Quote Originally Posted by sorraia View Post
That's how it works. Whether or not it is being done is irrelevant, that's how it CAN be done and with good purpose.

Right now, from what I have seen, many breeders generally don't even bother to keep track of their animals. Considering this, we really have NO idea how much inbreeding and linebreeding is actually occurring. Also from what I've seen, very little attention is even paid toward health. As long as the animal is the desired morph, and the breeder can get it to eat a few meals, it is considered "healthy" and encouraged to be entered into the breeding population. I could be wrong, but thus far I have not seen any long-term health records for any animals. We can't really say that our animals really are healthy, unless we keep long-term, life long health records over several generations.

As for what is occurring in dogs - One major problem with dogs: Many breeders are NOT actually selecting for healthy, they are selecting for a number of other traits, and maybe half-heartedly selecting health. If a breeder is truly selecting for health, they would not be breeding any animals with a significant health problem. In dogs this would mean not breeding any dogs with hip, knee, elbow, or other joint issues, not breeding any dogs with eye defects, not breeding any dogs with breathing problems or who can't birth normally, not breeding any dogs with skin issues, not breeding any dogs who can't run and play normally, etc. This simply isn't being done. Show breeders are, in general, selecting for those dogs that win in the shows. They are then breeding together those show winners to get more show winners. Over the generations inbreeding occurs, but with so much emphasis on a particular show conformation (which is often actually detrimental to the dog), those dogs are suffering. IF instead of selecting for a show conformation, these breeders were selecting for health, we would start seeing healthier animals who were not plagued with these kinds of health issues. This isn't a problem with inbreeding, this is a problem with the selections that are occurring. It wouldn't matter if those breeders were inbreeding or outcrossing their animals, the only difference is these problems come out faster with inbreeding. They are still going to occur with outcrossing, which is why we now have so many horribly unhealthy mutts, because the breeds they came from were unhealthy to begin with, even though these dogs are now outcrossed. I personally have yet to meet one single mutt who is healthy. Every mutt I have every known, including those belonging to friends and family members, have been unhealthy in one way or another, ranging from skin issues, allergies, temperamental issues, cancers, hip displaysia, knee and elbow issues, eye issues, to generally poor health. It isn't just an inbreeding problem, it really just comes down to POOR SELECTION from the beginning. If you breed unhealthy animals together, you are going to get unhealthy animals, no matter whether or not those animals are related.
This is EXACTLY why I started this thread. There is a lot of emphasis on breeding snakes for a particular paintjob (to borrow Brian at BHB's term) and not a lot of emphasis on breeding for anything else, including health and longevity. I know there was some effort to breed out kinking in caramels, and then ultramels came on the seen and showed no trend to produce kinked animals, which lead ultramels to replace caramels in popularity (correct me if I'm wrong on the details here since it's been some time since I researched this, and I don't have time to do it now). I fully intend to keep records on all the ball pythons I breed in the future, and handing copies of those records to anyone that buys a snake from me.