relies
on dominant genes to show up and take charge is
also subject to those recessive genes meeting genes in them
taking charge Like that chocolate lab coat color, for example.
But if you have related mates, those are sessive genes
that couldn't get a chance to get called up to
the big leagues before now have a better chance of
(12:12):
doing just that because both parents are most likely to
have them because they're related. This is where the puppy
mill thing gets really bad. Well on top of the
whole host of other reasons why they are bad, like
the general condition of the dogs and on and on.
But a breeder who is solely intent on producing more
litters of pups to sell because you know, cute Golden
Retriever puppies bring in a certain amount of money, is
(12:34):
bound to be careless with the bloodlines. They're not there
at the end of the dog's life, just at the
beginning where they want to make money. There's base level
capitalism at play there, and it doesn't bode well for
those puppies in their quality of life or their average lifespan,
or the owners who have to deal with them. Take
your pick of ill effects here. You can get metabolic issues,
(12:54):
blood disorders, orthopedic problems, fertility issues, I cite problems, certain
kinds of cancer, and on and on down the line.
Genetics matter a lot, and this is where the danger
lies in thinking about dog breeds all as one kind
of thing like uh, German short hairs are high drive,
lovable goofballs that will get the zoomies one minute and
then being your lap the next. While that certainly describes
(13:17):
plenty of gsps, it's mostly like which specific GSP which
dog will be this thing or do that thing, or
have this trait, but not that one. Now, no one
who knows anything about business or dogs wouldever advertise their
dogs as inbred. But you do also have line breeding,
which is kind of a weasel word way to say
the same thing. Line breeding is inbreeding with extra steps
(13:40):
where the dogs share some kind of distant ancestor. Now,
this isn't as dangerous as putting a couple of littermates
together to produce the next round of puppies, But it's
not so simple. Now. A lot of breeders will argue
that line breeding can produce clear bloodlines, because they can.
They certainly can. But genetics is a game of potential outcomes.
Some are certainties and some are just higher or lower
(14:01):
in their likelihood. Knowingly, breeding dogs with the same ancestors
is a game that hinges heavily on how many ancestors
are involved and how far back they are in the breeding. Again,
it's just genetic diversity. It matters a lot here. This
is one of the reasons why you hear so much
about mutts being healthier than purebred dogs. In general, the
(14:23):
likelihood of a pair of recessive genes that call for
some heritable disease is just very, very low when a
Schnauzer gets busy with a Great Dane or a monster
Lander spends Valentine's Day with a Springer Spaniel. So what
does all this mean to you? Probably not much until
it's time to get a new puppy, or your dog
starts to develop some kind of issue and you realize
(14:43):
their health isn't great, or your bird dog falls into
your footsteps ten minutes after you step into the field
and try to scrounge up a limited roosters. Genetics matter
a lot, but they aren't easy for the average person
to understand when it comes to what they mean to
specific dogs. A great way to sort of work around
well this is to fine breeders who seem to understand
genetics well, ones who work hard to not only source
(15:06):
the best dogs they can, but to keep things nice
and diversified in their breedings so their dogs don't all
of a sudden start to develop hip displays at six
years old. This is also something we should pay attention
to in our dogs as much as we love them.
In fact, that's the topic I'm going to get into
in two weeks, which basically means I'm going to break
down how easy it is to overlook flaws in our dogs.
(15:27):
But we shouldn't do that because it can lead to
a whole lot of negative outcomes. Instead, at least right now,
think about what you like about your dog and what
you don't. Most of those issues, aside from general training problems,
I guess, will involve some genetic component. We aren't at
the point yet where you can just order up a
dog with very specific traits that has been created in
(15:49):
a lab via crisper, But that shit's coming. Until then,
it's a good idea to just take stock in your dog.
Are you sick to death of it barking at every
person who walks past your house? Maybe you're a next
puppy will come from a litter, you know, where they're
not known to be loud, They're known to be very quiet.
In general, the parents are quiet. You won't guarantee yourself
a non barker this way, but you will have a
(16:10):
better shot at getting just that if the parents aren't
particularly vocal. Maybe you're sick of you're eighty five pound
lab eating two bags of dog food a week and
knocking most of your stuff off your end tables with
its giant tail and big dumb head. Perhaps there's a
litter of fifty to sixty pounders that might be more
of your style. Maybe you just struggle to train your
current dog to do some of the basics or some
(16:32):
of the higher up advanced stuff, and you want a
dog with some more horsepower between its ears. Intelligence and
problem solving aren't all that easy to read in a pedigree,
But then again, if you see a whole bunch of
field trial and hunt test champions in the mix, it's
pretty likely that the intelligence is there, because otherwise the
parents and grandparents wouldn't have been able to get titled.
(16:53):
If this sounds like a bridge too far and you
kind of like the mystery of getting a dog without
having to have a PhD in genetics, think about how
we often consider this on a lower level, almost everyone
focuses on the look of dogs, at least partially in
their choice, and that hinges entirely on genetics, size two
and health. Of course, we are already there on a
(17:15):
basic level with our artificial selection of dog breeding. So
why not dig a little deeper and try to find
a dog that will really be what you're looking for.
You know you're gonna love it anyway no matter what,
but maybe it'll be that really special rockstar dog that
changes the course of your life or at least helps
you fill your freezer with green heads in late October.
(17:36):
Think about that, think about coming back in two weeks
because I'm going to talk about how we all have
blinders on with our dogs. I'm going to tell you
a couple of stories. They're going to piss you right off,
and I'm going to just go into this super important
category that I think we should all be aware of
so we can do better with our dogs. That's it.
(17:56):
I'm Tony Peterson. This has been The Houndation's podcast. As
I always, I want to thank you so much for
listening for all your support. You know, it was about
a month ago when we had dog Week here at
Meat Eater, and you guys showed up for the photo contest.
It was great. You consumed a bunch of the content.
We dropped a ton of articles, I dropped extra podcasts.
It was a big deal. Was awesome. You're still here,
(18:16):
You're still supporting us, and we truly appreciate that. If
you want more content, the mediator dot com has you covered.
We dropped new podcasts, new films, new articles, new recipes,
new all kinds of stuff. Literally every day there's new
content going up the mediator dot com. Go check it out.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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