Heritability estimates of behaviors associated with hunting in dogs

Heritabilities of traits related to game-bird hunting, measured in the natural ability test of the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association (NAVHDA), were calculated using midparent offspring regressions for five breeds of continental hunting dogs. Heritabilities of use of nose, search, and waterwork were moderate (0.25-0.39). Heritability of pointing was high (> 0.40) in one breed but only moderate in the combined dataset. Desire, cooperation, and tracking were not significantly correlated between midparent average and offspring. One of the breeds, large munsterlander, was analyzed for improvement over the past 15 years. The NAVHDA testing system is used to select breeding stock in the large munsterlander and improvement in scores was significant.