GENETICS AND BREEDING STRATEGIES
ESSAYS FOR THE DOG BREEDER By Dr. Susan Thorpe-Vargas
A GENETICS PRIMER
Are you mystified by the genetic code? Do you blanch at words such as allele, dominant, and codon? Do you think of microsatellites as small orbs circling the Earth? The time is coming when such words will be part of the everyday vernacular of dog breeders. The study of genetics has previously been the domain of specialists, but it is rapidly becoming part of the responsible breeder’s repertoire. The study of genetics is much like learning a foreign language. It really isn’t all that difficult to become conversational once you master the rules and become comfortable with a new vocabulary.
The age-old problem for dog breeders of course is that the characteristics they are trying to breed for do not always materialize in a litter of puppies. Or some unwanted characteristic keeps appearing that even "careful" breeding cannot eliminate. Why does this happen and what can be done to eliminate at least some of the uncertainty a breeder faces?
Find the answer to these questions by contacting Dr Susan Thorpe-Vargas, a brilliant read. Dr Thorpe- Vargas can be contacted at - docvite@aol.com
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