Windmill Farms Golden Retrievers

11/18/2025

This morning I saw the first kinship matrix on my goldens and others I submitted genetic data for.

If you want to learn how to read a heat map "Kinship"

https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/heat_map.html

"One of the ways to assess the genetic similarity of a pair of dogs is using the "kinship coefficient". The kinship coefficient (K) is the fraction of the genes in two dogs that were inherited from a common ancestor, what we call "identical by descent" (IBD). You will recall that the coefficient of inbreeding (COI) is the fraction of genes in a dog that homozygous as a result of inheriting two copies of the same allele from an ancestor common to both parents. So you can see that the COI and K are related - in fact, the coefficient of inbreeding of a dog is the kinship coefficient of its parents. Conversely, the K of a male and female pair of dogs is equal to the predicted COI of a litter if they were bred together."

For many years I worked from calculated COI, then more recently with affordable genetic data. Once I took my breed preservation course the principles of kinship where better understand and applied in conjunction with our breeding program.

I now have a Kinship graph for most of my goldens. Mine is yellow to dark blue. Based on the genetic data I submitted to Dogs Ark, Nova has the lowest kinship to any golden. US, UK or USxUK. No surprise there. Its another breed preservation tool that I will employ in our effort to produce goldens with the lowest genetic COI, kinship with prediction tools.

How will I do this.
First Nova -
The best predicted Kinship and COI with Nova are; Clancy, Rowdy then Eph. No surprise as Clancy is a US x UK cross and Eph has a genetically isolated gun dog pedigree. Rowdy surprised me a bit. The numbers are very favorable.

Second Wacipi
Wacipi has a traditional inbreed field pedigree with many titles. Working with Alisa, I found a popular sire-less stud in ID that gives us similar predicted results. This pedigree reminds me a bit of 17 year old Sasha's pedigree from our foundation female Sheila. Who had some AUS blood in her.

A puppy from each litter will be kept, genetically & field tested. We'll see just how far they can reach into the heterozygosis pool. If it works as planned, I can breed them back into the US x UK performance pool and have a 4 way subpopulation pedigree.

I can do all this without opening any studbooks. Its science, its field work, its genetic testing and its amazing that in 2025 anyone can do it and not have a PhD in animal biology.

11/18/2025

I received a very sobering text last night. Sasha was less than 30 days from her 17th birthday. With a lot of emotion, her body finally gave out and she passed with her family last night.

I'm grateful she gave you many happy years. This is what I hope we can help make the golden standard. Thank for allowing me to gather genetic data prior to her passing. Her legacy will extend from your family to helping the breed.

Rest in peace, Sasha

11/18/2025

My office view is always changing. Touch of snow this morning.

11/17/2025

Out hunting for birds tonight. Got the two boys.

11/17/2025

Pepper x Andy

HR Sunfire's Bright Side JH** FTN
WM Farms Desert Pepper JH

This breeding will take place later this week. We expect the genetic COI to go back up a bit on this litter as we are going back into US performance lines. However, we added the UK working element and plan to add a gun dog or popular sire-less element to the pup if successful. Another future puppy option would go back to a dual champ or appropriate show line if we can get the semen. Either way these pups give us F3-F4 subpopulation breed preservation option with heavy performance retention.

Average Genetic COI for our UK x US crosses is 15%.
Calculated AVK is over 40%

COI and AVK 10 generations:
Coefficient Of Inbreeding (COI): 3.11%
Ancestor Loss Coefficient (AVK): 41.14%
(10 generations: 99.32% complete)

Puppies have been placed.

Thank you for your patience.

11/17/2025

The ICB Golden Retriever Workshop starts tonight.

https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/icbworkshop_goldenretriever.html

This course will cover the basic concepts used in analyses of the genetics of dog breeds, including:

Fundamentals of breed genetics
Inbreeding, kinship, heterozygosity, genomic and DLA diversity, population structure
Why inbreeding and genetic diversity matter in purebred dogs
Breeding practices that cause inbreeding and reduce genetic diversity
How to implement basic strategies to protect breed health
Introduction to new breeder tools for breeders

MATERIALS AND LOGISTICS
Live 2 hour lectures are scheduled for Tuesdays, 5-7 pm PST (Pacific Standard Time).
Dates: Nov 18, 25, Dec 2, 9, 16, 23

11/17/2025

17 Year old Sasha Genetic Report

When I found out WM Farms had a golden that would be 17 in December 2025, I contacted the owner to see if they would be allow me to perform a VGL & Embark genetic test. They agreed.

The results are back. Up until now, I've duplicated 5 Embark & VGL genetic tests. Performed on US x UK crosses and other unique breedings like Nova who is what I consider a popular sire less golden. I've seen consistency between the tests in terms of the genetic relationship between COI and VGL IR results.

Embark tests a much larger portion of the genome. Which means a broader, more inclusive result. For those who took the breed preservation class, this is the data, Dr. Beuchat uses on her diversity graphs along with data from the Kennel Club. She shared data in the class showing the loss of genetic diversity prior to 1930. The reasons include travel and availability of studs along with who had the goldens and their breeding methods. These graphs showed a large amount of genetic diversity loss. (Some of this data can be found on the ICB website or you can take the class.) I've seen a range of results showing how much golden retriever genetic diversity remains today.

VGL test for thirty-three autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) markers. Seven of those STRs are used to evaluate the highly polymorphic dog leukocyte antigen (DLA) class I and class II regions. This test is born from forensics testing which can be used at crime scenes or the like.

In 2019 a study for Genetic heterogeneity and diversity of North American golden retrievers using a low density STR marker panel. Thirty-three autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) markers were used to evaluate genetic heterogeneity and diversity in 525 golden retrievers (GRs). Goldens were selected because of their popularity and artificial selection for conformation vs. performance phenotypes. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30811441/)

The VGL publishes the number of alleles & haplotypes found with their frequency. This is very valuable information to me because I can see how "common" expressed alleles are and I can determine the heterozygosity at DLA I & II. Haplotypes can be used to identify genetic variations that are associated with traits like longevity and disease risk. For example, certain haplotypes in the ERBB4 gene have been linked to a shorter lifespan, while others are associated with longer survival, and specific immune system (DLA) haplotypes can be connected to risks for conditions like certain cancers, according to studies I've read and shared on this FB page. Neither test gives me the complete information I'm looking for.

Sasha has a -.17 from the VGL and a 17 genetic COI from Embark. That's the largest disparity in genetic results I've seen between the testing to date. There can be many reasons why.

If you jump on FB and type in "Golden Retriever Groups" your results will include, show, field, working, lovers, studs, breeding IE a very wide range of interest and usage. Each defending their use and titles with veracity. You've read and seen the rebuttals on my posts. What WM Farms genetic diversity project is trying to accomplish is locate and include as many subpopulations remaining in the breed. The bases of our work is predicated on population genetics. I've shared numerous links to the science of how this works and included actual studies from Jeffery Bragg, ICB and Rhonda Hoven among many.

Rhonda has bred goldens for around 50 years. After I read her article which aligned with population genetic practices, I was able to talk with her. I profited greatly from her knowledge base. In her article she discusses two important issues. The reduction of the GR gene pool and its effect on deleterious recessive genes and how genetic testing both helps and assists in loosing critical genes. Its a pragmatic view with suggested action. Many reject the notions while others can read the article with a subjective view.

The 15 year goal is to locate and include as much golden retriever genetic diversity as possible with the mind of retaining key field traits and conformation pre 1980's. I've shared a number of pictures regarding our goldens. I shared the books we are using. Thanks to Anne and Elaine we have pictures from the early 1920's. Remember all goldens have the same founder genes. All US goldens were imported from Scotland. Every golden today came from the same location and gene pool unless there where unknown outcrosses and registration.

We will use frozen, dual titled goldens, gundogs, field dogs, working goldens, popular lines, non-popular lines, isolated geographical subpopulations and keep a pup from every litter. Now that we have the dogs and frozen from many groups, our 2026-2027 litter plans are very aggressive. Each puppy has a F2-F5 cross in mind within that 15 year time frame. Every puppy will be field tested on birds along with training attitude through a pro trainer and myself. Every puppy will be Embark and VGL tested.

Getting access to 1970's frozen is a tremendous opportunity to bypass all the redundancy and in**ed genetics of the 1980's to now. Used in conjunction with what we have, the mixed genetics will play a vital part of our goals and outcomes. I look for and identify genetic bottlenecks through the 1970's to now because we have our best records.

I contacted the Clinic that stores the frozen semen I referred to golden. With the owners permission they gave me the complete story of its collection and quality. It's the oldest semen they have. No one working at the facility today was there when it was collected. The repro vet long since retired. The data is still in a paper file. They had to find it. Its incredibly interesting. I told the owner she was before her time to have the forethought to collect. The contribution could be significant.

We appreciate the support from so many and understand the resistance of others who are defending their phenotype vs. genotype position. In the end our goal is to see what can be accomplished and share the results.

11/17/2025

I took Buzz out to the training grounds. He's been exploring and swimming in the river. Great temperament and attitude.

He weighs ~ 64 lbs 24" Tall
Muscular - beautiful medium field coat.

We will collect on him 2 more times this week. Then he goes home.

I hope to have 7 breeding units available for him.

11/14/2025

During our call this morning Rhonda Hovan, a 40 + year golden breeder encouraged me to study Dr. Gerald Bell's publications.

For those of you who set aside study each week, its where I'm going next.

Presented by the International Partnership for Dogs (IPFD) in cooperation with the World Small Animal Association (WSAVA) - Wednesday, October 23, 2024More i...

11/14/2025

I collected on Buzz this morning and received a report from Doug.

95% motility
88% viable

Numbers you'd expect from a 2 year old male.

We will collect on him again Monday and Wednesday next week. I will have additional pictures available soon.

My interest in the UK goldens is from a diversity, health and usage standpoint. I recently had a person contact me about health. One of the health parameters I looked into was the low occurrence of PU in UK goldens. There are a number of places you can google the data.

https://www.mspca.org

While every subpopulation has its health concerns, there are benefits and risks to each population. Heterozygosity is the state of carrying two different alleles. Which masks the effect of the recessive mutations if present.

One of my many purposes of using UK goldens is the lack of PU. Pigmentary uveitis (PU) which is reported to have a negligible or absent incidence in UK Golden Retrievers compared to other regions like North America. Research from the UK suggests that the condition is not prevalent there, and it is most often seen in dogs with a North American pedigree. This indicates a strong geographic component to PU prevalence, with lower rates in the UK.

I will have a limited amount of frozen on Buzz. I don't own him. You would venmo the owner directly. I'm doing all this in exchange for a breeding unit. If interested, I should have frozen in a couple weeks.

11/14/2025

Reaching out to the GRCA genetics committee has been wonderful. I should have done it a couple years ago. This effort has been a process not an event. The timing of these events has been significant.

Thank you Karin and Dr. Hobbs.

I called Rhonda Hovan this morning. So glad I did. She's the author of the afore mentioned breed preservation article I shared posted on the GRCA website. She provided context and intent. We also had a chance to discuss my work and the work of the GRCA genetics committee. The GRCA genetics committee is appreciative and helpful. They have a better understanding of my work, goals and commitment.

As a result WM Farms has been gifted frozen semen from 1976 with a complete outline of his use, stature, health and accomplishments. The significant of this is; if its still viable and if the TCI works. Time will tell. I'm working with the repro clinic to get all the data on the frozen. I will work with an experienced repro team near SLC.

Next, the significance of this frozen is that it predates a number of things. I did a pedigree analysis in RD. No Holway in 10 generations. He pre-dates Barty in the USA and doesn't have Zeus in his lines from the UK. Next, the collection of genetic inbreeding and mutations that surfaced from 1976 until now. Besides all the new recessive deleterious mutations which includes PU. Golden Retriever pigmentary uveitis (GRPU) was first formally described and defined in 1996 by the Genetics Committee of the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists (ACVO). This makes frozen semen pre 2000 very interesting.

The condition had likely been observed in clinical cases prior to that, but 1996 marked its recognition as a distinct, unique uveitis specific to the Golden Retriever breed, not associated with other systemic disorders. The first manuscript detailing clinical cases focused on dogs in the Northeastern United States.

Second, Pigmentary uveitis (PU) is reported to have a negligible or absent incidence in UK Golden Retrievers compared to other regions like North America. Research from the UK suggests that the condition is not prevalent there, and it is most often seen in dogs with a North American pedigree. This indicates a strong geographic component to PU prevalence, with lower rates in the UK.

Since WM Farms imported UK goldens from Scottish generational working lines this gives us a tremendous amount of genetic diversity and health potential while retaining key field attributes. If successful, puppies from the pairing could have a significant impact on the F2-F5 possibilities if used judiciously.

Martha is helping with some 1990's semen and from other discussions with the genetics committee it looks like other plans are in the works. Cooperation, awareness, education and collaboration.

Feeling very encouraged with the progress today. Thanks to all who are and have helped in this work!

11/13/2025

Buzz flew in this morning from Denver. The pilot said he curled up and slept most of the way. We will have him for a week and collect on him three times.

I took him out for a nice walk, you would never know he's Ailsa's full brother. They look rather differently. His coat is silky caramel and my guess is he weighs between 63 and 65 lb. He's lean and muscular with a beautiful blocky head.