What are inbreeding highlights in dog pedigrees?

Created: May 24, 2018    |    Updated: Oct 20, 2022   |   Reports

What are the highlighting options in pedigree reports?

On our standard five generation pedigree reports, there are multiple options that will highlight the inbred ancestors in the pedigree for you. To demonstrate this, we are going to use the pedigree of the dog, Colonsay April Jest

The "Inbreds" Highlighting Option

The standard highlighting option is "Inbreds" which adds a randomly-colored rectangle positioned at the far right border of each inbred ancestor in the pedigree.

Colonsay April Jest

In the above pedigree chart, you'll see that the inbred ancestors Colonsay Blacksmith, Colonsay Charles Gibbs, Pointchaise Claudette, Colonsay Penelope Swashbuckler, Astwood Caesar and Ambala Sahib all have colored boxes. The boxes are color coded to make it easier to find other occurances of the same ancestor. You may note that some dogs appear multiple times in the pedigree, but aren't highlighted. If you can find Raff of the Wells, you'll see that there's no colored box. This is because Raff of the Wells only appears in the pedigree through his son Colonsay Blacksmithso the inbreds filter only highlights a dog if they appear through different offspring. That's because in order for an inbreeding to be significant to the subject dog, there needs to be a chance that the inbred ancestor contributes multiple variations of genetic material through different offspring.

The "All Duplicates" Highlighting Option

All duplicates will highlight every ancestor in the pedigree, even if the ancestor appears through only one offspring. Here's the same pedigree from above using the "All Duplicates" highlighting option.

With the All Duplicates option checked, you'll see that Raff of the Wells now has a colored box showing that he appears multiple times in the pedigree.

The "Cross Duplicates" Highlighting Option

The last highlighting option is "Cross Duplicates", which only shows inbred ancestors if the appear on both the sire and dam side of the pedigree. Here's an image of the same pedigree with the cross duplicates highlighting option checked.

cross-duplicates

With the Cross Duplicates highlighting option checked, you'll note that Pointchaise Claudette is no longer highlighted because she only appears in the sire, Colonsay Redhanded Simon, pedigree and not in the dam's pedigree. This option is useful if you are planning a mating and want to see if the ancestor could contribute additional genetic material to the new litter. If the inbreeding only occurs in one half of the pedigree, then the effects of it are already baked into the sire or dam's pedigree.


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