Skip to main content

Searching How-to's

ACCESSING DATABASE

1.  Go to 'Search' page.

2.  Enter breed from pull-down menu or Registration/OFA#/Name if seeking a specific dog. (See screen shot of Search page below).

3.  Select sex if sire or dam are preferred.

4.  Impose an age criterion if you wish to find suitable living mates.

5.  To select dogs for best genetic orthopedic quality for hip conformation, enter a Hip Criteria value below 0.0 and then relax (increase) or strengthen (decrease) this value until you have selected a set of suitable mates.

6.  Enter an Elbow Criteria value below 0.3 and decrease this number until you have a suitable set of dogs.

7.  You can also select a level of accuracy (rank 0 as lowest to 1 as highest) for both hip and elbow values.  Accuracy over all breeds ranges from 0.0 to 0.93.

8. Once you have selected prospective breeding dogs, rank the dogs by inbreeding coefficient.  If possible, select the dog with higher accuracy (closer to 1.0) for breeding (those in the lower half or quarter of the EBV range, and lower inbreeding coefficients).  This strategy should maintain genetic diversity while decreasing the effect of deleterious alleles from the breed.  More stringent criteria can be imposed for breeds with large effective populations.

image of search screen


If you select Labrador Retriever with hip criteria below -0.5 and elbow criteria below 0.0, then you should retrieve the following list:image of search results screen


Practice mating favorite pairs in silico

Select any two male and female dogs that are alive to breed in silico. Then press the Mate Compare on the right side of the return list (above image) to produce a virtual mating and observe the likely genetic quality of the offspring.

image of virtual mating screen

Therefore, based on this example, if you know there are pups available from a mating of these two dogs, then, on average, these pups should have better hip and elbow quality than pups whose breeding value is higher (toward '0' or higher).  Generally, 15-20 offspring would need to be produced, by mating the same sire and dam, to acquire reliable information regarding the genetic quality of these two dogs.  The application of breeding values obviates this waste and delay and will produce healthier dogs faster than using visual observation of pedigrees to select breeding pairs.