Estimated Breeding Values (EBV)
 

After reading an article on how the "Seeing Eye" (a well established foundation that breeds and trains a closed colony of GSDs and Labrador Retrievers for the blind) had significantly reduced the incidence of HD in their closed breeding colony (through use of OFA and Penn-Hip), I did some more research, and found this article (sorry for the dense statistical reading!):
http://www.seeingeye.org/cms/uploads/HowToUseEBV.pdf

After reading the article, I wondered if the research or software might have any usefulness for our breed? Mostly it is used in commercial organizations (such as beef farming), or in cases like the Seeing Eye, where the "art" of breeding many factors (such as a waterproof coat, not-too-long ears or tail, yellow eyes, etc.) isn't a top priority...but, I guess maybe it could also be useful for speeding up the improvment of the health of a breed, if certain diseases were focused on?

Marcy

I didn´t read all of it now but know in general of these programs. There are two problems: The genetical base shoul be wide, you should have enough possibilities of selection (the organisations can get new dogs from outside in Labs and GSDs) and it is extremely difficult on international bases. I don´t see that a for exampel French breeder takes his dog out of breeding because the Slovakian Club thinks he should do so.
That this programmes work is out of doubt. On HD you get also much better improvements with offspring-control programms but they are also seen as only possible with wide genetic basics.
The Hovavarts in Germany used the offspring controle very succesfully on HD but they got massiv charakter problems and other health problems through this selection (though they will tell you this isn´t true;-)).
That is the reason why everybody waites on DNA tests.

Ina