Genome-wide diversity and runs of homozygosity in the “Braque Français, type Pyrénées” dog breed

Objective Braque Francais, type Pyrenees is a French hunting-dog breed whose origin is traced back to old pointing gun-dogs used to assist hunters in finding and retrieving game. This breed is popular in France, but seldom seen elsewhere. Despite the ancient background, the literature on its genetic characterization is surprisingly scarce. A recent study looked into the demography and inbreeding using pedigree records, but there is yet no report on the use of molecular markers in this breed. The aim of this work was to genotype a population of Braque Francais, type Pyrenees dogs with the high-density SNP array to study the genomic diversity of the breed.