Many dogs in Sweden are put up for adoption at the Swedish buy- and sales site?Blocket?. This because in Sweden, rescue shelters mostly takes in dogs that have been confiscated by the police. The aim of this study was to investigate what kind of dogs that are put up for adoption and why owners put their dog up for adoption and also compare the results with those from other countries. 800 dog advertisements from ?Blocket? were collected in the study between January 31st and April 10th 2012.

Sheep have played a very important part in rural history. In Sweden there were many kinds of small native Breeds, kept for their meat and fleece. Women cared for the flock that often had very little to feed on during the cold and sometimes harsh winter months. This meant that these sheep over time acquired special phenotypic properties depending on the environment they lived in, and easily fed compared to modern Breeds kept for meat. Most of these sheep have since become extinct.

The purpose of this study was to compare normal electroretinographies (ERGs) from three different canine Breeds in order to evaluate if there were any marked similarities or differences between these Breeds as to ERG responses. It is known that healthy dogs from different Breeds but also dogs within the same Breed but in different age categories may have different appearances of their ERG responses. This may be a problem when evaluating if an ERG is normal or not from a dog within a Breed not previously examined. Because of this it is important to obtain normal values for each Breed and age group in order to be able to use these for later comparisons of ERGs obtained from individuals affected with various retinal diseases. In this study we have chosen to examine dogs within the three Breeds: Labrador Retriever (LR), English Springer Spaniel (ESS) and Chinese Crested Dog (CCD). All of these Breeds may be affected with hereditary retinal diseases such as Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA). It is possible that ERG-responses vary due to a number of different factors.

An increasingly globalized market is leading to hard competition among manufacturing companies, which means that they are forced to become more customer focused to survive in the market. A Customer Relationship Management system is a system that will be of assistance to help companies succeed in building long term relationships with their customers. Best of Breed and ERP-based are two types of CRM systems. The study has focused on analyzing and examine the need for CRM systems at manufacturing companies. Our question formulation has been:? What need do businesses want to satisfy with a Best of Breed-based and ERP-based CRM system?? Are there any differences in the use of Best of Breed-based and ERP-based CRM system?In this study, we have chosen to carry out interviews and quantitative surveys with manufacturing companies to get their view of CRM-systems.

Measurement of plasma concentrations of natriuretic peptides have been suggested to be of diagnostic and prognostic value in canine cardiac disease. In several previous canine studies, however, a considerable overlap between investigated groups has been identified. A reliable natriuretic peptide test for use in clinical practice requires establishment of reference values for natriuretic peptides in healthy dogs and cut-off values for subclinical disease as well as for clinical signs of congestive heart failure. Numerous physiological, pathological and pharmacological factors, aside heart function, may influence concentration of natriuretic peptides. A potential effect of dog Breed on natriuretic peptide concentration has been suggested but has, to our knowledge, not previously been specifically studied.

The Swedish Red Polled Breed is threatened by extinction and there are only around 1100 animals left. The Breed was popular in the early twentieth century, but since then the numbers have steadily decreased. The overall objective of this study was to find out whether there may be economic incentives for preserving the Breed. The milk quality properties are of major importance in the production of dairy products. Therefore we would like to establish if the Swedish Red Polled Breed carries favourable alleles at loci of relevance for milk quality, to potentially make the Breed more interesting for milk production.

The heterosis effect and Breed group effect of crossbreds between Swedish Holstein (SH) and Swedish Red (SRB) was estimated in this study. Observations on cows born between 1990 and 2012 were used to estimate the heterosis effect and Breed group effect for several traits included in the Nordic Breeding goals: production, fertility, udder health, calving performance, survival and other diseases. Breeding within the Holstein dairy Breed has earlier been focused on increased milk production and conformation. This, combined with an intensive use of individual animals, has resulted in a radical increase of milk yield in the Holstein dairy cow population all over the world. However, this Breeding strategy has resulted in increased inBreeding and several functional traits have impaired.

For centuries inBreeding has been used to refine traits in dogs, making desired traits more hereditary and thereby, different Breeds have been invented. Breed standards have been written for each of these Breeds, describing in detail the different characteristics of each Breed. When humans start to choose which animal to Breed from, so called artificial selection, taste is put before function and the laws of nature, the natural selection, cease to apply. During this development, pedigree dogs have gone towards more and more extreme exterior characteristics and the dogs may have inherited various, more or less, severe problems for example compromised vision, impaired ability to move and difficulties to breathe. However they can still survive and reproduce because humans provide them with the conditions to do so.

This project was initiated by a veterinarian, that at stallion performance tests for Breeding during a number of years, noted Breed differences in various types of testicular disorders. Therefore it was of interests to examine the proportion of testicular disorders within certain Breeds. The aim with the project was in a first part to study cryptorchidism in common horse Breeds in Sweden. Information about castrations of stallions performed during a 10 year period (2000-2009) was collected from computerized case records at five animal hospitals. The case records showed the numbers of castrations, normal cases and cases preformed on stallions with cryptorchidism, abdominal respectively inguinal.

Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency is a hereditary disease that in Sweden is especially common in German shepherds. The Swedish German shepherd club has currently no plan of action for decreasing disease prevalence in the Breed. The purpose of this study was to review existing literature about the disease and also to perform an inventory of the disease in the Swedish dog population. Special focus was laid on the German shepherd Breed. The inventory was later compared to an unpublished inventory of the disease with data from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences from 1997. During the period 2002-06-01 to 2007-09-26 (ca 64 months) 2961 blood samples were analyzed for cTLI. 274 samples were positive (cTLI .

Sweden signed, in 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and has thus assumed responsibility for the indigenous biodiversity. That also means that Sweden has a conservation responsibility for the Swedish Friesian (SLB) (SJV, 2007a). In a survey conducted by the Board of Agriculture (SJV) in 1996, it appeared that there were around 780 cows and heifers of the SLB Breed (SJV, 1997). SJV did in 2006 a plan for the development of livestock genet-ic resources and the number of cows of SLB was estimated at approximately 200. This meant that the SLB was in need of being conserved and SJV assumed it would be categorized as threatened.The primary objective of conservation of a Breed is to reduce the loss of the original genetic variation (Lacy et al., 1995).

Water is an essential factor for both people and animals, and access to water is therefore of great importance. The water access also largely determines the availability of food for people and feed for animals. The aim of this study was to survey the affect of water access on milk production from dairy animals. The study included nineteen farm visits that were made in the Nyando district in Kenya between February and Mars 2011. Farm visits included interviews with questions about for example number of dairy animals, milk production, water access, feed and water routines.

Sweden signed, in 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and has thus assumed responsibility for the indigenous biodiversity. That also means that Sweden has a conservation responsibility for the Swedish Friesian (SLB) (SJV, 2007a). In a survey conducted by the Board of Agriculture (SJV) in 1996, it appeared that there were around 780 cows and heifers of the SLB Breed (SJV, 1997). SJV did in 2006 a plan for the development of livestock genet-ic resources and the number of cows of SLB was estimated at approximately 200. This meant that the SLB was in need of being conserved and SJV assumed it would be categorized as threatened.The primary objective of conservation of a Breed is to reduce the loss of the original genetic variation (Lacy et al., 1995).

Among the Indigenous cattle Breeds in Indonesia, the Bali cattle is the most preferred by small farmers. The Bali cattle is a beef Breed, and is considered to have several advantageous characteristics and to be well adapted to the country?s harsh environmental tropical conditions with drought and rain. The main aim of this project was to phenotype of Bali cattle from different locations in order to identify and document diversity within the Bali cattle Breed based on their observable characteristics, to compare cattle from different areas and production systems to see the effect of management on phenotype. In this study, 107 cows and bulls of the Breed Bali cattle, from Kalimantan, Sumatra, Lombok and Bali were phenotyped.

Pigs in Swedish organic production systems have been shown to have more findings of arthritis at slaughter, compared to pigs in conventional pig production. With this in mind a study was performed, to primary, investigate variation in exterior, gait and weight gain between sire Breeds and, secondly, to investigate variation between herds, season, gender, age and assessment occasion on these recordings. Swedish commercial hybrids, crosses between Norwegian Landrace and Swedish Yorkshire were inseminated with either Hampshire or Duroc as terminal sire. All the pigs had known pedigree as each semen dose contained sperms from one individual boar. All piglets were individually tagged closely after birth, and exterior and gait assessment were performed at two separate occasions, early and late during the fattening period.