49 



breed matings. One of the bassethound males, "Leader," 

 had one foxhound grandparent which had been introduced and 

 recorded in the line, carrying out an idea that this lessened 

 the tendency to have knocked wrists which inhibit the running 

 speed for the highly achondroplasic leg. The other two basset- 

 hound males used were homozygous for short legs. 



One of the first matings made was between the shepherd 

 bitch "Thea" 1119, and "Pathfinder," a pure line basset- 

 hound. Four puppies were whelped, two males and two fe- 

 males, all of which lived to maturity. All four puppies were 

 short legged, since the achondroplasic leg of the bassethound 

 is dominant over the normal leg of the shepherd. Photographs 

 of the skeletons of two of these F x bassethound-shepherd 

 hybrids, 1235 and 1245, are shown in plate 3 (figs. 4, 5 and 

 6). 



The same shepherd bitch, 111 9 , was then mated to the dog 

 "Leader," a typical bassethound in appearance but having 

 one long-leg foxhound grandparent. This mating also pro- 

 duced four puppies that lived to maturity, two males and two 

 females. Of this litter one male and one female were long 

 legged and the other two were short legged. This clearly 

 indicates that the father w r as heterozygous for the dominant 

 short leg, carrying the genes for both long and short, and 

 the expectation from his mating with a long legged bitch is 

 equal numbers of long and short legged puppies, which, by 

 chance, were produced. 



These two litters from the German shepherd bitch 111 2 

 indicate in themselves that the achondroplasic short leg of 

 the bassethound is a single factor dominant character. 



A second shepherd bitch, "Else" 118$, was then mated 

 to a third bassethound male, "Drifter," from pure short-leg 

 lines. This mating whelped seven puppies, three males and 

 four females; two of these animals are shown in plate 2 (figs. 

 3 and 4). Again the short leg dominates the normal long 

 and all members of this litter of seven are uniformly short. 

 Thus an apparently complex achondroplasic short-leg char- 

 acter would seem to depend upon a simple single genie factor 



