Abstract
Retrospective
analysis was performed on semen collected from 24 dogs (parents: 14
Labrador retrievers and 10 Golden retrievers) aged between 16 and 28
months of age. The dogs were part of a large breeding programme but
lived in the homes of volunteer families. The semen was subjected to a
standardised examination procedure including assessment of: percentage
normal motility, sperm concentration, total sperm output, percentage of
live normal sperm, and total number of live normal sperm. Semen was
subsequently collected from one son of each of the parents when the
offspring were aged between 16 and 28 mo (offspring: 14 Labrador
retrievers and 10 Golden retrievers), and was subjected to the same
examination procedures conducted by the same technician. Examination of
breeding records demonstrated that each of the 48 dogs achieved at least
one pregnancy within a period of 3 months before to 3 months after the
semen collection.
There was a weak correlation between
parents and offspring for each of the 5 semen parameters, although none
of these were statistically significant. Narrow sense heritability
measures were low for all parameters except for the heritability of high
sperm motility (rN2 = 0.57) and the heritability of low total sperm
output (rN2 = 0.57).
It is plausible that breeding selection
procedures may be useful in dog breeding programmes in an attempt to
improve semen quality, although any impact upon fertility is yet to be
proven.
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