It was at Crufts 2008, five months before Pedigree Dogs Exposed broadcast, that the KC's then-genetics advisor Jeff Sampson told me: "We will never give breeders COIs (co-efficients of inbreeding). They wouldn't know what to do with them."
Hah!
Three years on, in May 2011, the Kennel Club launched Mate Select - giving breeders, owners and researchers access to inbreeding data (and health info) on individual dogs and breeds for the first time. The KC has claimed several times that, at best, PDE sped up reform and didn't instigate it. But of course it had had plenty of opportunity to tell me about Mate Select if it had really been in development pre-PDE and it didn't.
(One day, I'll blog what they sent me regarding the breeds on the then high-profile list pre-PDE too... absolutely pitiful.)
Now, Mate Select has its flaws but there's no doubt that it's a fantastically useful tool - as is its sister utility MyKC, which gives access to more detailed breeding data. Both are free, too - all kudos to the Kennel Club for that and the other data it is now making available.
So... for those of you still struggling with COI is, here are two guides.
The first is this very simple explanation written by me a while back - how hosted on Carol Fowler's dogbreedhealth.com website:
http://www.dogbreedhealth.com/a-beginners-guide-to-coi/
And here's a comprehensive guide from Carol Beuchat at the Institute for Canine Biology:
http://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/coi-faqs-understanding-the-coefficient-of-inbreeding
