Comment to Is Inbreeding Necessary?
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/05/dogs-pets-crufts-bbc-animal (...) David Balding, professor of statistical genetics at Imperial College London and co-author of a recent report on inbreeding in purebred dogs, agrees. The exaggerations caused by slavish devotion to the standards is one problem, but the loss of genetic diversity is potentially even more devastating and may threaten the viability of some breeds. "Because you're mating animals with similar genes," says Balding, "you're getting a big loss of genetic diversity and that has bad consequences in terms of your ability to resist disease. Breeding has gone too far. It was something that started getting organised and became systematic in the 19th century, and it didn't do much harm for a long time. But now we have reached the point where the harm is starting to show more and more. We are now doing genetic damage to the dog."(...)