Friday, April 12, 2019

Jack Russell Diversity

Moxie and Misto, as alike as chalk and cheese. A feature, not a problem. 
Jack Russell terriers are among the most generically diverse breed of dog in the world, with a gene variability about as high as you would find in a wild or feral dog population.

From Genetic variation analysis of the Bali street dog using microsatellites come this little note:
While some breeds do have a low HE, such as the Boxer with a HE of 0.320, breeds like the Jack Russell Terrier have a high HE of 0.713 and overall their HE is higher than that of the dingo.

The Parson Russell terrier is NOT the Jack Russell terrier -- it is a dog squeezed into a small, closed, and increasingly less diverse registry with non-work based standards of  "conformation" that will, predictably, lead to greater morphological exaggeration and increased disease.

The Kennel Club has never made a working breed; they have only ruined them.  This is not an accident. Kennel Club rules and values inevitably lead to health and work failure.

Failure is is the only thing the Kennel Club has ever reliably produced. 

5 comments:

seeker said...

I believe that the Rev Jack Russell would NOT approve of what is being done to the dogs that bear his name. I'm proud of the JRTCA for rejecting the AKCs bid to include them in their registry. His comment is classic in reference to the little dogs “True terriers [my own dogs] were, but differing from the present show dogs as the wild eglantine differs from a garden rose.”

Debi and the JackRatPack

Yeah, I know. Preaching at the proverbial choir.

Rob said...

What amazed me is how the collie-derived dogs — the Australian Shepherd and Border Collie — both have top third genetic diversities among the breeds sampled. Despite considerable inbreeding, both are still fairly diverse, and I have to think one of the big causes for that is breeding for functionality rather than appearance.

jeff thurston said...

Here's a link to a relatively current article on this: https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/inbreeding-of-purebred-dogs-determined-from-dna?fbclid=IwAR3FswBemrGOVDUsDK3fyVsVUQcorfU8g1s4FL37CI-h6v0npdMHQGtgg-A

The Jack Russell is down at tbottom for inbreeding but I'm not sure that it has as much genetic variation as village dogs. otherwise it probably wouldn't be a breed...

Jennifer said...

The show version of BC is bred for appearance. I'd guess that diversity of owners objectives (pet, agility, heeding competition, working dog, show, etc.) helps maintain diversity

tuffy said...

all true, well said