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Originally Posted by gemy  And here-in lies the historical and current rub. Historically and currently still as you are probably aware, the authenticity of a breed in a very large part is predicated on the honesty and accurate reporting of the breeder when they register their litter. It is our "job" to keep our females safe from accidental breedings, and in fact to orchestrate breedings to designated sires. So if as a breeder you have a litter of pups beneath your feet, that seem somehow off, or if you somehow "lost" track of your gal in heat, you are duty bound to DNA test that litter, which obviously means all males in your household need to be DNA'd if they have not been already. It is an expensive mistake, but there ya go. Now conservatively speaking how many breeders will do this?
As a breeder you research thoroughly to whom you want to mate with, but at the ultimate end it does predominately rest on trust. And that trust is given to the current breeder.
Submission of DNA per registered dog either in Canada/USA or Europe is currently on a voluntary basis, other for some discrete circumstances. DNA at these registries is only used to confirm parenthood, not to confirm breed type.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is a high likelihood across almost all breeds that somewhere in their history there have been oops matings, that the breeder was either un-aware of, or decided to turn a blind eye too.
So for me, I would like to see some scientific mathematical formulae that takes into account these "mismatches" over the years. I would also like to see genome mapping starting with the most populous breeds, say GR, and GSD and YT and Rottweilers. What is different in the genome of a Rottie to a GSD? In human terms that would mean have we come so far we can tell the difference from a Purebred Chinese person, to a purebred Japanese person? Can we know and map a Germanic person from a Canadian person? |
The first two bolded sections are the points I was trying to make, but you worded it better
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In human terms, your last two sentences are a little scary, because it shouldn't matter. I know that there are online DNA test kits that purport to tell you which part of the world your ancestors came from. We are at the point where an individual's DNA can be completely sequenced for a few thousand dollars. The same could be done for dogs if the money is there and if there are good reasons to do so. I'm sure it will become more commonplace as the cost of DNA sequencing continues to fall.