Coefficient of inbreeding

[Bellwether]

 I downloaded this free program called FSpeed 2 that I thought would help me figure the inbreeding coefficient for my poodle, Heidi.  Unfortunatley, I am still as confused as ever.  Is there any extremely simple way to figure it?  As far as I can understand,  I make lines of names linking two dogs back to their common ancestor.  Like this:

Bob - Harvey -Sue

Bob - Edna - Sue

But what if the common ancestor is far back?  Do I simply make the name list longer?




and next I do multiplication, but what exactly?

[zefi]

Sheesh. I'm mathematically challenged so I cant help you at all. I have a friend who owns Breedmate. I just give her the pedigree of a stud dog I'm considering, she enters it into her database and spits out the COI for me. Much easier for me!

[zefi]

I thought another aspect of the COI discussion is whether its as important as people make it out to be. Lately on one of the lists (forget which) there was a point made that the further back you go the higher the COI will be cause there is more likelihood of dogs in common in the pedigrees.

I would think the safest bet would be to breed to healthy lines, keep the COI low, but not let it rule your choices... After all a low COI does you no good at all if the unrelated lines are both affected by hereditary diseases!

[Michael]

Was that in the Eskie Magazine, Zefi? I recall such issues in that breeding/genetics article. My perspective is that COI is a "tool" when you know what it is. If you "want" to breed high COI, you can, and if you don't, you can steer away from it....but that's what it's all about, knowing what it is and what it means. A high COI is going to concentrate the genes in the lines, while a low COI is going to bring in more variety. Knowing the lines you are breeding...one way or another...is key in all of this. As well as knowing what you want out of it. A low COI is nice, but you also want to get expected results, so as Zefi said, you can't let it rule your decisions...just understand it and your breeding goals and it will hopefully help you in making better decisions in the long run.

[Bellwether]

I just figured out that the Poodle Pedigree Database automatically calculates each poodle's COI.  Thank goodness I don't have to figure it myself.