# How important is COI %



## okilayla (May 25, 2010)

I just found Ryker's COI % and it seems very high. Can this have any effect on his future health or longevity as a pet. I don't know much about this and just happened upon the percentage for his litter. It is 19%


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## ArreauStandardPoodle (Sep 1, 2009)

There is a very good read about COI's at The Canine Diversity Project. They believe a dog with a COI of less than 10% will live longer than a dog higher than 10%. Our goal when breeding a litter is less than 7%. Some breeders ( like me) feel lower is better, while others do not seem to place much value on it at all. Poodle Health Registry has given me the opportunity to look into a lot of the dogs I grew up with, and most of those with higher COI's died younger than those with lower COI's.


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## okilayla (May 25, 2010)

Thank you I will read into that. Wow his % is almost double that and he is from a reputable breeder (as far as I know) hopefully we will be lucky enough to have hime for many years to come.


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## NOLA Standards (Apr 11, 2010)

*COI interpretations*

Please check out the study, and then look at the groupings for yourself, so you can intepret for yourself.

And, it's a study. The oldest poodle member of my family was a black Wycliffe standard - COI would have been high double digits. She lived to be 17 years old.

Feralpoodles commented on the study - it is copied below. I tend to agree with her interpretation. The cluster of longevity is closely grouped, with COI just over 6.25 and no greater than 25%.


Quote:
_Originally Posted by ArreauStandardPoodle 
The Canine Diversity Project has a really good read on COI's and what they mean. They suggest a COI of less than 10% usually grants an extra four years with dog. _


Cherie, can you give me the cite for that four figure? My understanding of the literature on COI is that it isn't nearly that cut-and-dried.

ETA: I'm guessing that your statement came from this piece by John Armstrong:

Effects of Inbreeding - Results
When we break down the results into 4 subgroups according to the level of inbreeding (based on a 10-generation pedigree that is at least 95% complete), the survival of those inbred to less than 6.25% (the equivalent of first cousins who shared no other common ancestry) is significantly greater than for the more highly inbred dogs.
Fig. 3. Standard Poodle survivorship at different levels of inbreeding. Blue diamonds: < 6.25% (N=39); pink squares: 6.25%-12.5% (N=65); red triangles: 12.5-25% (N=141); black circles: > 25% N=71). The solid line is fitted to the > 25% group.

The least inbred group survive, on average, 14 years -- approximately 4 years longer than the most highly inbred. The shape of the survivorship curve more closely resembles that of a non-inbred population.



***

The four-year difference in median survival is between the lowest (<6.4%COI) and highest (>25%) groups. If you look at the graph, everybody is pretty closely bunched except for the *>25%* dogs.

Here is the link to John's article:

Poodle Longevity 
Attached Thumbnails

_end quote_



It's a good study, I'm not saying in anyway that it's not. But it is a tool, not a rule.

Line breeding (or inbreeding) untested, unproven dogs is horrible practice and it's practiced too often with backyard breeders or breeders who only breed to "what is on the farm" - animals they own or to some "buddy's" male. 

Some breeders though, have ethically spayed and neutered dogs that shouldn't be breeding for either conformation or health reasons (or both!) and continued with only the most stellar examples of the breed, thoroughly tested from tested lines and have used linebreeding to set their type.

Think Brighton, Whisperwind, Dassin, Kaylen - some more extreme than others, but everytime you spot one of those animals you recognize it by its type.

My thoughts, for what they're worth. 

Congratulations on your new pup!

Many healthy happy years!!!!!

Tabatha
NOLA Standards


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## 2719 (Feb 8, 2011)

NOLA Standards said:


> The oldest poodle member of my family was a black Wycliffe standard - COI would have been high double digits. She lived to be 17 years old.


17 year old standard...that is amazing. What's her name? I am using a stud for Marlisse that has a huge Wycliffe background. I would love to see that type of longevity.


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## schnauzerpoodle (Apr 21, 2010)

okilayla said:


> I just found Ryker's COI % and it seems very high. Can this have any effect on his future health or longevity as a pet. I don't know much about this and just happened upon the percentage for his litter. It is 19%


Oh, where did you find that out? Very curious and a little worried now.


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## NOLA Standards (Apr 11, 2010)

How I wish I could tell you her registered name. Her call name was Stormy and she was my introduction to poodles.

My ex owned her when we dated and during our marriage. Those were not fond years, but he did buy me my first poodle. So all was not bad!

She was healthy and active. No issues at all until around 15 when arthur started kicking in. Let's talk about aging - uck.

We put her on glucosamine initially, then an rx as she aged and arthur progressed.

On the "in debate side of the coin" my girl - Mercy - died at 9 years old. Her COI was 5.9%.


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## Keithsomething (Oct 31, 2009)

I think COI % is just another tool that breeders should use when considering a stud (Along with compatibility to the bitch, health testing, and knowledge of the line)

It's not the end all be all, but it should be looked at carefully

And I agree Tabatha that breeders have used line breeding efficiently in some cases, when you look at a whisperwind dog at a show...YOU KNOW its a whisperwind dog (not a huge white fan, but Linda has some nice looking dogs)


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## flyingduster (Sep 6, 2009)

schnauzerpoodle said:


> Oh, where did you find that out? Very curious and a little worried now.


If you have any idea of his pedigree (parents and grandparents registered names) then see if they're on poodlepedigree already. If you have a longer pedigree, you can look back further. Anyone can add their dog into poodlepedigree, and if you are able to link into dogs that are already in the database then the linage can suddenly go back for dozens of generations!

Poodlepedigree regularly calculates COI of all their dogs so you can put your dog into the database and find the COI that way.


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

I think that COI should be looked at but I don't put too much weight in it. I agree with Keith that it is a tool but it is not the only tool. And TBH, when a breeder starts bragging about low COIs I get very turned off.


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## okilayla (May 25, 2010)

I actually looked up his full sister on poodle pedigree (CH. Aery Athena at Morning Glory) and went down to the bottom of the page and clicked genetic information to get the %. I did read a bit of the study and it is very interesting reading. I feel a little better about it now. I knew his breeder practiced line breeding but I didn't know to what extent. Right now he is a healthy well adjusted happy boy and I probably shouldn't have even looked


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## ArreauStandardPoodle (Sep 1, 2009)

Originally Posted by Feralpudel 
If you look at the graph, everybody is pretty closely bunched except for the >25% dogs.

Here is the link to John's article:

Poodle Longevity
My reading of the graph is the other way - all over 6.25% are closely bunched, but the lowest COI group show a marked increase in average longevity. The outlying curve to the right is the low COI dogs - the clumped three lines are >6.25% dogs. It really needs to be replicated with larger, and non-self selected, samples, though.
__________________

Here is another take on the graph. The COI info is great when looking for a puppy or a stud dog, but can be a bit scary to look into after the fact. Just enjoy your puppy and know that regardless, he will be with you for quite a long time. This is after all, just another tool available to us. Like I said before, some people find low COI's VERY important (ME!!), while others take it with a grain of salt.

Chocolate Millie....I think the reason a lot of breeders put the COI's of their dogs or upcoming litters on their web sites, happily announcing low ones, is because it is quite astounding how many inquirers ask about it.


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## Feralpudel (Jun 28, 2010)

Okilayla, one thing to keep in mind is that you have a mini, and minis *on average* are very healthy and have long life expectancies, relative to both standards and a lot of other dog breeds. One theory about *why* high COIs are detrimental is that tight breeding concentrates bad traits as well as good ones. Another idea is that it leads to loss of immune system diversity, but some recent evidence thus far suggests that there is much greater immune system diversity among minis than among standards.


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## Feralpudel (Jun 28, 2010)

NOLA Standards said:


> How I wish I could tell you her registered name. Her call name was Stormy and she was my introduction to poodles.


Tab, do you know what year she was born? I know of a couple of Wycliffe-intensive lines in your neck of the woods, particularly Martaux.


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## AgilityIG (Feb 8, 2009)

I found this all very interesting and had to go check out poodlepedigree. I just added Vinnie and have been playing around for the last hour on that webiste.


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## Feralpudel (Jun 28, 2010)

flyingduster said:


> Poodlepedigree regularly calculates COI of all their dogs so you can put your dog into the database and find the COI that way.


For some reason, there are differences between PP COI calculations and PHR calculations for the same dog. For the ones I've seen, the PP figure is lower than the one in PHR.


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## NOLA Standards (Apr 11, 2010)

Feralpoodle

My ex moved to Louisiana from Wisconsin, so Stormy was from a breeder up that way.

After Stormy died, my ex's next poodle came from Claude Martin and Margaret Tauzin (Marteux) from Lafayette. (I didn't meet either at the time. Claude I met last year at PCA. Margaret I met when I joined Creole Poodle Club of which I am now the sucker - er secretary, yeah secretary!) You're right - he was heavy Wycliffe, too. 

When we split, he stayed with the ex. He would be 10+ now? Have no idea of his situation/health.

I remember, at the time, reading through the pedigree and thinking that it was a bit closer than I liked. It's only been the past few years that I have read many of Jean Wycliffe's writings. But, despite seeing COIs in high fiftys and low sixtys when I look up the names I do remember, Stormy had a LONG healthy life, and Orson was a healthy, if somewhat clueless pup.

Tabatha


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## cliffdweller (Jan 31, 2011)

Feralpudel said:


> For some reason, there are differences between PP COI calculations and PHR calculations for the same dog. For the ones I've seen, the PP figure is lower than the one in PHR.


I think that the PHR data is based on a 10 generation calculation; is it the same for PP ?
And, I think I read somewhere that COI is not very meaningful if less than 10 generations are in the calculation. Is that correct ?


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## ArreauStandardPoodle (Sep 1, 2009)

nu2poodles said:


> I think that the PHR data is based on a 10 generation calculation; is it the same for PP ?
> And, I think I read somewhere that COI is not very meaningful if less than 10 generations are in the calculation. Is that correct ?


PP does give you a ten and twelve generation.


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## Feralpudel (Jun 28, 2010)

nu2poodles said:


> And, I think I read somewhere that COI is not very meaningful if less than 10 generations are in the calculation. Is that correct ?


That is correct, because there can be common ancestors further back. Quoting John Armstrong here:

Unfortunately, in the average pedigree, there are a large number of shared ancestors. Therefore, the total inbreeding for a dog cannot generally be calculated manually and appropriate software must be used (e.g. CompuPed). Calculating inbreeding for only the first few generations is not particularly useful. If there are more than one or two common ancestors in four or five generation pedigree, the inbreeding is probably already higher than desirable. Unfortunately, having none is no guarantee that common ancestors will not occur in abundance further back, and some pedigrees of this type still achieve moderately high inbreeding coefficients. Neither can be number of shared ancestors be used as a reliable guide, as the inbreeding coefficient is very sensitive to when and where they occur in a pedigree. 

The above quote is from this article:

Relation


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## schnauzerpoodle (Apr 21, 2010)

okilayla said:


> I actually looked up his full sister on poodle pedigree (CH. Aery Athena at Morning Glory) and went down to the bottom of the page and clicked genetic information to get the %. I did read a bit of the study and it is very interesting reading. I feel a little better about it now. I knew his breeder practiced line breeding but I didn't know to what extent. Right now he is a healthy well adjusted happy boy and I probably shouldn't have even looked


Now that you mentioned this, I found the % in my notes. Thanks for starting this thread. This is very educational.


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## taem (Mar 5, 2011)

Just in general I really don't know what to make of health testing data and related info such as COI. For example the litter I will be looking at, the mama has a COI of 1.07% (10 gens) and 2.42% (12 gens). I assume that's great. But a few gens back is an ancestor at 25%. Even when the data is clearer, I'm not sure what to make of it. For example if dysplasia comes back G is that fine, or do you try to find an E?


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