# Coi?



## Brittany May (Feb 9, 2012)

What exactly is COI? And is it really that important when choosing a puppy or breeder? Is it better to have a low COI?


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## ArreauStandardPoodle (Sep 1, 2009)

The COI is the co-efficiency of inbreeding. This number is determined by how many common ancestors a dog has. The higher the number, the more closely related the parents were. There seem to be two camps on opposite ends of the spectrum on this issue as it has been discussed often, and sometimes heatedly on this forum. My opinion is, the lower the better. We shoot for litters with less than 7% after much research, and after reading Canine Diversity Homepage . The claim in the study is that pups born with a COI of less than 10% live about four years longer than pups at over 10%.


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## ladybird (Jul 9, 2011)

ArreauStandardPoodle said:


> We shoot for litters with less than 7% after much research, and after reading Canine Diversity Homepage . The claim in the study is that pups born with a COI of less than 10% live about four years longer than pups at over 10%.



over how many generations? The COI changes depending on how far back you are calculating


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

ladybird said:


> over how many generations? The COI changes depending on how far back you are calculating


The more generations, the higher the accuracy and the more information you get. The most you usually find quoted is 12 generations. You can use poodlepedigree to look up a COI (or calculate it for a hypothetical litter) over 12 generations.


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## ArreauStandardPoodle (Sep 1, 2009)

Twelve generations.


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## outwest (May 1, 2011)

My breeder won't breed with a COI over 10%, but like Arreau tries for under 7 if possible. It is much harder to do than you would think it is. There are so many other considerations like structure and health of the lines that cut down on the choices when looking at who to breed to whom. If Arreau can really get her litters under 7 percent AND breed a color like red where the choices are so limited, that is really saying something!


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## Yaddaluvpoodles (Mar 20, 2010)

There are also COI's on Poodle Health Registry. Poodle Pedigree and PHR use different methods of calculating COI's and there can be a significant difference in the COI's for the same dog between the two databases. I utilize both for "at a glance" kinda things. If I'm seriously interested in the COI on a poodle, I use the Standard Poodle Database, available from Poodle Club of America, comes preloaded with tall of the pedigrees on Poodle Health Registry, and I have it calculate a COI based on a 15 generation pedigree.

I consider COI's part of the "numbers" game. I also look at Wycliffe influence, numbers of common and unique ancestors and I take a serious look at who the most influencial ancestors are in the pedigrees. But that's just the numbers portion and there's a whole lot more to consider after that.....


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## momofthree (Apr 9, 2011)

What's the deal with Wycliffe? Every single pedigree I've looked at has Wycliffe ancestors. How much is too much? What is to be avoided when looking at a pedigree?


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## NOLA Standards (Apr 11, 2010)

As Arreau said, breeders will heatedly debate COI.

My experience with a Wycliffe bitch, "Stormy", who was over 30% coi, was that she lived to be almost 18 years old.

So I'm not as sold on low, low COI as some others are.

Personally, I believe you won't ever set a type with total outcrosses and low COI to low COI. I also believe there are potentially as many health risks there as breeding known to known.

As Yaddaluv Poodles stated, there are MANY factors that go into breeding. I certainly wouldn't let COI be a make or break factor in puppy selection. 

My opinion, for all it's worth!

Tabatha
NOLA Standards


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## Yaddaluvpoodles (Mar 20, 2010)

Nothing was wrong with Wycliffe. They were the most popular dogs of the era, typey, gorgeous, excellent temperaments. 

What was wrong was the breeding strategies of the time. Everyone liked them, everyone bred to them to the exclusion of other lines and we lost a lot of our diversity. When you lose diversity, you also lose health.

It takes mixed breeding strategies to ensure breed health. Separate lines need to be kept.. and that means that some people need to be doing some inbreeding and linebreeding, but there must be a place to outcross to, inorder to ensure genetic diversity. So if everyone breeds for low COI's and outcrosses consistantly... well that's a dead end breeding strategy too because pretty soon we will have mixed all of our genetics together and have no place to turn to.

So.. it's important that there is variety in breeding strategies, when all breeders do the same things, have the same focus, use the same dogs... we are in trouble.

Now that had to be about the most confusing answer I've ever given. Guess I could have just said.. it depends.


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## NOLA Standards (Apr 11, 2010)

Yaddaluvpoodles said:


> Nothing was wrong with Wycliffe. They were the most popular dogs of the era, typey, gorgeous, excellent temperaments.
> 
> What was wrong was the breeding strategies of the time. Everyone liked them, everyone bred to them to the exclusion of other lines and we lost a lot of our diversity. When you lose diversity, you also lose health.
> 
> ...


Actually, it's probably one of the posts/quotes I will keep. Along with others I have saved from Margaret Thatcher and Samuel Clemmens and Shakespear and... :adore: That's REALLY good company! (I also have one from D'Artagnan - Three Muskateers - but still good company!)

Tabatha
NOLA Standards


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## outwest (May 1, 2011)

Where do you find the Wycliffe influence on your dog? I know I saw that somewhere and now I can't find it! 

On poodle pedigree it only lists the five top dogs in order of influence. I know Wycliffe is in there, but can't find it- grr. 

for reading pleasure
Wycliffe Influence


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## momofthree (Apr 9, 2011)

*Thanks for the link!*

That really is fascinating reading, Outwest!


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## Yaddaluvpoodles (Mar 20, 2010)

The Standard Poodle Database program can calculate it. The majority of black standard poodles alive today get more than 50% of their genetic makeup from Wycliffe. Considering that each poodle receives half of it's genes from each parent, for the Wycliffe genetic contribution to be more than 50% means that Wycliffe is more influential than either parent. Yikes. The numbers are high for other colors too.. but black tends to be the highest. 

One of the things that people tend to do with Poodle Pedigree (I love Poodle Pedigree, this is not intended to be a criticism) is to take a look at those ancestors that show up and say "wow! no Wycliffe for my poodle!) I can't tell you how many excited emails I've had from people when they've discovered that... but.. every couple of years we are another generation out from the actual Wycliffe bottleneck. What that means is that it is now far enough behind us that it often no Wycliffe dogs show up in a 10 generation pedigree (on average.. a generation is 2 years, so 10 generations only covers 20 years. The Wycliffe bottleneck was happening big time in the 1960's and 1970's) and sometimes they aren't apparent in the ancestors that show up on Poodle Pedigree. But if you take a look at those 5 ancestors.. Voila! heavy duty Wycliffe. Again, there was nothing wrong with Wycliffe.. it was what we breeder's did with Wycliffe. Each and every poodle out there has recessives.. and not all of them are good. When you double up repeatedly.. well.. things can get kinda ugly.


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

NOLA Standards said:


> My experience with a Wycliffe bitch, "Stormy", who was over 30% coi, was that she lived to be almost 18 years old.


With respect, this is anecdotal evidence. It's the equivalent to saying 'my grandad smoked and drank his way to 93, never exercising and living off McDonald's food, and died when he was knocked down by a tram.' There are always outlying data points, but research strongly suggests a high level of homozygosity is harmful to the overall health and lifespan of individuals in a population.

On the other hand, if you go back far enough in any pedigree, there will be ancestors repeated. There are just not enough dogs around at any given time for them all to be unique.

I've found occasional examples on PHR where an ancestor in the pedigree is different to on poodlepedigree, which of course results in a different COI. I'm not sure which is correct in this case.


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

Yaddaluvpoodles said:


> The Standard Poodle Database program can calculate it.


I googled that and I'm guessing it's something I have to pay for. Damn!



Yaddaluvpoodles said:


> It takes mixed breeding strategies to ensure breed health. Separate lines need to be kept.. and that means that some people need to be doing some inbreeding and linebreeding, but there must be a place to outcross to, inorder to ensure genetic diversity. So if everyone breeds for low COI's and outcrosses consistantly... well that's a dead end breeding strategy too because pretty soon we will have mixed all of our genetics together and have no place to turn to.


You have a point there. While it takes a few generations to really ruin a COI with inbreeding, it only takes one generation of crossing two very unrelated lines to make a completely heterozygous individual and undoing it. The challenge then is to find mates for the resulting individuals who aren't related on either side to keep the lines low. I still think we need to preserve the genetic diversity we have, and that popular show dogs siring vast numbers is not a good thing.


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## outwest (May 1, 2011)

zyrcona said:


> I googled that and I'm guessing it's something I have to pay for. Damn!
> QUOTE]
> 
> No, it is free.  You do have to register.
> ...


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## outwest (May 1, 2011)

There is one Latvian dog in there with only 5, 6? generations listed, which is why it lists 5F in the COI, but the rest of them are calculated into it.

Anyway, I must do something other than poodling today.


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

outwest said:


> Anyway, I must do something other than poodling today.


lol

PHR is a great resource, but I think Yaddaluvpoodles was talking about this. It looks like you have to email someone, send a cheque, and wait for it to be delivered. The website looks like someone designed it 15 years ago as well. Why no PayPal and download? :-(

I think I have seen a few British lines that went right back the the early 1900s with no or very little Wycliffe influence -- certainly there are some Vulcan dogs around. I don't know how much of them is left in the current breeding stock though.


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## Yaddaluvpoodles (Mar 20, 2010)

zyrcona said:


> I've found occasional examples on PHR where an ancestor in the pedigree is different to on poodlepedigree, which of course results in a different COI. I'm not sure which is correct in this case.


If anyone ever comes across differences or duplicates in pedigrees on either PHR or poodlepedigree, if you don't have contact info for someone at those databases, please, please email or PM the info to me and I will get it to someone who can address it. Both of these databases are widely used and need to be as accurate as possible.


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## Yaddaluvpoodles (Mar 20, 2010)

zyrcona said:


> I googled that and I'm guessing it's something I have to pay for. Damn!
> 
> 
> Yup. Sorry. However the price is very reasonable when you consider the cost of your time in tracking pedigrees and entering individual pedigrees. A 10 generation pedigree has more than 2000 (!) ancestors. All monies made from the sales of the SPD are donated back to support poodle health research.
> ...


 Couldn't agree more! One of the issues right now is locating and identifying that genetic diversity. The DLA haplotype testing (mentioned on the standardpoodleproject.com is one of the methods being used to identify that diversity.


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## outwest (May 1, 2011)

Yaddaluvpoodles said:


> Couldn't agree more! One of the issues right now is locating and identifying that genetic diversity. The DLA haplotype testing (mentioned on the standardpoodleproject.com is one of the methods being used to identify that diversity.


That is the study my dogs breeder is asking that I submit her DNA to.


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## Yaddaluvpoodles (Mar 20, 2010)

Yes, that is exactly the program I was talking about.

There is a whole lot more to a Wycliffe Influence then what is posted on either Poodle Pedigree database, or Poodle Health Registry. 

The Standard Poodle Database is highly interactive, you can do test breedings and print out of the list of most influential ancestors (that doesn't sound too important.. unless say.. one of those ancestors was afflicted with a particular health issue and maybe a couple of the others had produced it), It is preloaded with all of the health information on Poodle Health Registry. 






zyrcona said:


> lol
> 
> PHR is a great resource, but I think Yaddaluvpoodles was talking about this.


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

Yaddaluvpoodles said:


> Couldn't agree more! One of the issues right now is locating and identifying that genetic diversity. The DLA haplotype testing (mentioned on the standardpoodleproject.com is one of the methods being used to identify that diversity.


Yes, I think I've seen this one before. It's interesting. Some genes will always be homozygous in any individual because there is only one allele -- it's a balance and the population needs to be heterozygous for the genes that can be, not just the individual. The program does sound useful, although the lack of a download and necessity to post it on a CD annoys me more than the price lol.


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## Rayah-QualitySPs (Aug 31, 2010)

Yaddaluvpoodles said:


> Yes, that is exactly the program I was talking about.
> 
> There is a whole lot more to a Wycliffe Influence then what is posted on either Poodle Pedigree database, or Poodle Health Registry.
> 
> The Standard Poodle Database is highly interactive, you can do test breedings and print out of the list of most influential ancestors (that doesn't sound too important.. unless say.. one of those ancestors was afflicted with a particular health issue and maybe a couple of the others had produced it), It is preloaded with all of the health information on Poodle Health Registry.


You used to be able to buy The Standard Poodle Database at *PCA *a*nd only PCA.* Is it for sale now year round? As a Canadian I would like to up date mine with a new one. Any help? Thanks


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