In the 1970'S a West Coast breeder with considerable knowledge of animal genetics desired to breed a goat with the markings and general characteristics of the French Alpine dairy goat, but in a miniature size. He began this project by crossing a purebred black Pygmy buck on a small Cou Blanc French Alpine doe. The offspring of this first mating was a small Alpine-marked buck. He repeated the breeding the following year and obtained two small Alpine-marked does. He then mated these together, and the progeny was repeatedly either crossed onto small black Pygmy bucks, .or to the Alpine-marked progeny. After several generations he succeeded in producing Pygmy-sized goats that are marked exactly like French Alpines, and that are prepotent for these markings.

In 1983 he terminated the experiment, sold the final doe, and then destroyed the 'intermediate' animals. (At least, we heard that they were sold to a stockyard for slaughter!) The last Dwarf Alpine doe, born 1983, went to Mr. John Cheeseman, formerly of Montana, and when Mr. Cheeseman moved to Indiana, he sold his entire herd of miniature goats, includ-ing the Dwarf Alpine doe to Pine Cone Valley Farm. The original breeder had instructed Mr. Cheeseman to breed the Alpine doe to the smallest miniature black Pygmy buck he could find; we accomplished that at Pine Cone Valley, and the resultant offspring was a perfectly-marked Dwarf Alpine buck. We subsequently mated that buck to the original doe, and to her doe offspring, for the following three years, and retained all the goats born with the Alpine markings. (Only one was born that was not well-marked; a mostly-white doe, which was sold as a pet.) In 1986 the International Dairy Goat Registry opened a herdbook for these Dwarf Alpines, and the original doe and her offspring with the correct phenotype were registered as foundation animals.

As of March, 1988, the herd of Dwarf Alpines numbered 5 does and 5 bucks. These were offspring of the original pair, and an outcross to a black miniature buck, which we were instructed to do (on occasion, to prevent inbreeding depression,) and to incorporate some genetic diversity into the herd. The original doe, Patsy, was then 6 years old; Leon, the oldest buck, was born in 1986, and the remainder of the offspring were all under three years of age. Remarkably, they all continued to show the true Cou Blanc Alpine markings. Some, including Patsy, are white and black; in others the white has been replaced by a lovely gold color, which is also characteristic of the French Alpine dairy goats. Eventually the complete herd was sold to a middle Tennessee breeder who perpetuated the Alpine breeding and increased the number; he then sold it to Mrs. Judy Prindle in New York who maintained the breeding with great interest and enthusiasm. But Mrs. Prindle passed away suddenly on Christmas eve, 1993, and the future of the dwarf Alpine herd is uncertain as this is written.

The Dwarf Alpines are physically the same size as African Pygmy goats, and are currently living in a large Pygmy and Nigerian Dwarf herd. Unlike the Pygmy, however, they exhibit the flat muzzle, ear set, flinty bone and generous mammary system of their Alpine dairy goat ancestors. They milk very well, and usually nurse their kids as long as we will leave the kids with them. They are so distinctively marked that even in a herd of 70 Pygmy and Dwarf does, the Dwarf Alpines can be quickly spotted at a distance. Patsy, the original doe, was disbudded as a kid; the others are all horned, as we at Pine Cone Valley do not practice disbudding or dehorning of any breeds of goats. Horns are present in all purebred Pygmy goats, and dominant in Alpine dairy goats, so a hornless offspring would be theoretically possible but quite unlikely.

Possibilities in breeding animals and plants have always fascinated Man, and from time to time, similar experiments have been conducted by breeders of dairy and other goats, with varying degrees of success. Whether one defines 'success' as achieved when the desired offspring is produced, or as when one obtains a true-breeding animal capable of reproducing itself, is a matter of opinion, and what one wishes to accomplish. Most breeders agree that a 'breed' deserves that status only when the animals dependably and repeatedly reproduce the desired phenotype. By that definition, the Dwarf Alpine is a true breed, just as the Pygora is now considered to be.

Obviously, all our modern breeds of cattle, sheep and goats are 'Man-made' breeds, in the sense that all have been created deliberately from wild species, although much of this work was accomplished centuries ago. Taxonomists, continually refining their criteria for determining species, still recognize less than a dozen true species of sheep and goats, yet there are hundreds of sheep breeds alone, as there are of goats and cattle. The fact that the major-ity of these were created so long ago, coupled with the length of time required to develop a new breed, may explain the current lessened interest in the creation of new breeds, al-though some work is still ongoing. (We do not refer here to the continual crossing of sheep breeds to produce 'commercial' hybrids for the market.) Possibly there is a bit of the 'expert' syndrome operative here--that being that 'a prophet is without honor in his own country,' or, put another way, an expert is the fellow with the same knowledge, but from out of town! Rather, in this harried and hurried age, is it possible that Man has a greater interest in achieving the production of an unusual single animal, as opposed to a true breed, be-cause this can be accomplished a bit faster? We leave it to those with an especial interest in the history of breeds and breeding to answer this question; however, in the world of goats, from time to time as one searches the old literature, one finds fascinating accounts of goat breeding experiments that were more or less successful. Some of these we mention, in the hopes that readers might be stimulated to recall and write in to the IDGR and/or the ALBC of other such experiments, lest their history be completely lost.

(1) In the 1970's, a Texas breeder of dairy goats, working with French Alpines, desired to produce a solid white French Alpine goat; that is, a dairy goat that would be as white as the Saanen breed while actually possessing the characteristics of an Alpine, and without the admixture of Saanen (or other) blood. After 12 generations he finally succeeded. The doe might be mistaken for a Saanen at a cursory glance, but anyone familiar with the charac-teristics of the two breeds would instantly have recognized her as an Alpine on a closer look. She was, unfortunately, exported to Mexico before any subsequent follow-up breeding was done.

(2) All breeds of goats and sheep possess a mammary system with two functional teats and a divided udder, as opposed to the four teats and four-part udder of cattle. In the 1940's a dairy goat with a balanced, fully functional, four-part udder with four teats appeared in a herd, and her owner tried to perpetuate this trait to see if he could breed a line of 'cow-uddered' goats. His subsequent efforts only produced a number of animals with large super-numary, or double, teats; and he passed away before he achieved either of his goals of breeding a second such doe, or a true-breeding line.

(3) The writer has always been interested in goats and sheep with multiple horns. Over the past 15 years, many reports have reached us from individuals that were not really inter-ested in goats or sheep, but that had been to thus-and-such an exposition, show, or fair, and had seen 'goats with four horns.' On investigation, such reports have proved to be ill-founded; for the animals referred to turned out to be sheep--there are several four-horned sheep breeds (the Jacob, Navajo, Hebridean, etc.) However, there was one such instance that was genuine. A breeder of goats in North Carolina kept a herd of Zaraibi-type Nubians for many years in the 1940's and 1950's, and being interested in novelty animals, had obtained a brush-type goat reported to have four horns. Furthermore, all the offspring of this origi-nal goat had four horns as well. The breeder sold his animals and retired from goatkeeping in 1957, and another Carolina breeder, the very experienced Mr. Larry Raines, paid him a visit in the hopes of buying some stock, in 1960. His visit was too late, but he was shown a photograph album containing pictures of what were plainly dairy-goat-size goats, with four horns clearly visible. Mr. Raines was not particularly interested in four-horned goats, so passed the incident off as a curiosity. He related this experience to the writer in 1982, and our attempts to follow it up were frustrated--the original owner had either long moved away, or passed away; in any event, we never were able to make contact despite a couple of years of investigation including a trip to the site, only to find that no one had lived at that address for a number of years, and the neighbors recalled nothing more than the fact that there had been goats there once.

These are but three examples of many that could be cited. The history of many other of Man's endeavors is well-documented, but in the case of some breeds of animals, quite often the knowledge and the experiences die along with the breeder. This seems especially true of goats, which much of the public still regards as a minor species, somehow ill-suited for the barns and farms of the rich and powerful. To a small degree this image is changing, but the pace of change is indeed slow. This also applies to the subject of individual breeding lines within breeds, to which some breeders have devoted lifetimes of effort.

We feel that these efforts expended by breeders are worth preserving--either as historical records, where the animals themselves have been lost, or as the living creatures, as is ALBC's concern. The Dwarf Alpines today exist as a novelty, just as the African Pygmy and Nigerian Dwarf goats are novelties--that is, in America they are not 'production' animals in the same sense that our modern dairy and beef cattle, swine, and sheep are. However, neither are 99% of all horses, dogs, or cats, let alone the exotics beloved of so many contem-porary animal owners, such as llamas, aoudad, guinea hogs, snakes, etc! All have their following, (how many millions of cats and dogs are there?) and all merit preservation, for we are not yet wise enough, nor possess such an accurate ability to foresee all the future may hold, to say that any given species or breed has absolutely no present or potential utility and is therefore 'sacrificial.' While there is still an opportunity, all who are con-cerned about vanishing animals should make an attempt to record those unusual creatures that we may encounter, and preserve and perpetuate this information; both for its intrinsic value as well as for its potential guidance for those animal owners and breeders who will follow in our footsteps.