Preface/Front Matter

Abstract

Since the domestic dog became the most important animal companion centuries ago, there has existed in humans a desire to cross-breed dogs with unique characteristics and to preserve the most desirable traits in the form of breeds. The resulting phenotypic variation observed across breeds is far greater than that observed for any other animal species, hence the dog and its genome have attracted enormous scientific and public interest. As geneticist, molecular biologist, and veterinary clinician, we have led many of the successful collaborations in canine genomics, clinical diagnostics, and molecular technology that culminated in 2004 with the completion of the canine genome sequence. We, hence, embraced the opportunity offered by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press to present the recent developments and current molecular genetic understanding of the domestic dog and its genome at this exciting time. We are most indebted to our many colleagues whose expertise and enormous efforts made their chapter contributions invaluable to this book. As we embarked on this project, we recognized how much progress has recently been made in this rapidly evolving field; we apologize that we had to select topics and could not acknowledge various collaborative and other research groups worldwide who made outstanding contributions to the better understanding of the genetics of the dog. All these achievements would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts of countless students, research and sequence production specialists, and postdoctoral fellows in our own and other laboratories. A very special thanks goes to all who did the actual