Wikibooks: Lentis/Unnatural Selection: Explaining Strange Pet Breeds

Animal companionship has been a part of societies for thousands of years. However it was only recently that people started breeding animals for their desired characteristics. Now there are more than 400 dog breeds in the U.S. with 152 recognized by the American Kennel Club a number that is continually growing as new traits become more popular and older traits fade away. http //www.iii.org/fact statistic/pet statistics In the past owning a pet has been a symbol of being elite and wealthy while over time it has come to represent stability and respect. Today sixty five percent of U.S households own a pet and twenty eight percent of dogs and twenty nine percent of cats owned come from breeders. http //www.aspca.org/animal homelessness/shelter intake and surrender/pet statistics This article will begin with a brief history of selective breeding and pet ownership. It will then look at health concerns associated with breeding and analyze the social values that influence popular breeding practices. = History = = Selective breeding = Animal breeding to produce offspring with desired traits has been around for hundreds of years. of England pioneered in the 18th century to choose the most desirable characteristics of his livestock selecting larger sheep with longer more glossy wool over the others. Near the end of the 18th century more people began following Bakewell s selective breeding practice and herdbooks were created to record information about animals and prove they were of a certain breed. Charles Darwin s theory of natural selection was inspired by Bakewell s practice of selective breeding. After studying the large transformations demonstrated by Bakewell s human selection Darwin speculated about the potential changes natural selection could bring about over long periods of time. In an essay in 1844 Darwin wrote Let this work of selection on the one hand and death on the other go on for a thousand generations who would pretend to affirm it would produce no effect when we remember what in a few years Bakewell ...