Hello,
I must admit that I'm new in the world of wolfdogs, but I'm very interested in the breed and especially in the genetics of dogs. I'm a student and I learn a lot about everything that has to do with genetics of humans and animals. I don't know everything (far from that), but I find the subject interesting. It is really not so, that it is easy to make sure that you don't breed puppies with long hair. It is not because it is a recessive gene, that it is not dangerous. (Recessive means that a puppy has to receive one gene for long hair from his mother and one gene for long hair from his father => than the pup will have long hair. When he gets only one gene for long hair, the pup will have a normal coat, but he carries the gene for long hair now, and he can give it to one of his own offsprings. Normal coat is dominant over long hair. For the people who didn't understand the word 'recessive' that is used a few times.).
I noticed a time ago that there were few wolfdogs with longer hair, and I started to check the bloodlines. I also found the litter of Cira and Jerry Lee suspicious, because most of the pups have (for so far you can see it on photos!) a nice coat. not long, but full and -I can't explain this in English
- So I started to check the lines behind those dogs to. But I had to stop with it, because there's something I cannot explain... I think that there must be another factor working together with the gene of long hair, that makes that a pup has the really fluffy coat (really long hair, with no good undercoat => so not good for the weather etc.) That must be the reason why you only get (in this line) the really fluffy coats when you have strong inbreeding. Because of the inbreeding, you make sure that the gene for long hair is given to the pups AND the other genes that are necesary to make the gene for long hair work. But we I think we can conclude that Cira and Jerry Lee are carriers of the gene for long hair, but not (both) of the genes that make the long hair work. (Difficult to explain in English). But maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to make a list of the lines that have given long hair. Maybe we can make even a list of the dogs who are carriers of the long-hair gene. We certainly don't have to exclude these dogs from breeding, but when we do this, we can make sure that we don't make 'dangerous' combinations. But frankly, I think that almost 70% of all wolfdogs is carrier of the gene for long hair. But that's not a huge problem, as long as you don't have strong inbreeding (bigger chance that the
combination of genes that makes long hair, is given to the offsprings). Maybe I can ask a Prof to think about the subject. Maybe he knows how this works exactly.
Another thing I wanted to say... Does someone know if they used german shephards with longer coat or carriers of long hair? Or does it come from the wolf? I know the breed since one year, so I don't know very much about it. I only found photos of a wolves and shephards with normal coat that have been used, but the database is not complete, so... Does someone knows more about it?
Maybe we can discuss other (major) (health) issues also...
Maybe we must try to make an arrangement with breeders of all countries and work 'together'.
It's nobody's fault that the gene of long hair is somewhere in the breed!
Greetings,
Liesbeth