Thread: Improving the health of the bulldog

So far as inbreeding etc, ALL our pure breeds of whatever animal you want to name, are inbred, its been happening since we domesticated animals, now we can put names and numbers to it. Generally as mentioned somewhere grand parent to grandoffspring is about the limit of genetic/societies acceptance of linebreeding for animals but yep its arbitrary.
The no linebreeding at all stance is purist but means we go back to a mishmash and lottery trying to select the best hunting/working/pet dogs again from essentially mongrels. The minute you breed your dog because it runs faster or points better, you are selecting for genes, and that dog will likeley also carry some bad genes and off it goes again.
I get the nausea at bad breeders or breedstandards destroying functionality in some breeds, but Id politely suggest its plenty common for dodgey inbreeding happening with backyard breeders making breeding calls with limited know how and genetics.