The Nguni is a hardy breed uniquely adapted to the South African environment. Regarded as inferior in the past, it was decimated by government decree and its gene pool diluted through replacement and cross breeding with exotic stock. The recent recognition of its adaptive traits led to its evaluation and development as a beef breed in the commercial sector. Simultaneously, a mistaken perception...

BACKGROUND A retrospective study was made to demonstrate normal variations of the color and size of the tapetal area and color of the nontapetal area in the ocular fundus in dogs, correlating them to breed, age and coat color. METHODS The study was based on protocols of five hundred and thirty-nine adult dogs describing eye examinations made during the years 1997-2001. The dogs were examined ...

Data from Angus, Hereford, and top-cross cows (n = 641) from 2- to 8-yr-old daughters of seven breeds of sires included in Cycle II of the Germplasm Evaluation Program at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, comprising cow weight (CW, n = 15,698), height (CH, n = 15,676), and condition score (CS, n = 15,667), were used to estimate breed-group differences. Data were recorded in four seasons of ...

Despite the long history of purebred dogs and the large number of existing breeds, few studies of canine litter size based upon a large number of breeds exist. Previous studies are either old or include only one or a few selected breeds. The aim of this large-scale retrospective study was to estimate the mean litter size in a large population of purebred dogs and to describe some factors that m...

Effects of foster dams can be included in genetic evaluations using animal models with maternal effects in several ways. The alternatives discussed involve minor changes in computing strategies from strategies used with reduced animal models that predict breeding values for direct and maternal effects. The easiest alternative is to assign foster dams to groups by breed and time period and add e...

Bull breeds are commonly kept as companion animals, but the pit bull terrier is restricted by breed-specific legislation (BSL) in parts of the United States and throughout the United Kingdom. Shelter workers must decide which breed(s) a dog is. This decision may influence the dog's fate, particularly in places with BSL. In this study, shelter workers in the United States and United Kingdom were...

Birth weight (BWT) and calving difficulty (CD) were recorded on 4,579 first-parity females from the Germplasm Evaluation Program at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC). Both traits were analyzed using a bivariate animal model with direct and maternal effects. Calving difficulty was transformed from the USMARC scores to corresponding -scores from the standard normal distribution based ...

Phenotypic stereotypes are traits, often polygenic, that have been stringently selected to conform to specific criteria. In dogs, Canis familiaris, stereotypes result from breed standards set for conformation, performance (behaviors), etc. As a consequence, phenotypic values measured on a few individuals are representative of the breed stereotype. We used DNA samples isolated from 148 dog breed...