The Trend of the Inbreeding During the Time in "Bracco Italiano" Dog Breed

We refer on a genealogical study on the “Bracco Italiano” dog breed, with the aim to study the investigate the trend of the inbreeding during a period of 38 years. The complete electronic record of the breed, including 20,499 animals born between 1970 and 2007, was downloaded from the ENCI database. Animals were divided in eight periods according to their year of birth. The following genetic parameters were calculated, using the program CFC: a) the level of inbreeding (F) of the total population; b) the individual inbreeding; c) the number and the percentage of inbreds and the average inbreeding coefficient in the inbreds animals for five-year periods. The inbreeding coefficient was <0.05 in 8,103 dogs (39.53%) whereas it was >0.20 in 487 dogs (2.51%). The average inbreeding coefficient over all animals resulted 3.6% (from 0.4% in 1970-1975 to 5.5% in the last two years). The percentage of inbreds per year increased from 2.44% in 1976-1980 to 100% in the past two years. It is concluded that a regular monitoring of genetic variability of the population must be adopted, in order to avoid the danger of an excessive increase of inbreeding in the future, which would result in significant inbreeding depression.