Scout's Paw Tracks

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Three Part Series On How To Use The German Shorthair Pointer Pedigree Database

This is the first of a three part series on how to use the German Shorthair Pointer Pedigree Database.  I will describe what we are doing and why, the concepts and data rules.  How to connect to the web based version and the steps to search for specific dogs.

Part two of this series will speak to the options you have once you have found the dog you are looking for.  How to follow a specifc line using the database in-line links.

Part three of the series will walk you through how to send us electronic pedigrees to be included in the on-line and off-line versions.  I hope you find it helpful and please provide us with feedback as I am continually improving how this works.

Currently as of this writting there are over 27,000 dogs listed in the pedigrees.  Some of them have pedigrees streching back more than 70 generations while others are a little less detailed.  So why?  Many folks will tell you there is very little to be gained from looking this far back in the pedigrees and from a pure science view that is true, however, not always.  Just because a dog does not have a CH in front of the name does not mean it is not a solid representation of the breed nor does it mean that it will not produce champions.

Health records and other information make an informed buyer or breeder so does a dogs pedigree and understand the hours of work quality breeders put into understanding pedigrees before mating a dog and female.  Genetic soup and nuts and a lot of help from the Almighty will determine the final result but knowing as much as you can about the possibilities does not hurt.

The other reason is pure research understanding what other breeders did and then working out the why.  Why did they breed dog X with female Y, what were they looking to accomplish what little change were they looking for in thier line.  Perhaps they were not looking for a change at all perhaps they were looking at strengthing some characteristic in the line.  All of these are good reasons to have a solid understand of pedigrees.

Much of this data has been pulled from a variety of resources.  I am also working through dogs with similiar names, duplicate regestrations or inaccurate registration numbers.  While those make us less than 2% of the overall data I am working dilligently to correct them.

This is what drives my passion for the breed and these pedigrees understanding historically what has been done and why and recording the information in a simple to use format.  Once I started on this endevor I decided to publish it on the web site at no cost and share with others who share this passion for German Shorthairs.  I have the ability with the tool to store other breeds and specifically do not like the site the information is specifc to German Shorthair Pointers.

Hopefully that helps understand the why.  Those that have worked through pedigrees know the work that goes into this research and hopefully we will make that a little less painfull for you.  So on to how to search for a dog.

STEP 1 Select the number of generations you will want displayed in the pedigree.  For most computer printers printing in Landscape mode, 5 generations is the best choice.  This option is limited to 10 generations.  Ancestor links are provided withint he webform to look back even further more on that in the second part of this series. 

STEP 2 Enter the name of the dog you are searching for.  This can be any part of the name but it does have to be the dogs official name not the called name.  Now this provides a useful option for a kennel if the kennel name is part of the name.  An example:  Say I wanted to find all dogs from the Hege-Haus kennel.  I would put in Hege-Haus and once I get to the search option every dog with Hege-Haus will be listed in decending alphabetic order.  As of this writing that will generate 200 dogs.  Now as I am cleaning up this data you may have to try different patterns to find the dog you are looking for.

STEP 3 Select the database.  This is already done for you and can not be changed, no action needed on your part.

STEP 4 Select Fast or Slow search.  So what is the difference?  If you do a fast search for Hege you will only get those records with “Hege.” If you use the slow search you will get every dog with “Hege” any where in the name.  Slow search would include “Hege Haus”, “Hege-Haus” or even “Hegendorf.” Slow search is a more complete seatch and takes a few more seconds to complete.  In the example in STEP 2 generated 200 dogs using a fast search; using a slow search it generated 587 results.  As this example illistrates a slow search is the one to use unless you specifically know the speeling of the dogs official name.

Select the “Search Now” button and after a few seconds the results will be presented.

STEP 5 Find the dog listed and select the option you need

[PEDIGREE w/ LINKS]—displays the pedigree with links so if you want to follow a specific line you select that dog and it will generate the pedigree from that dog.
[PEDIGREE w/o LINKS]—displays the same as above without the link to continue following specific lines.
[BREEDING INFO]—Shows the sire and female all full and half siblings.
[TRIAL PEDIGREE]—Adds the dog to an advance pedigree option to take two dogs and show the pedigree of their get.
[REVERSE PEDIGREE]—Shows all the prodgeny for a specific sire or female for the last 4 generations.

So hopefully you will now be an expert on how to find a dog in the database.  As always if you have a question please send me and e-mail.

If you want to link your dogs pedigree there is an article listed under the category of German Shorthair Pointer Pegigree News on how to build and link to the database directly and show your pedigree to the world.

Regards,
Jim

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Pedigree Tip of the Week: Linking to Your Dogs Pedigree.

So our tip of the week is on pedigrees.  Your dog is listed among the 27,000 pedigrees we have on-line and you want to add them to your dispaly them from your site.  Well here is how you can do it without using the index number which will change from time to time.

Example:

http://www.silverblades.net/cgi-bin/geneal.pl?db=gsp.dbw&op=pedigree&gens=6&pattern=Bleugras%20Brown’s%20Hearts%20On%20Fire

Copy the line displayed in bold above.

Modification you can make

gens=6 can be changed to any number between 3 - 10
pattern=Use the exact name as it is shown ont he pedigree listed here if there is a space between names use %20 in place of a space.

So how could you use this here is an example for Bleugras Brown’s Hearts On Fire. used within the href web tag.

If you are using the pedigree database please link back to us at the http://www.gspdog.net link.

Regards,
Jim

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

GSP Database Update

I am continuing to clean up the database I am currently down to about 1,500 records that need obvious corrections and I am continuing to improve the data at 100 records a day. Some questions I have been asked recently.

1.  Other on-line systems allow me to add dogs automatically, how do I add them to yours and why not add them on-line?

A:  Data accuracy, pedigrees are either submitted through the on-line form or sent directy by e-mail.  if you have it in another format I can upload them automatically.  Before most new records are added I review records for accuracy.  Many of the automated systems on-line have a large number of inaccuracies.  As an example a recent five generation pedigree had over 45 errors.  All new records validated before entry.

2.  How do you verify accuracy?

A: OFA records, AKC records, stud books, publications, and other public records.  As an example, I was looking for a female so I searched the name on the Internet and was able to find a related pedigree.  However the pedigree confirmed the name and sec it did not tell me the birth date or AKC registration number.  In this case I searched the AKC data nd found the name this gave me the date of birth, regisration number and color.

3.  How do I use the database?

A:  In top right hand side of this page you will see a link GSP Pedigree Data Base.  Click the link will take you to the Pedigree search page.  There are five steps to searching for a pedigree.

- Select the number of generations “5” is the default the maximum you can select is “10”
- Enter the dogs “Official” name if you are not sure of the dogs name enter a partial name.  Example to find all dogs with Bleugras anywhere in the name just enter Bleugras.
- Step 3 you can skip automatically selected.
- Step 4 you can skip automatically selected.

Click the search now button

- A list of dogs that match the search request will be displayed. Select the one you want and that pedigree will be displayed.

4.  Is there anything else the data base can be used for?

A:  Yes there are many additional features.

- Trial pedigrees
- Reverse Pedigrees
- Breeding Info (Shows siblings, Half Siblings and Gets grouped by litter number).

We hope you find this tool helpful and useful if you have pedigrees you would like added send me the pedigrees and I will add them to the website.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Pedigree Database How To Guide

The record you see above is an example of the results from a search in the Pedigree Database. I wanted to speak today about some of the features and where we are in the data investigation we are performing. First lets start with the record. It includes the name, {color, sex} registration number, date of birth. The second line is the sire x dam (notice that any titles or awards are listed in red). The third line is a series of link options you can select for more details.

Pedigree w/ links - this option list the pedigree in a standard child parents model everyone is accustom to seeing. Each child and parent are listed and if they have links to their pedigree you can select them and see the next pedigree using that dog as the starting point. Example: I select Fido 5 generations I see his record and select the Pedigree w/ links. While looking over the pedigree I see the 5th generation grandparents have links. I can click on one of those links and them start the pedigree from that point back another 5 generations. Note if you selected to run a 10 generation pedigree and you select a 10th generation grandparent you will get 10 generations for that grandparent. What this basically allows you to do is track backwards though a specific bloodline.

Pedigree w/o links - Is basically the same as above without links it is more for people that want to print a pedigree without the names being underlined.

Breeding Info - Shows all the breeding information for a specific dog, parents, littermates, full siblings, half siblings Male side and half siblings Female side. It will also show breeding info who they were breed with and names and links of pups produced.

Trail Pedigree - This shows what if’s, what if I bred dog A to Bitch B what would the offspring pedigree look like. Currently the web version does not support showing an in breeding coefficient.

Reverse Pedigree - Is exactly that start with a grandparent and it build the prodigy listing of that dog.

That hopefully explains how the database records work.

Currently there are over 6,700 German Shorthaired Pointers listed in the database. A word of caution, I am always on the look out for validated information, not all records have been validated about 50% have been validated. Some records you may notice do not list a dog as a Champion or award they may have earned. One of two things could be the reason. Either I have not confirmed the record with 2 independent sources or I have confirmed the record. I only record information I can confirm from an broadly accepted source. Paw Village is not an accepted source as the records in Paw Village are put in there by individuals without validation. While I do us Paw Village as one of our investigative tools as well as World Pedigrees I take the information gathered from there and use it as a starting point to search foreign stud book and AKC records. If those records indicate titles they are included as part of the record if they do no then they are removed during validation.

If you believe a dog has been awarded a title and it is not properly listed I recommend contacting the proper registry to have the data corrected. I seem to run into this more with AFC titles where the dog is listed as an Ameture Field Champion but the AKC does not have them recorded as so. Once it has been corrected send me a message and I will make the correction in our data sources.