Category Archives: Breeders and Breeding

New Irish Wolfhound Pedigree Database

It’s nearly here! A small group of us have been working for the last 18 months on a new free and open pedigree database for the Irish Wolfhound community, and in only 1 weeks time, it will launch.

IWDB_profile

On Sunday March 13th, iwdb.org will go public after 18 months work and 10 weeks of closed testing. We are very excited to finally allow everybody access to what we’ve worked long and hard for.

iwdb.org is a free and open database of irish wolfhound pedigrees. It’s constructed to be a valuable tool for breeders, breed bodies and breed enthusiasts. Although a work in progress, we hope the first version will provide useful tools and data for the whole community.

Counting down to launch we will publish various findings and titbits from our work.

Most of the IWDB Work Group will be at Crufts around the irish wolfhound ring. You are very welcome to discuss the database with us either here or at Crufts.

You can find our Facebpook community page here… IWDB – Irish Wolfhound Database

Livershunt or IHPSS in Wolfhounds

Inheritance of Livershunt (IHPSS) in Irish Wolfhounds

I wrote this article about the inheritance of livershunt (intrahepatic porto systemic shunt or IHPSS) in Irish Wolfhounds so that breeders might be able to better evaluate annotated pedigrees in families of dogs they are hoping to incorporate into their breeding programme. It first appeared in IW World magazine, in the spring of 2015.

I based the calculations used on the likely mode of inheritance described in this paper by Frank van Steenbeek

Evidence_of_Inheritance_of_IHPSS_in_wolfhounds

The Importance of Research when Buying an Irish Wolfhound Puppy

When considering buying an Irish Wolfhound puppy, please remember to do your homework! Breeders websites may not always tell the whole truth. Visit breed shows, speak to several people, read several websites, try to verify what you are told. The Kennel Club publishes all puppies and imported dogs every quarter, so if a breeder tells you something you are in a position to check for yourself. More later.