Page 51 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 5 1

E. Zimen explains the term “breed” and quotes the French zoologist Cuvier: “A species is
a natural reproductive community with free choice of spouses.” It would now be
necessary to determine the typical characteristics of a natural reproductive community
and not vice versa ... to conclude a common species affiliation on the basis of
established similarities.

A species is understood to mean, for example, a horse and a donkey. The species can have

considerable differences in characteristics due to geographical or other conditions. The
biologist then speaks of subspecies. This division of the geographically discontinuous
variability of a species into subspecies is therefore largely a subjective matter. The
delimitation of species, on the other hand, can be recorded objectively with Cuvier's
definition.

E. Zimen continues: “Early domestication researchers assumed that the formation of
domestic breeds was a process comparable to the formation of geographical subspecies
or even the formation of species in wild animals. But this is wrong. Breeds of domestic
animals are created ... only through selective breeding by humans according to certain
objectives in the reproductive lines genetically isolated by humans. There is no natural
formation of breeds in the household, at most the splitting up into different country

breeds. ... It was only when people began to breed the different types of use separately
in sexual isolation at the same place as needed that the first true dog breeds also came
into being.”

The date of the first true dog breeds must therefore be set at the first dog shows in the
middle of the 19th century. Until then, there were mainly landraces of different dog types,

which developed geographically as subspecies!

If we want to name the differences that a selective breeding selection of humans
according to certain objectives describes from a targeted mating of two similar
individuals within the species, the desired breeding objective must be named as a matter
of priority. The breeding objective, which is to emphasise certain characteristics, must
be seen as a demarcation between both breeding strategies, selective or natural.

In the mating of individuals of the same kind, there is no breeding selection in the sense
of one-sided, selective breeding aims. Nevertheless, it is desirable that two similar
individuals are mated with each other, which may well have special characteristics.
However, these special characteristics will not be seen in the sense of one-sided
modification of the offspring, but the positive characteristics of both parents will be

brought into the new generation as a whole.