How will the breeding groups be created?

The term "breeding groups" do not mean the common "line breeding" used in dog breeding. The plan is to form several breeding groups that are unrelated to each other within the project, so that all groups have true outcross possibilities in the other groups. When the inbreeding coefficient is rising within the group, another group will provide vigour.

We're currently forming the breeding groups and searching dogs for the founding population for each group. By founding population we mean dogs that are unrelated (or almost unrelated) to each other. We've been able to find some wholly new lines abroad and have brought those dogs to Finland. Many dogs were already in Finland but have been rarely used for breeding. To be able to use these dogs sometimes means that the project breeders themselves arrange to have an elderly male dog assessed for registration and eye and patella examined. Some founding dogs were already owned by the breeders involved, as most of us have already earlier been interested in keeping the rarer lines alive. A mutual concern for the breed and views on how to maintain the genetic diversity connected us from the beginning so it was easy to agree on the principles of the project and commit to them.

At the moment there are two breeding groups, Group 1 and Group 2. The goal is to create at least one, preferably two new breeding groups.

So that all groups can be used as a good outcross possibility for the common lines in the JRT breed it's important that their genetic base in not too similar. That's why we've formed Group 1 and Group 2 to be unrelated to each other. Both groups have also been chosen not to be too much related to the common lines in the breed. One or two common ancestors don't make much of a difference, though, as long as the dog is otherwise of different lines.

Before closing the register is even an option, there has to be absolute certainty that there's a big enough founding population in the breed. That means dogs that are truly unrelated to each other; not just a huge amount of dogs that have similar genes. The breed still has to be viable in the next century. This is the goal of every JRT enthusiast, this project is our way of seeking to attain it.

A very simple way of ascertaining the diversity of one particular dog's genes is to count the number of forefathers in its pedigree. There should be as many as possible. Quite commonly, when looking at a pedigree, the first generations may seem to be completely lacking in common ancestors, but when you look further back it becomes clear that, in spite of a huge number of offspring, there are only a few dogs used at the beginning of the breed. The same names crop up again and again in a longer pedigree.

Importing completely new dogs may seem like a leap of faith. Even though the dog itself may be from a breeder that has been breeding JRT:s for a long time, it's still fairly uncommon to collect data about the health of the dogs and publicise it the way we do here in Finland.

The fear of hereditary diseases still isn't any reason not to import dogs who are unrelated to the rest of the population. If an individual dog is bred from only moderately and is not line bred to, any genetic flaws will never become common in the whole population. Puppies born into the project are carefully monitored as to health and temperament (see the Collecting Data pageand so any problem can be quickly dealt with by withdrawing the particular individual and any affected offspring from breeding.