Was clicking deep back into Katya's pedigree... is this normal?
 

Linebreeding - 5 generations
2 - 2............................................. in V Horand von Grafrath (Hektor Linksrhein)
4 - 4............................................. in Pollux
5 - 5............................................. in Roland
4 - 4............................................. in Schäfermädchen von Hanau
5 - 5............................................. in Courage
3 - 3............................................. in Lene (Sparwasser)
4 - 4............................................. in Greif von Sparwasser
4 - 4............................................. in Lotte (Sparwasser)
3 - 3............................................. in Kastor Rüde

V Beowulf (Sonnenberg)

Can anyone explain the line breeding to this degree? Granted, this IS a dog born in 1898 (I was just seeing how far back I could actually go), but still... was the gene pool *that* small, the world too big to find many other dogs, or a complete lack of knowledge regarding how genes work? Or all?

Back then Max was trying to create the breed. There was much inbreeding on Horand back then to set the type.

All purebreds are inbred (some more than others) - hence why certain genetic issues pop up in certain breeds where genes have been fixed.

I remember reading some years ago an article written by a sibe person about historical breeding only for type and a rather loose type at that and that to have a purebred something like at least something like 75 different foundation stock dogs would be needed.

Have not found the exact article but since I knew it was in reference to siberian huskies I fell across this.

Information on Canine Genetic Diversity

yes -- this is how breeds begin , whether GSD's or Rocky Mountain horses' Sam Tuttles "Old Tobe" -- (I have this breed of horse and did write a piece in their specialty magazine tracing the genetics and development)

This is how all breeds start out, in order fix desired traits and eliminate undesireable ones. Yes, it's normal.

lmao i didn't even realize that this dog was that close to the first official GSD... so bad example. But I notice even dogs in the 50's had similar levels of line breeding

The breed is full of linebreeding and inbreedings - all of our dogs have backmassing in their pedigrees. People prematurely insult close breedings, but when done right, it maintains and elevates the breed. It has always been done, and it always will be done to maintain a breed. We cannot breed to a dog that we really like from 30 years ago, but we can try to mass on the genetics we are interested in and bring that out by linebreeding on desired dogs.

Yep, we can trace all our dogs to good old Horand :)

FWIW

Recently came upon a Tierkerhook dog who is is 2-2 on Nick v Heiligenbosch and 3-3 on Yoschy v.d. Dollenwiese / Vixen v Tierkerhook. Very heavily linebred/inbred but having been done by a breeder known for breeding top WGWL dogs, I can only guess that this cross was done to set and maintain certain desirable traits within his line.