• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Question about pet breeding.

korenyx

Graduate Poster
K
Joined
Jan 11, 2007
Messages
1,078
Location
19th Century Kansas
I've heard that once a purebred dog or cat has a litter fathered by a mutt (or the feline equivalent) they are ruined for breeding purposes.
The dog or cat is said to retain genetic material from the previous mating that is passed on.
This doesn't happen to other mammals so why would it be true of dogs and cats?
 
korenyx said:
I've heard that once a purebred dog or cat has a litter fathered by a mutt (or the feline equivalent) they are ruined for breeding purposes.
The dog or cat is said to retain genetic material from the previous mating that is passed on.
This doesn't happen to other mammals so why would it be true of dogs and cats?
Click to expand...
It isn't; just a good, old fashioned old-wives' tale (and a handy excuse for breeders with lax security and dodgy fencing!).

Yuri
 
Last edited:
This question happens to have one of my favorite answers from Cecil Adams, author of The Straight Dope. Don't take it personally because he's not addressing you.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns...traces-of-her-male-partner-after-giving-birth
If ignorance were cornflakes, John, you'd be General Mills. As you'd know if you'd been paying attention in high school biology, pregnant females — whether human, female, or wombat — retain no male residue once they expel the placenta after giving birth. The woman who filed the lawsuit obviously had a couple kinks in her cable, and it sounds like you could stand a little rest yourself.
Click to expand...
 
It sounds like just the kind of bollocks the kennel club would perpetuate...the only organisation in the world that still subsribes to ludicrous Victorian notions of 'blood purity' that were discredited for everyone else 50 years ago and more.

Hybrid Vigour 4tw.
 
There's actually a word for the alleged problem, which I can't remember. It's rubbish, obviously.

Yuri, were you taught small animal husandry by Mary Weipers? She had a weird story from an old textbook about an Arab mare giving birth to a zebra-cross foal, then later to a striped foal by an Arab stallion. She had an explanation, about stripes being latent in the horse genome, but I ain't ever seen a striped Arab, and I rather suspect the etchings from the old book she displayed might originally have been some sort of hoax.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Yuri, were you taught small animal husandry by Mary Weipers?
Click to expand...
I don't remember a Mary Weipers. Don't remember much about my first couple of years at college at all... which probably explains a lot (although I did manage to blag my way through a consultation about a chipmunk today)!

I have heard this story about cats & dogs quite a few times. It is possible for a single litter of several pups/kittens to have different fathers if the dam/queen has been mated by more than one sire; I've always suspected that's where the myth might have started. And then there are animals like the kangaroo and the deer which can arrest gestation in order to give birth at an optimum time for climate, food sources etc - another possible source of confusion I suppose.

Yuri
 
Naddig74 said:
It sounds like just the kind of bollocks the kennel club would perpetuate...the only organisation in the world that still subsribes to ludicrous Victorian notions of 'blood purity' that were discredited for everyone else 50 years ago and more.

Hybrid Vigour 4tw.
Click to expand...



That's what I always thought; it made no sense at all. But it is very widespread; even author Lilian Jackson Braun (Cat Who books) put this 'fact' into one of her stories. Braun knows a lot about cats; she of all people should know better.

Don't get me started on the AKC. It has caused untold genetic damage to thousands of dogs over the years. :mad:
 
How would that particular piece of superstition benefit a kennel club?
 
Toke said:
How would that particular piece of superstition benefit a kennel club?
Click to expand...

In theory the more "contaminated" bitches there are, the fewer "pure" bitches there are, which means you can charge more. I don't know if the clubs believe this nonsense, though.
 
UncaYimmy said:
In theory the more "contaminated" bitches there are, the fewer "pure" bitches there are, which means you can charge more. I don't know if the clubs believe this nonsense, though.
Click to expand...

Ok, that may explain it.
At least for clubs that do not interact with vets. :boggled:
 
Rolfe said:
There's actually a word for the alleged problem, which I can't remember. ....
Rolfe.
Click to expand...

Darn, I was hoping you knew. Retro-something?

Retroincabulation? ;)

Anyway, the whole fraternal fertility is why pups have to go through a confirmation process- make sure each pup is fathered by the desired dog.
 
Yuri Nalyssus said:
I don't remember a Mary Weipers.
Click to expand...


Infant. :D

You would remember. Lady Mary Weipers, married to Sir William. "A good stripper could make quite a bit of money - I've done it myself in my time...." (Stripping having something to do with dog grooming I believe.) This was in third year, before they rationalised the early years of the course. The amount we had to learn in 4 years because first was a waste of time, you wouldn't believe.

She also had a story about having to give evidence about the heritability of coat colour in a court case over a white poodle bitch that had produced black pups when allegedly mated by another white poodle dog....

Rolfe.
 
korenyx said:
That's what I always thought; it made no sense at all. But it is very widespread; even author Lilian Jackson Braun (Cat Who books) put this 'fact' into one of her stories. Braun knows a lot about cats; she of all people should know better.

Don't get me started on the AKC. It has caused untold genetic damage to thousands of dogs over the years. :mad:
Click to expand...

In one of Braun's earlier books, she mentions "twenty claws" digging into something. In a later book the same cat was down to the more normal eighteen.
 
May I introduce you to Caramel?

26 of the damn things, and knows how to use them.

caramelkit.jpg


Though I do take your point it was probably carelessness rather than polydactyly.

Rolfe.
 
Toke;6020797. At least for clubs that do not interact with vets. :boggled:[/QUOTE said:
Not so sure about that either :( Kennel club vets happily dock tails and trim ears so that the dog 'looks right.'
Click to expand...
 
Naddig74 said:
Not so sure about that either :( Kennel club vets happily dock tails and trim ears so that the dog 'looks right.'
Click to expand...

I was thinking that most vets were familiar with mammal reproduction in general, and working with dogs, theirs in particular.
 
Rolfe said:
May I introduce you to Caramel?

26 of the damn things, and knows how to use them.

[qimg]http://www.vetpath.co.uk/jref/caramelkit.jpg[/qimg]

Though I do take your point it was probably carelessness rather than polydactyly.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

One of our cats is not a polydactyl, but she has doubled up claws on each of her front paws. What's that called?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom