This is an extension of this questionand probably might even be a duplicate of some other question(If so, please forgive me). I see from MSDN that generics are usually used with collections

The most common use for generic classes is with collections like linked lists, hash tables, stacks, queues, trees and so on where operations such as adding and removing items from the collection are performed in much the same way regardless of the type of data being stored.

The examples I have seen also validate the above statement.

Can someone give a valid use of generics in a real-life scenario which does not involve any collections ?

Pedantically, I was thinking about making an example which does not involve collections

public class Animal<T>
{
    public void Speak()
    {
       Console.WriteLine("I am an Animal and my type is " + typeof(T).ToString());
    }

    public void Eat()
    {
        //Eat food
    }
}

public class Dog
{
    public void WhoAmI()
    {
        Console.WriteLine(this.GetType().ToString());

    }
}         

and "An Animal of type Dog" will be

Animal<Dog> magic = new Animal<Dog>();

It is entirely possible to have Dog getting inherited from Animal (Assuming a non-generic version of Animal)Dog:Animal Therefore Dog is an Animal

Another example I was thinking was a BankAccount. It can be BankAccount<Checking>,BankAccount<Savings>. This can very well be Checking:BankAccount and Savings:BankAccount.

Are there any best practices to determine if we should go with generics or with inheritance ?