Problems Of Dog Breeding In The Light Of Some Provisions In Modern Genetics

Problems Of Dog Breeding In The Light Of Some Provisions In Modern Genetics
Problems Of Dog Breeding In The Light Of Some Provisions In Modern Genetics

Video: Problems Of Dog Breeding In The Light Of Some Provisions In Modern Genetics

Video: Problems Of Dog Breeding In The Light Of Some Provisions In Modern Genetics
Video: The Purebred Crisis: How dogs are being deformed in the name of fashion 2024, March
Anonim

Any scientific idea in its formation and development goes through three main stages: first, few understand it, many deny it and the majority know nothing about it at all, then it is recognized and developed by specialists, whose disputes become the property of the masses, the essence of the idea still does not understand, and finally, during further development by scientists, the idea in a simplified form is perceived even by non-specialists.

And genetics went through all these stages. Nowadays it seems to everyone to be clear and elaborated in its basic features. Let's see if everything is so clear in genetics.

Funny Springer Spaniel, dog photo photo
Funny Springer Spaniel, dog photo photo

The patterns of inheritance described in 1865 by 1. Mendel did not attract attention. Being rediscovered and independently by researchers H. de Vries, K. Correns and E. Cermak, these regularities served as the basis for the development of a new science - genetics (1900). The laws of heredity began to be widely studied all over the world, genetics developed intensively in our country, until Lysenko and his henchmen vetoed the research of "Weismanist-Morganists". After a long break, work on genetics in our country resumed, and today it is developing quite successfully in our country.

This reminder of the history of genetics is absolutely necessary, since it helps to understand the current situation in practical selection, which for so many years has been excluded from the scientific basis and, moreover, under the pressure of pseudoscientific ideas, has lost the experience accumulated earlier in folk selection.

In 1932, the book of Professor N. A. Ilyin "Genetics and Dog Breeding" was published. Since then, it has remained practically the only serious domestic work on dog genetics. There were no translations of foreign scientific works, and the self-made translations of a number of articles and books circulating in our canine "samizdat" leave much to be desired, since they contain significant errors. In addition, most of these benefits are designed primarily for kennel owners, and not for "individuals" who, as a rule, have one dog.

Nevertheless, a holy place is never empty, and after so many years of the triumph of "Michurin biology" a huge demand for genetic knowledge arose among dog handlers. This demand is far from being fully satisfied due to the lack of available, serious sources. Currently, the basic knowledge of genetics is drawn from the course of school biology (very short and simplified), articles in popular science journals (even more adapted) and lectures by "geneticists" (who are not necessarily genetics, but have heard of Mendel's laws) … The result is an extreme vulgarization of genetic concepts, with which the conversation was started.

It would seem that everything has finally become clear: there are genes and the signs encoded by them, which are transmitted to offspring from parents in a certain way. But if so, then the heyday of dog breeding in general and breed creation in particular should have come long ago. However … let's listen to the conversations of the experts returning from the exhibition: “These are not rings, but tears. Have you seen the young? - Well, one is worse than the other. Dogs simply fall apart: there is a head, so the legs are terrible: there are legs - the body is nowhere. The text, of course, is exaggerated, it happens in a different way, but as an exception. The golden age of dog breeding not only did not come, but, it seems, remained somewhere in the last century. And this is not just nostalgia with which it is permissible and natural for a sixty or seventy-year-old judge to look at the rings, remembering the dogs of his youth, not at all. The author is much younger and vaguely remembers dogs even from the late 60s. However, a survey of fellow experts and breeders confirms our subjective opinion: yes, dogs, for the most part, are getting worse in appearance and behavior. What's the matter?

In my opinion, the reason for this, our trouble is the vulgarly understood and applied in practice genetic knowledge. Stop, reader, no need to throw a stone at me, I am not at all a student and a fiery follower of Lysenko. However, the achievements of any science for practical purposes should be used there and as it should. Is it worth using a microscope to crack nuts or read a newspaper?

Then why, having discarded almost all the experience of centuries-old folk selection, in the opinion of many, hopelessly outdated, have we switched only to genetic concepts? Yes, of course, genes exist materially, and the signs encoded by them are just as material. The only trouble is that these are not at all the very signs that we tend to highlight when looking at a dog.

Indeed, when describing the exterior, they operate with the following concepts: the shape of the head, ears, back line, texture and color of the coat, angles of the limbs, etc. You are sure, reader, that all these features are discrete, that is, separate, independent from a friend, and moreover, that they are indivisible into smaller ones? I think no. These features, in their biological essence, are not at all discrete: they are complex, complex, dependent on each other and are divided into smaller ones. It's just that the breeder distinguishes them this way, because it is more convenient for examination. When describing according to these, say, canons, and not signs, one can, in principle, imagine the external appearance of a dog and even try to imagine what it is like in motion. However, each judge is subjective and, such are the properties of the human psyche,each specific dog in the ring is correlated with an ideal dog in his imagination - a "model" of the breed.

Recommended: