Morphological traits and inbreeding depression in Bracco Italiano dog breed.

This paper reports the first results of a survey on morphological traits in Bracco Italiano dog breed, and analyzes the effects of various levels of inbreeding on these measures. Traits were taken from 155 adult (mean age 4.18±2.60 years) dogs (79 males and 76 females) belonging to 57 different farms. For each animal, the following biometrical measurements were considered: height at withers (WH), height of chest (ChH), body length (BL), length at rump (RL), height at rump (RH), iliac width of rump (RIlW), ischiatic width of rump (RIsW), circumference of chest (ChC), circumference of cannon (CaC), length of ear (EL), and length of head (HL). The ratio of rump length/withers height (RL/WH), cannon circumference/chest circumference (CaC/ChC) and head length/withers height (HL/WH) were also calculated. ANOVA was used to test the differences between males and females and among farms in terms of morphological measurements and ratios. Significant differences between males and females were observed for many morphological traits. The measures coincided with what reported in the current breed standard, apart from the length of the rump, which was around ¼ of the withers height rather than the 1/3 required in the standard. No significant effect of inbreeding on conformation traits was observed.