Genetics on Showdog.com

The genetics on Showdog.com are based primarily on two important factors from the litter's pedigree, quality and consistency. Quality is the numbers you see in the ratings of your dogs and consistency is the predictability of those traits passing on to the offspring.

You can increase the quality of your dogs by breeding dogs with traits as close to ten as possible. While matching the traits to try and breed out defects is effective, breeding to quality animals is always the best idea. For example, breeding a 10 to a 15 is much more productive than breeding a 5 to a 15.

The consistency of your litters depends on how similar the previous generations (back to the great grand parents) are to each other. If a puppy has a pedigree in which there is a large amount of variation between the ancestors, it will be much harder to predict the results of your offspring. Line breeding is a good way to decrease this variance and produce more consistent litters.

PLEASE REMEMBER, almost all litters will have puppies that are just plain old runts. If you try to analyze a runt to see where its genetics come from, it just won't make sense. This is a part of the sim and is not a bug.

Color Genetics

Each breed has its own model for how colors are inherited. It is best to ask on the respective breed forum for the details of a given breed. Colors are currently ignored in the show ring and have no impact on the heath or longevity of a dog.


Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if a dog in the pedigree is deleted?
It is treated just like a source dog.

What if a dog in the pedigree is one of the dogs that was deleted and then a dog from another breed was given that name?
It is treated just like a source dog.

What if I breed two source dogs? How will the generations further back impact the breeding?
Source dogs will randomly contribute either a 5 or 15 to their ancestors.

Last Updated: 5/31/2011 1:25:00 PM



Did you know?
Since its centenary year in 1991, Crufts has officially been recognised as the world's largest and most prestigious dog show by the Guinness Book of Records, with a total of 22,973 dogs being exhibited that year.