Thread: too close matings

A study of any sucessful long term breeding plan in pointers and setters worldwide contains degrees of inbreeding. I think how much is a cultural thing. The Aussie pointer and setter folk don't think twice to put father to daughter, as that's what the most successful have done there. Have a look at their guru, Jack Pontins' pedigrees in the final days of his Marnissa kennel. It gets pretty biblical. Hence, successive generations of breeders over there take the same approach. I can think of at least four working pointer breeders that have bred that close, with coefficients of around 25% is almost accepted as the norm.

Here in NZ our most successful pointer and setter kennels have also used inbreeding to a degree, but my observation is that we are much more moderate. Mortensen 'pre-woody' was quite intensive, mainly because the stock he imported was quite tightly bred. The Kilsheelan reds historically have been linebred also. As for the pointer in NZ sadly it is the opposite, we kept breeding out when we should have capitalized on some great dogs we had here. Hence the variation in the breed to date.