Planning to Breed a Puppy Litter

In the beginning I briefly talked about the fertilization of the ovule, which, along with the spermatozoid, provide an equal number of genes to the offspring, determining their external aspects and physiological characteristics. In fact, dogs have 39 pairs of chromosomes, from each pair of chromosomes 1 is from the mother and the other from the father, in a totally random, which justifies that no dog is absolutely perfect, given that the characteristics that define a dog are taken at random, and, for a head to be perfect, there needs to be the participation of various genes. And if this were not enough, not all the genes are the same; there are recessive and dominant genes. The recessive ones are those that remain somewhat in and only flourish when there is the coincidence that both progenitors are bearers of the same recessive gene. The dominant ones are, unlike the previous ones, visible and determined which virtue or defect will be present in all or almost all the brothers of the same litter, when both progenitors are bearers of the same dominant gene, like for example the one that determines that black or dark color of the eyes or the presence of a well defined mask which is a determining factor for the typical traits of a particular breed.

But there are two other words that appear in almost all the text related to genetics and which I consider convenient to mention so that you can know their meaning: one is "phenotype" and the other is "genotype". The first one corresponds to the external characteristics of each animal and the second one to the genetical characteristics that foster the phenotype. Lastly, you must know what that genetic pool of any breed is; this refers to the sum of available genes in a given population, and if this genetic pool is very limited, then the variation which will come about, unless there is a mutation, will also be limited. In the same way, when the genetic pool is very sizable, so is the variation, and name leading you to pick the most typical and healthiest specimen from the breed. There is yet one more thing to take into consideration which might be considered an anathema or curse in modern breeding; however, sometimes it's the only legitimate solution in order to prevent a particular extremely reduced genetic pool from being a danger to the breed. This method consists in "out-crossing" with specimen from other breeds; this now may seem like a real sacrilege, but it was what breeders in the past had to do when they are genetic pool was reduced.