Thursday, June 11, 2009

Line breeding vs. inbreeding

A discussion emerged on an Internet BBS regarding inbreeding and line breeding, which terms seem to be used loosely and often, interchangeably. For what it's worth, I offer my own opinion...

A dog that is the result of a line breeding program is linebred. If a breeding program is, as many are, intended to fix and perpetuate characteristics of type within a related group of dogs, it is a line breeding PROGRAM, regardless of COI (coefficient of inbreeding) calculations. This type of breeding program is very common practice among bird dog breeders.

If you define 'line bred' by looking only at the DEGREE of relatedness (which is essentially what COI indicates) then you are talking about the degree of inbreeding.

Thus, there is a BIG difference between line breeding and inbreeding, IMO.

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