@tanza:

Thanks for that.. interesting that no one else in the Basenji Fancy is aware of this… ... sorry, but unless this is linked to the breed, I would wonder as the U of Mo that did all the Fanconi tested to get to the direct gene is the one that have been getting DNA samples from PRA dogs and/or offspring/families

Drs Acland and Aguirre have been collecting DNA samples from PRA dogs and their families since the 1980's. Everett and Karen Pashley did test breedings for them in the 1980's and 1990's, and Everett wrote many articles on it.

In the 1990's and 2000's, I worked with breeders with a variety of bloodlines to help put together related clusters. This effort included having the Drs A speak, arranging clinics for eye exams and and blood collection, and driving dogs up to Kennett Square, where Dr Acland also works. Dr Acland spoke at the 1996 National, and had a large and well attended eye clinic there where they took blood samples. We have had organized attendance at their other eye clinics, not just at Nationals, and they've taken DNA samples there. I wrote several articles for it and for a while we had a special PRA committee dedicated to raising funds and collecting samples. If you remember the Basenji PRA pins that Damara Bolte created, that was part of that effort.

In the late 90's or early 2000's, Betty White, Toni Ackerman, I think Carolyn Rollins, and I drove a large number of dogs - not our own dogs, but dogs related to specific dogs the researchers were interested in - up to PA. That trip was sort of a Basenji PRA express, with dogs collected from pet owners and breeders across a fairly wide area, picked up, driven to Kennett Square, examined and sampled, and then dropped back off.

Several breeders have been working with them steadily for many years. The Drs A have collected samples of any dog of interest.

I would guess they have the largest collection of Basenji PRA DNA samples in the world. Things have been quiet for a long while, but they certainly have the sample set to do impressive research.

Parenthetically, the doctor speaking at Nationals is Acland, not Aguirre.

@tanza:

Since many do not report their CERF exams to OFA, there is no real way to know the % of Basenjis that may have PRA. There are certain bloodlines that we know carry the gene and have either had it themselves or produced it in offspring.

As breeders we think that it is (and hoping) it is recessive, but nothing has been proven yet…. and IMO, not enough people have their old dogs CERF'ed so we do not have good information

Couple of quick comments - for determining percentage of dogs affected, it doesn't matter if people report their CERF exams to OFA or CERF or not. There are other good reasons to do that, but statistics are not one of them. CERF statistical reports, which are what you would use to try to show the incidence, show the entire set of all dogs that received CERF exams, whether their owners sent in the forms to CERF or to OFA or not.

A wide range of bloodlines have either had PRA or produced it in their offspring - the focus on certain bloodlines is generally misleading. Unless breeders are routinely testing at an advanced age - and very few are - you really don't know what you do or do not have.

The biggest problem, when you look at the statistical reports - which again, are complete for all dogs receiving CERF exams - is that so few older dogs are getting CERF exams. The issue isn't incomplete reports, since CERF tallies every single CERF exam from the practitioner forms, not the forms the owner sends in. The issue is an extremely small sample set that may or may not be representative.

This is a lightly edited version of my original 2005 BBR post. It's copyright Lisa Corell Auerbach, 2005 and has been used in some of my other copyrighted materials - used here with permission. Main change is I added a comment and redacted some people and kennel names as I haven't had a chance to ask if it's ok to use them here, and I don't like to surprise people. If you're on the BBR list, the unredacted post is in the archives circa 2005.

"A while back, I did a pedigree analysis of sample domestic Basenjis, with an eye to including samples from "relatively unrelated" lines. I was interested in finding out why "full" COI's are so high for this breed. For example, the COI on my Pete - who had no ancestors doubled in the first 3 generations - was over .3, which is greater than breeding a sire to his daughter. I found extremely high COI's on a signficant percentage of Basenjis I looked at, which piqued my interest in looking at Basenji pedigree structure.

The dogs I reviewed included successful sires and Honor Roll Stud Dogs (including Ch. JuJu's Pistol Pete, Ch. Kazor's Deerstalker, Ch. Akuaba's Tornado, Ch. Reveille Boutonniere, Ch. Berimo's Roustabout, etc.), Datar, and dogs from two domestic lines frequently identified as having been kept fairly distinct for a long time.

About half were dogs I'd used or that had a connection to my dogs, the rest were dogs I thought would be relatively unrelated.

The results of this sample were as follows:

1. There were basically eight significant founders - Bongo, Zig, Bereke, Kindu, Kasenyi, and to a lesser degree, Fula, Bokoto, and Wau.

Percentages of Bongo ranged from 24.11% to 16.136%.

Percentages of Zig ranged from 21.793% to 15.36%.

Percentages of Bereke ranged from 18.654% to 12.504%

Percentages of Kindu ranged from 13.88% to 5.943%

Percentages of Kasenyi ranged from 13.863% to 5.827%

Percentages of Fula ranged from 15.234% to 0.322%

Percentages of Bokoto ranged from 7.681% to 5.156%

Percentages of Wau ranged from 9.195% to 2.393%

No other foundation dog contributed as much as 2% to any dog I analyzed.

Of the foundation dogs with less than two percent contribution, three founders, Bungwa (1.328%-1.922%), Bakuma (0.43%-1.93%), and Bashele (0.681%-0.909%),
contributed between 0.43% to 1.93% of ancestry. Kiki of Cryon contributed 0% to 4 dogs reviewed, and 0.020% to 0.415% to the rest. Mbinza contributed 0% to five
dogs reviewed, and 0.096% to 0.232% to the rest.

No other foundation ancestor was identified that contributed as much as one tenth of one percent by ancestry to any of the dogs reviewed.

Conclusion - the US Basenji gene pool has approximately eight significant foundation
individuals.

Virtually all of Kindu and Kasenyi's descent comes through a single individual, Kingolo - percent descent ranging from 10.825% to 25.199%. Whether to argue that there are 7 founders (and use Kingolo instead of Kindu and Kasenyi), I leave up to you.

2. Domestic Basenjis also have significant bottlenecks other than original ancestors. The first appears to have occurred in which "of the Congo" (OTC) dogs bred on the most. Some samples -

Percentages of Kinga of the Congo ranged from 29.063% to 43.635%

Percentages of Piccolo of the Congo ranged from 12.481% to 15.613%

Percentages of Orange Fizz of the Congo ranged from 13.673% to 20.303%

Percentages of Brown Trout of the Congo ranged from 15.515% to 23.002%

And so on. I did eleven OTC dogs, that ranged from about 6% to over 43% of total ancestry of modern dogs.

Conclusion - Basenjis in the US show a second significant genetic bottleneck through important OTC dogs. [Additional comment – this appears to be related to the WWII bottleneck – see VTW’s “Coincidences” article reprinted in The Basenji recently.]

3. American dogs have a third significant bottleneck in the 1960's and 1970's. For American dogs, which excludes Datar, with the exception of the two kennels picked specifically because they had avoided popular sires of that era, percentages were as follows:

Percentages of Ch. Reveille Recruit ranged from 13.28% to 27.539%

Percentages of Ch. Reveille Re-Up ranged from 12.988% to 22.656%

Percentages of Ch. Khajah's Gay Flambeau of Ed-Jo ranged from 11.67% to 26.172%

Conclusion - Basenjis in the US had a third significant genetic bottleneck in the 1960's and 1970's.

@Patty:

I totally agree with Pat (again I'm butting in - can't help myself, sorry but after all this forum brings us together whichever country we live in and I'm just as concerned about the situation wherever it occurs).

If one dog from an area where others have been accepted is considered not worthy of approval how can the others be approved (after all they could even be from the same parents).

Sharron I do hope no one is referring to the gorgeous Miss Wheat - if so I hope you're covering her ears! As you know, I'm one of her many fans.

It depends on what you mean by not worthy of approval. If you mean "clearly a part Beagle", that's one thing.

If you mean a cream or a saddle or a sable, or a Fanconi carrier, or with a loopy tail, or an off bite or with a longer back - the original founding dogs came from populations with those issues, as was discussed in great detail by the writings of various breeders over the years. Our "pre 1990 domestics" have exactly those issues today. Our domestics don't meet that standard.

A lot of this discussion, to me, appears to have a point - I just don't know what that point is. Some people here are basically saying that "we have enough founders, why add more" and genuinely not understanding. Some people appear to me to have issues about specific dogs that they don't want to post publicly. Some people are saying things that are VERY not accurate.

My viewpoint. I came from a big extended family that bred and breeds animals (dogs, horses, cattle, sheep, etc) and especially Arabian horses. I don't claim to be an expert horse breeder - I'm not - but I've been visiting stud farms since I was about 5, and reading Arabian horse pedigrees and reading the writings of people like Bazy Tankersley and later Michael Bowling since I was 11.

Arabians are also a land race breed. Purity is a huge issue with Arabian breeders. There are distinct bloodlines. A lot of people in and linebreed and some are passionate advocates of such. So there are some points in common.

Bottom line is, with Arabians, you see a fairly good number of different bloodline groups, and it's not rare to have people stay within their own bloodlines. The bloodline groups are preserved, in part, explicitly for the reason of diversity. Whether it's Davenport, Crabbet, CMK (which is a larger group that includes Davenport and Crabbet), Babson Egyptian, Straight Egyptian, Blue Star, Blue List, Pure Polish, Spanish, Russian (a blended group) - you name it. You don't just have options - even at this date, you have actual outcrosses available to you, with little recorded pedigree in common.

In Arabians, those outcrosses come from different bloodline groups that go back to different known founders. You get overlap (particularly via Crabbet, which has some infuence in most bloodline groups) and the various Ali and Abbas Pasha influences - but you have many, many different founders - and many of those are represented in one group but not in another.

And a founder, BTW, when used to refer to a domestic breed, is the animal where the known pedigree stops. Founders are not expected to be unrelated - the term means they have no recorded pedigree in common. It's not the same thing. All individuals of a breed, including a land race breed, are expected to have some degree of relatedness. That's why they are a breed.

Arabian horses have about 100 existing unique tail female dam lines where the pedigree ends. Not just 100 unique female ancestors - there are many, many times that represented in the middle of the pedigrees - but 100 distinct tail female lines where the female line of descent is unbroken, mother to daughter.

I have a 33 year old mare (last horse I have) that is mostly Kellogg - the K in CMK. I'm pretty sure this one elderly horse, with a pedigree mostly from one bloodline group that is a subset of a larger group, has more unique founding ancestors in her pedigree than the entire Basenji breed has in its stud book. I need to re-register for Arabian Horse Datasource, but I may play with her pedigree later this week.

Several years ago, in playing around with pedigree software, I did % contribution reports for Basenjis. I started with dogs I owned, then tried popular sires, then dogs whose owners had publicly identified themselves as working with older lines that do not have a lot of popular sires.

With Basenjis, what it boiled down to was - for every pedigree that I ran that did not include new imports, over 90% of descent came from a handful of ancestors. Eight, to be exact. The range of % influence by ancestor varied, but not all that much.

Without the new Afs, we don't have an out.

In Arabians, I can (and people in my family and their friends did, and some still do) inbreed to Skowronek, and further inbreed on his inbred son *Raffles, to hearts content - and know we have an outcross available when needed.

In Basenjis, without the Afs, we don't have that luxury.

I'll repost here my 2005 note to BBR.

@tanza:

I agree, NOT ALL PRIMITIVE DOGS ARE BASENJIS! And I agree that you look at the population, however that population should be all the dogs from that area, not just the couple that are being submitted. So if you bring back 6 dogs, submit two, the other 4 should be looked at/reviewed as part of the dogs from that particular population

It's not really black and white, though.

If you bring back 6 dogs from three different areas, and submit two from one of the three areas, I'm not sure the other 4 from different areas are particularly relevant, either as an argument for or against, even if you picked them up on the same rather long trip.

And the population in that area does not consist solely of the dogs you bring back, even if all 6 you brought back were from the same small area - the dogs you brought back are not the source population.

I think we need to carefully think through adding layers of bureaucracy - from personal observation, that does not necessarily help when what you're dealing with is not cookie cutter.

Informal or unstructured does not necessarily equate with ineffective - in complex or varying situations, responding to the particulars can help you gather better data and make better decisions.

@tanza:

And so are you saying that they should be bred? I have seen that also in domestic Basenjis, but that doesn't mean they should ever be bred… and to me that means we should not be accepting dogs into the stud books that are clearly not to the standard (and not talking about color) and particularly without clear knowledge of were they come from and how remote the area. And yes, I believe there should be test breedings before these dogs are accepted into the stud books. The offspring of these test breedings should be part of the evaluation process.

I personally do not think that land race dogs can be expected to be of show type, although you may in rare cases get individuals that are potentially finishable. Land race individuals are expected to be more variable in type than a show-bred population. That's why advice on evaluating inclusion indicates that you look at the population, not just one individual.

Show faults known to have been present in the parent populations of the original founders (pre WWII) are not a reason to exclude dogs. Producing faults known to have been produced by the original founders (pre WWII) are not reasons to exclude dogs. Faults, to me, are not the same thing as being clearly "off type."

To me, in addition to evaluating known history and location, what you should be looking for is overall type of the group - the "center of gravity", as it were. Not "is this a show quality Basenji", but "is this population consistent with the type of dogs that we consider to be Basenjis?"

A dog can be authentically primitive, verified by DNA, and not be of Basenji type. Not all primitive dogs are Basenjis.

But even our earliest Basenji founders included dogs that produced too big, too long, too much white, creams, capped, saddles, etc - so we need to be extremely careful about distinguishing between "not having had 45 generations of selection for the ring" and "not really part of our target population."

@Katheris:

For Clay and whomever else has Sponenberg's Managing Breeds for a Secure Future on their wish list, I checked amazon.com and it is not currently available through them since it is out of print. But it looks like you can get a copy from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy at http://www.albc-usa.org/store/store-conservation.php

Enjoy!

Katy Scott

I looked and I found it on Amazon - ALBC is printing this themselves and it's a small press - it's available via LuLu Press - at http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B002ACYY26/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&redirect=true&condition=all

and also at ALBC at http://www.albc-usa.org/store/store-conservation.php

Cost is 22.95.

Lisa

@lvoss:

They were not moved to the African Stock pages. The Other Import section is how it has always been.

The Other Import section was added in 2008 or 2009 following a member complaint. Prior to that, dogs in the stud book and dogs not in the stud book were in the "Import by Year of Import" listing.

Linda or James could give you a more detailed report, but they were told to do it at that time following complaints.

@JoT:

Prior to ever submitting any of my dogs for evaluation in 2009, Mopaya was introduced at the Cincinnati Specialty in 2007 and I gave a presentation about her native provenance with lots of slides of the population and an open Q&A. I gave an expanded presentation with lots more slides, maps, and details when I introduced Amisi at the Nationals in 2008 where lots of people met him during my presentation and throughout the Nationals. Again, with an open Q&A. I published articles and pictures about everything related to the Lukuru dogs for the membership to review PRIOR to asking for anyone to vote on them. I had well established breeders come to my home and see my whole pack … again prior to submitting them for consideration.

I do think the importers as a group have been similarly open - the Avongara group, the one I am most familiar with, from the very beginning had videos that are available to anyone, provided extensive photographs, had a number of very very experienced people from several countries go on the trips, made presentations at Nationals, wrote many articles which are available at the BCOA website with more coming as the online archives come online, put tons of info out on the web, had the dogs at shows and performance events, and had people over to see them at all ages - and this was before new dogs were voted on.

@lvoss:

When this project was originally undertaken and a Native Stock page put up there were pictures and information submitted by people with native imports. There were pics of the new Avongara imports, the Lukuru, the Avuvis, and the Jengis. It didn't matter if they were being submitted for the stud book they had each group posted and welcomed information on all individuals and had maps of where each group came from. Once the formal process for acceptance was approved all this information came down off the website and now the only thing posted there are dogs up for consideration.

I think that's going on now on the African Stock page, under "Other Imports." There was a member request in 2008 or 2009 that expressed concern that dogs not yet registered as Basenjis might be confused with dogs that had been admitted. Moving things around may have been part of the response to that.

The Avuvis are on the "Other Imports" page under the African Stock Project, and any unregistered import, is eligible for listing there, if their owner submits their information. So there is a relatively open place for that sort of information.

@Nemo:

What was the reasoning for removing the info on the other dogs in the importation groups? Was it placed somewhere else? I can understand not wanting to put up every dog in a group for stud book consideration but knowledge of those dogs should be considered worth preserving.

Exactly what information was removed? I can't think of any information that was taken off, so it would help to know what's being referred to.

@Quercus:

So it sounds like what people are saying, is that you have to decide how much you trust the importers of a given group of dogs to: do the research to know *where the dogs should be coming from; understand how much, if any "contamination" there may have been by non-basenji dogs over the last 100 years; and honestly evaluate the "remoteness" of the area for traffic…

Because most of us haven't been there...most of us barely know where the importers are going/have been on a map. So, in the end, we have to take the word of the people who were, there...and then decide how much we trust them to be do it the right way.

But - for all of these importations put forward thus far, the people have written articles about their trips, which have repeatedly been in magazines; put up many pictures of the dogs that they saw, not just the dogs that they imported, on their website and in those articles and in one notable case on video; described the remoteness of the area and how they selected it publicly in some detail; answered questions pretty freely; attended Nationals and brought both dogs they were registering and dogs they weren't for people to see; and the vast majority people involved are people that have been involved in the breed for quite a long time.

@lvoss:

But if A, B, C, D, E, F all come from the same small region or even the same village then if the traits that bother you are ones that suggest they are not basenjis then the likelihood is that though A, B, and C may have traits similar to basenjis they are probably not pure basenjis because evidence of mixing is present in D, E, and F.

The question to me would be, are the dogs not being put up because they have traits that indicate that they are not Basenjis, or are they being held back because of traits that are not indicative of impurity, but might make them harder to get voted in?

Keep in mind, all dogs have to be voted in, they get voted in in blocks, and a bunch of votes against one dog could keep all of that group out. So there is a VERY powerful disincentive against people putting up dogs with obvious but minor faults, like slightly off colors, very loopy tails - I heard people complaining against more than one dog in more than one importation because it didn't have enough white (they had minimal Irish white, which is entirely in the typical range.) I'd raise an eyebrow at solids, but not at limited Irish.

Those sorts of things are not traits that suggest they aren't purebred. The original founders came from groups where, as VTW discusses, there would be both more and less typey dogs.

That said, Sponenberg specifically lists history as an important thing to consider in evaluating animals for inclusion in a stud book, and discusses looking at the source population as a whole when evaluating sources. You'd probably enjoy reading his examples of the process.

@Nemo:

You're talking about native stock that people wanted to use and my perception is that you won't get much argument there. If people are using them regularly then they have significant value and could have impact to the breed as a whole. Going back to the original question at the beginning of the thread (and granted it started as a continuation of another thread), I believe the context of "one and out" comments were directed more to potential introduction of native stock of "lower quality" which do not have as much general appeal to breeders. If they have so many faults that you would have to do a "one and out" to compensate to get their "new genes" then what's the point? I think it all gets back to what individual breeders consider a "basenji" to be, it appears there is a wide range of perspective particularly when talking about native stock.

The problem with the original question, to me, is that the dogs to date used for "one and out", to get brindle, are the exact same native stock that other people wanted to use, and have used very successfully. With the exception of first generation pups from a fourth import and first generation from Tiger in the 60's, all brindle prior to the 2006 stud book openings was from Gangura, Diagba, and Mbliki.

All three have been successfully incorporated into ongoing breeding programs. One and out is a choice, not a condemnation of the dog's potential.

What I've seen in watching breeding programs my whole life, of a variety of domestic species, is that animals value as breeding stock varies according to who is using them and what they're using them for.

My upbringing was replete with stories of horses that were seen as no value by some, but turned out to be immensely valuable in breeding programs when they caught the eye of the right breeder. See Bazy Tankersley's discussions of *Sulejman, many of Lady Wentworth's discussions of many varied horses, the history of the Davenports, etc, etc. - also see Spencer Borden's writings on the Arabian in the US, etc.

Some rather obscure or even ordinary horses turned out to be spectacularly valuable in the breeding shed - and some horses with specific faults (Bazy's writings on using *Ranix comes to mind) were brilliant sires when used correctly. *Count Dorsaz was the better horse, and more important in her program - but she got things from *Ranix that were invaluable - e.g. the lovely Canadian Beau - and she has repeatedly emphasized how important *Ranix was to her program.

In Avongaras, some of the more ordinary individuals have been exceptional producers. I don't think anyone would have pegged Gangura as the star of his importation, but he turned out to be quite a good sire - look at his full Af son, Avongara Zindiko of Brushy Run - there is no question what breed Zee is, and no question that he is an outstanding individual of that breed.

Excluding Gangura, because he "wasn't pretty enough", would have been a horrible mistake, and would have cost us many very, very good dogs.

The criteria is not "an individual that I would use." There are tons of champions, including Best in Show winners, that I would not use if you gave them to me. I have a goal and I am interested in dogs that help me achieve that goal.

The criteria IMHO is "is this individual of this breed, and of sufficient interest to be used by someone." If they've put them forward, it appears that the answer is yes to the latter question.

Gorgeous individuals may or may not be good producers. Ordinary individuals can be very, very good producers, particularly when used well.

My excluding a dog because it isn't my cup of tea, although I believe it to be a Basenji, to me is equivalent to my saying, if I don't want to use it, you can't either.

Imagine if I tried that with domestics!

I do not think I am so smart as to be able to know every way every dog can be usefully incorporated into a breeding program, and I honestly don't think anyone else is capable of that either.

@Nemo:

Thanks, I realize this all depends on perspective. It would be beneficial IMO if "significant impact to the breed" could be dimensioned in a more quantitative way. We seem to have ways to demonstrate "significant negative impacts" such as with the discussions of popular sires and their disproportionate contributions to the gene pool but "positive impacts" seems to be more nebulous to demonstrate.

Significant impact isn't a quantitative measure. It's a qualititative one. It varies depending on your values, your breeding program, and what you are selecting for. Major questions are usually, which population, and what qualities do you consider significant.

Giving horse examples (because they are likelier to keep me out of trouble) - Nazeer has a significant impact on the Arabian class A halter population, as does El Shaklan, Bey El Bey, and Padron.

They have no significant influence on the CMK population (very popular as endurance, family, riding, and dressage horses.) You'll occasionally see a distant descendent of Nazeer via Ralvon Elijah, who is 90-odd percent Crabbet otherwise, but that's about it. On the other hand, Aurab, who you don't see a lot of in pedigrees in the Class A halter ring, is a major influence on Arabian dressage horses and a significant force in CMK pedigrees.

For Basenjis (treading carefully here), the new imports are being widely used, in significant percentages of pedigree (not once and out) in show dogs in my area and in other areas that I know. This includes dogs that are top Honor Roll producers (see previously mentioned #3 Brood Bitch of all time, dam of at least one BIS winner and a boatload of champions, who is about 40% Avongara), National Specialty Award of Merit winners, all-breed Best in show winners, and top performance competitors. The Honor Roll producers include at least a couple of Avongaras, dogs that I frequently see in pedigrees.

So I'm not sure I "get" the idea that the earlier imports have not been well-used. In general, I see better, not worse, overall conformation with full and part Afs - I may be seeing results of more successful selection, but the source dogs are the same. In particular, Afs and Af blends I see tend to have better substance. They avoid extremely upright and forward shoulders too common in domestics. All I have seen have better musculature than average.

The usage I am seeing is not "one and out" breeding as much as careful and ongoing blending over multiple generations.

The Avongaras are significant to these programs, and these breeders feel they are getting better dogs through them. They are winning enough, and having enough other people to use their dogs, that their impact on the overall breed is substantial.

@Nemo:

Jo, my main question goes to this general statement. Practically, do these "areas not already represented by current founders" still exist and if so, are they accessible and relatively "un-compromised" (for lack of a better word) by dogs that may represent other areas in the EF biomes or elsewhere.

The South Sudan is newly accessible (although I don't know of any Basenji person who has gone yet) and is historically a major home of Basenjis. I have heard multiple people interested in going there - I do not know if a trip is planned yet but I would be surprised if it did not happen.

However, in bringing in new dogs, you do NOT want to avoid areas already represented by current founders. Unless you've already gotten 100-200 founders well represented in the gene pool, the area is likely to include very significant untapped genetic diversity. Additional genetic diversity is likely even if we had that many founders. We still have, last I checked, less than 50. And that genetic diversity is highly correlated with healthy long-term survival of a breed.

The principle used to preserve rare and land race breeds is basically "include as much genetic material that is of that breed as you can".

@Nemo:

It's just letting me preview a different section of the book, pages earlier in the book than 50 are "omitted from this book preview." Just bad luck with Google Books. The section I looked is very interesting though. Definitely looks like a good book.

A brief summary of the relevant section - and please get a copy of the book if you can - what to include and what to exclude is the stickiest issue, and more difficult with land race breeds than any other. In general, one should look at phenotype and cultural setting. It can be misleading with individuals, but is indicative with populations.

History can be greatly of use. Phenotype is important. DNA can be useful (parenthetically, Boyko's DNA work showed that most African village dogs he sampled were either relatively pure or highly admixed, with villages having entirely or almost entirely one or the other.)

He has page after page of examples of applying this (it is also a frequent topic in his other writings.)

@Nemo:

Thanks, I can't preview those pages but I will definitely add it to my wish list.

Try using the right hand scroll bar - it should let you scroll all the way up. At least when I browsed it, I was able to read that section.

@Nemo:

Can you help me understand your definitions of the above? I think that would be a useful context to further the discussion. What is a "significant impact" or what is "well represented"? This would help me understand the different perspectives on this.

I think that is going to differ depending on who you talk with - but to me, a significant impact is when dogs are recognized as being useful in the gene pool to enough people that they are likely to have a lasting influence.

Well represented, to me, means descendents are in multiple households, appear likely to breed on, and are not limited to one or two people or one or two small programs.

They tend to go together, for obvious reasons, but aren't exactly the same thing.

@Nemo:

Itzyu, I'm glad you joined the discussion. :) Without having easy access to the book to read about the bolded sentence, can you paraphrase what comments he has on how "animals of that breed" and "animals not of that breed" can be defined? I think that gets to the crux of some of the issues discussed here.

It's really good to get the book - well worth buying and I strongly recommend it for anyone interested in Basenjis or any other land race breed of any species. See www.amazon.com or the ALBC website.

That said, ALBC has their books online at Google Books and you can read pages 20-23 at http://books.google.com/books?id=GmsDwDuuP2cC&pg=PT100&lpg=PT100&dq=sponenberg+preserving+breeds&source=bl&ots=6RiX-84Svh&sig=LZhXlf8_auMwBfmuShgk9nDfVTY&hl=en&ei=EWtMTti5Ls25tgelib28Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Sponenberg says it better than I can, and the whole section - heck, the whole book - is worth reading.