# same great-grandmother on both sides?



## golden_eclipse

This is very common. If you enter you dog into K9DATA.COM Home Page if her parents are already listed, it will be easy, it will pop up the rest of the pedigree after you fill in who her parents are. If the parents aren't on the website, you can fill in the pedigree what you have, and the chances are the grandparents are on there. Anyways, there is a way to see basically how inbred your puppy is(called the COI, its a percent). Chances are its within the acceptable percentage. Now as far as health problems. It really depends on the dogs that show up often in the pedigree. Most reputable breeders will only line-breed on a dog that lived a very long time, and had a great temperament. 

This is somewhat of a complicated issue and there is a lot to consider, but assuming your puppy is from a reputable breeder, your short answer is, this is very common and can actually lead to a healthier dog. It basically allows the litter to be more predictable. What they call an Out cross, going to a completely different pedigree, can result in an unpredictable litter, in conformation and sometimes health. There are reasons to do both (line breed and out cross) in any breeding program. I'm sure if you contacted your breeder and asked her some of these questions, she can fill you in with the history of each dog and why they are in your puppy's pedigree.


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## debra1704

Thank you- this information is very helpful. I actually did not know about line breeding, as we only acquired the puppy as a pet, and didn't research breeding stradegies. The parents did have health clearances. Also, although I did not see the exact dogs listed in any posts here, I did see the kennel names (lines) mentioned in a postive light in some posts on the forum. I will check out the web site you posted- thanks again!


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## golden_eclipse

I'd like to throw in there to clarify that the COI percent doesn't give information in itself, but it does tell you the top 5 contributing dogs in the 12 generation pedigree, and how much each dog contributed. So when you have that information, you have a lot more information about the genetic makeup of your puppy. I don't think there is really anyone out there that thinks there is proof either way, having a line bred dog being healthier or an out cross, because it really matters what dogs you are working with.(the phenomena of hybrid vigor is still up in the air, at least in the research I've read). If the health clearances were there, I think you got a pretty good chance at a healthy puppy.


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## Sally's Mom

When there are repeating ancestors, the way IMO to interpret it is to look at those dogs that are more strongly represented. Look at their health clearances, what their ancestors clearances are, and what the dog in question has produced... When you get close breeding, not only do you strengthen the traits you like, but you also can see recessive traits rearing their heads. I know a lot of the successful show kennels have dogs with COI's of 36% or higher. There is no way I will ever be convinced that this a good breeding practice. Having the same great grandmother on both sides is really not that close of a breeding.


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## hvgoldens4

Not to get too technical on you but there are certainly reasons to be linebreeding on certain dogs. As other posters have mentioned, this is a very common practice and a great-grandmother in common is not a very close breeding. How close the breeding is though and the COI would actually be determined by how many times an actual dog shows up in a pedigree.

There are actually times that a breeding doesn't seem close at all when looking at a COI(coefficient of inbreeding) because the COI is determined again by how many times one dog shows up in the pedigree. You can have closely related dogs-siblings in the pedigree many times and this will not be reflected in the COI.

I do not think your dog's health will be adversely affected by having a great-grandmother in common.

We have actually done breedings closer than that with some of our dogs with linebreeding on our Bailey who is now over 15 years old and still in very good health along with having good clearances, temperament and good breed type. So, you WANT a dog like that to have more influence in your pedigrees. But, at the same time, you still have to allow for enough diversity in the pedigree so that deleterious genes do not show up. I hope that is making sense.

However, even when doing that, our COI's are still rather low(because the rest of the breeding is more an outcross) and in the middle teens and under 20%. I absolutely agree with Sally's mom that a dog with a COI up in the mid 30's and I have seen higher, is really not enough diversity in the pedigree.


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## debra1704

Thank you!


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