Posted By: Cindy Jacobs (Cyd)
With doing some DNA research on the long haired German Shepherd, also called plush coat or long coat I found a site with this information:
There are 3 possible genotypes for coat length:
1) N/N Clear (those having 2 copies of the normal short-hair allele [N] and appear to be short-haired)
2) N/F Carrier (those having 1 copy of the normal short-hair allele [N] and 1 copy of the long-hair mutation [F] and appear to be short-haired)
3) F/F Affected (those having 2 copies of the long-hair mutation [F] and appear to be long-haired)
Long coats are showing up in several breeds and I was very surprised at the list they have on their web site. This site was also one of the very few that does DNA tests for the long hair to help breeders in knowing the outcome of the litters, it is outlined on this handy chart which I did get permission to post. I will give the site at the end of the post.
What stood out to me in my searching, as there are several long coat breeders that have top VA (German (SV) Conformation ratings for German Shepherd dog pedigrees when I searched sites for long coats. I was trying to get an understanding of what was going on, for the SV to be talking about having a separate conformation showing of the long haired German Shepherd, complete with breeding rules that did not allow the long coat to be bred to anything but another long coated German Shepherd. I had written earlier about the SV to have showing of long coats in 2010.
When I called and talked to them about the DNA and explained the talk of SV for 2010, we discussed just what they might be trying to do with this decision. It is pretty obvious for conformation showing, the judges like the look of the “Carrier N/F” dogs over the other types, but seem to want to reduce the amounts of long coats produced in a litter. This will happen with not permitting “Affected (FF)” long coats to breed to anything but “Affected (FF)” dogs, which seems to help control the amount of long coats in a litter, plus helps increase the amount of “Clear N/N” dogs to me. If I were a breeder looking for top conformation show dogs (which I am not), by looking at the chart, I might be trying to breed a beautiful longcoat “Affected F/F” dog to a “Clear N/N” dog to increase my odds of having a preferred coat in all pups, which to me is the hard thing to choose in the breeders pick puppies. This breeding would produce all “Carriers N/F” pups and no “Affected F/F” long hair pups. The “Clear N/N” dogs is what I am guessing is getting fewer and fewer maybe? So my guess is that with the current saturation it will get more and more difficult to find the “Clear N/N” gene, and that this may help in preserving it. That was my logic anyway. Have fun with the figuring it all out, all of those doing breeding. I found it all very interesting and if you truly want to know what your dogs carry, the link below is one of the places listed to do the testing.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Danielle // Jan 27, 2010 at 6:23 pm
What is a good site for DNA testing all around?
2 Cindy Jacobs (Cyd) // Jan 28, 2010 at 7:34 am
Hi Danielle,
Well AKC does DNA testing if it is a registered dog. I actually found out they require it once a stud has bred and registered 5 litters from 5 different females as I was contacted by them. I was required to get Parker DNA’d or they can refuse to register any more litters from him. So gave me a little more understanding now when I see AKC pedigrees. Plus once done I guess you can DNA pups of a mixed breeding and they would still register any pup full AKC with that. So if you bred to a DNA’d stud.. and your dog got loose and bred to the neighbor dog… you could still register any that were the DNA’d studs from my understanding, by having pups DNA’d.
3 Danielle // Jan 28, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Holy crap that is crazy. I love this place it is so smart LOL
4 Jamie // Feb 6, 2010 at 5:07 pm
You sound like the plush coat shepherd is inferior to the short coat. Maybe you need to contact some breeders in Germany and ask them about your theory. From what I was told, they normally do not allow a U.S. bred GSD to breed to one in Germany. The U.S. breed is not considered to be bred for the purpose it was meant “working/herding dog” but just for show. If you notice most law enforcement agencies will import the dog they want to use. The long coat shepherd has a place in the original bloodline of the German Sherherd. This DNA post you made is misleading and your mention of breeding policies are not correct.
5 David Harris // Feb 6, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Jamie, This is an educational blog. Not an opinion blog. If you have information about why GSD’s should have long hair then we would like to hear all about it.
6 Michelle // Jun 10, 2010 at 5:43 pm
I guess it really should not be a matter of why GSDs should or should not have long coats, but a matter of accepting and reveling in what has existed since the GSD was founded. That is the existence of the two coats.
Man has spent so much time trying to breed this characteristic or that one for show or for whatever, that eventually we forget the beauty of the animal in its original true form.
I find the genetic information very information, mainly because I wanted a coated GSD from strong German lines. It took me a while to find two outstanding SV championship N/F’s, one of which is a descendant of China.
It took me a while because I want an F/F of German lines and of a strong SV lineage.
I have had one of each in the past (standard and long coat) and there is such noble beauty in both.
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