[bully]

Originally Posted by Labsnothers

Long ago, I concluded you will never win anything putting in a reasonable effort. Nearly every form of competition draws the win at any cost types. They ruin it for everybody else.

I really blame the breed clubs. They need to pressure the judges to stick to the breed standard. The one for Labs clearly calls for a leaner dog than most winners. Of course, the win at any cost people may be the same ones attending the meetings.

Yes.. You'd think it would be easy to find a bloody scale and ruler to weigh and measure them.

[Spicy1_VV]

Originally Posted by chrisn6104

The purpose of the film was to raise awareness. Pressure from the public will force the KS's to change policy. That is exactly what they are trying to do. I didn't view the film to be against breeders, show's or show dogs. They are looking to correct serious faults.
If a show dog is the pinnacle of the breed then the KC's should be holding them to such standards. These show dogs should pass all medical tests. No show dog should ever win top prize or even be in a show that has any medical conditions.
Top prize winning dogs fetch a lot of money from their litters. If these dogs are to be bred they should be a top representation of the breed. KC's are responsible for breeding diseased dogs. If these dogs never won a show they would never be bred by these show people.
Now if you want to have a "show" dog and a "purebred" dog the KC could bypass the medical requirements for show dogs. These would be dogs that are only best for showing even though they struggle to live and have many medical issues. Purebred would be the ideal for that dog breed. May not be the best in physical appearance but it is the best all around representation for that breed. Though I think in the end the purebred would win hands down.

Do you show, health test, breed you seem to be assuming things.

Perhaps in the UK yes, here in the US it had little to no impact.

Showing dogs is about conformation of the dog, not health. What if a dog passes a test, gets their CH is bred and fails the health test later the 3rd time they are tested? Some test are age specific, so dogs shouldn't be shown until they are older?

There are dogs never shown who are bred. There are dogs shown that are not bred. When I was asked to take a best winner back I had no intention of breeding him. Another that did well I wouldn't breed either because of health it doesn't matter what awards are won. There is also not health test for every issue so you can't prove every dog is 100% healthy.

[spanielorbust]

Originally Posted by zimandtakandgrrandmimi

records, probability using inbreeding coefficients and RESEARCH...are very important.

and I care about dogs. a lot. and the 50 population size doesn't scare me. it simply presents a puzzle requiring management at the start, research in the middle and a solution at the end.

Just wanted to pose a question about this red bolded phrase, in regards to the effective population size.

What about the problem of immune system break down when there is a lack of varied MHC alleles - cancers, allergies, thyroid probs. etc. Have these not been shown to be extremely problematic with these kinds of low population sizes? I understand the idea of managing (at the start), and have spent hours edumicating myself going through research, but I am lost in regards to a solution. Do you know of a solution? Are there solutions? My understanding is that we are really stuck here.

As a breeder, how would you plan to manage the problem of diminishing MHC variety in dog breeds??


To explain, (for those who are not up on their reading regarding inbreeding, effective population sizes, and MHC,) as a rule of thumb for contained wild populations, effective population sizes (Ne) > 500 are thought to be the minimum to avoid any real inbreeding depression. Ne = 50 would be considered a "very serious problem" point. Most purebred dog breeds are hovering in the 60 - 70 range.

For an artificially selected population, there is lots of argument about where that problem point is - as it totally depends on the skill of the breeders. It relies on their willingness to "notice" problems and cull, and, in dogs where they must co-operate, their honesty with each other . . . and I have to point out, lurking on breeder lists I see dishonesty as a HUGE problem.

Breeders can select for things like fertility and disease resistance, and start to map out which individuals carry which deleterious recessive characteristics, and cull them so that effective population sized can get smaller than that of wild counterparts with a better tolerance for inbreeding.

. . . BUT . . .

and this is a big BUT . . .

. . . they cannot get around the effects of diminishing heterozygosity on the MHC . . . for instance like you can in lab rats which are incredibly inbred where you can physically keep them away from stress and pathogens.



Heather Lorimer (Assistant Professor, Genetics Department of Biological Sciences Youngstown State University) explains well the effect of low effective population sizes and lack of varied MHC on the immune system. This is just her starting paragraph, and this whole page (plus her others at this site) should truly be read by every breeder.

http://cc.ysu.edu/~helorime/inbrimmune.html

"The biggest damage caused by inbreeding is an inevitable reduction in the effectiveness of the immune system. A mammal's immune system is an amazing, intricate, system designed to fight off every potential foreign invader. It is absolutely dependent on genetic diversity. When an animal has identical copies of its immune system genes, the immune system becomes limited in its ability to ward off disease. The end result is an animal that can fight off some diseases very well, but is extremely susceptible to others."

This is another site currently in the works, that gets into the full topic of canine genetic diversity and breeding . . . I would think an incredibly important topic to understand for any breeder.


http://dogdimension.org/dokuwiki/dok..._diversity_faq

Although highly inbred animal populations exist (mostly created by human intervention), it is questionable to say that any such populations “thrive.” More accurately, they manage to survive for awhile. Inbred laboratory animals (mice, beagles, cavies) exist in protected environments largely free from environmental stress or challenge. Isolated inbred wild populations like the celebrated wolves of Isle Royale or the Cheetah are in reality struggling and vulnerable, ripe for extinction. Very soon (by nature's timetable) they will no longer exist; nature is in no hurry either to create or to extinguish animal populations.

That extremely inbred lab mice exist comfortably even in a protected environment is due largely to the fact that surviving strains have been successfully purged of many deleterious genes; their natural genetic load has been reduced by careful selection. Part of that selection process necessarily involves the fact that many bloodlines have been culled or discarded, or have simply failed to survive the process. The purebred dogs that now display dramatic genetic diseases for which screening programmes are being developed, are simply a demonstration of the risks of the inbreeding/selection process. Is it right that ninety-five dogs should die for each five survivors of a stringent inbreeding/culling programme? Is it worth that just to purge some part of the natural genetic load? Our companion animals are not lab mice and we should value their lives more than that.

This last blue bolded question, I believe, should give most people who love dogs TONS to think on . . . maybe worth a thread of its own?

[zimandtakandgrrandmimi]

my meaning in the red bolded statement is that I try to approach these kinds of questions with a mindset of of problem solving and critical thinking. I totally acknowledge that a problem exists. but im not going to freak over the problem. im going to solve it. hence the reason for my courses of study in college. im still learning.

I have some small premilinary sort of half assed ideas for exapnding purebred population size...but the effort in bringing them to fruition would be extremely difficult and there's lots of holes in the idea...but basically..

its not unheard to take existing breeds and recreate extinct breeds. the idea would be instead to take a health tested and carefully recorded population and recreate an existing breed suffering from inbreeding depression...keep at it until they breed true and then cross them into the suffering population...effecting an increase in base population.

there's a lot more to it than that but that was the basic idea..and again..its full of holes...I have more learning to do.

[spanielorbust]

Originally Posted by zimandtakandgrrandmimi

my meaning in the red bolded statement is that I try to approach these kinds of questions with a mindset of of problem solving and critical thinking. I totally acknowledge that a problem exists. but im not going to freak over the problem. im going to solve it. hence the reason for my courses of study in college. im still learning.

I have some small premilinary sort of half assed ideas for exapnding purebred population size...but the effort in bringing them to fruition would be extremely difficult and there's lots of holes in the idea...but basically..

its not unheard to take existing breeds and recreate extinct breeds. the idea would be instead to take a health tested and carefully recorded population and recreate an existing breed suffering from inbreeding depression...keep at it until they breed true and then cross them into the suffering population...effecting an increase in base population.

there's a lot more to it than that but that was the basic idea..and again..its full of holes...I have more learning to do.

Dr. Hellmuth Wachtell (a conservation zoologist) has posted on the Canine Genetics Yahoo list many times about the idea of a "mutt outbred population", kept as a registered population and bred, by type, so that those who are preserving breeds have at least a stock to go when they need to bring in new blood.

By type, he means, let's say for small dogs, which predominantly came from the ancient eastern populations (happa dog - now pug, peke, tibbie, shih tzu), and the ancient "malitea" (toy spaniels, pomeranian, maltese) populations, that a mutt population combining these types be kept and bred with full health testing expectations etc.

This sounds much like your idea as well. I think this is an idea with a lot of merit.

[Pai]

Originally Posted by zimandtakandgrrandmimi

my meaning in the red bolded statement is that I try to approach these kinds of questions with a mindset of of problem solving and critical thinking. I totally acknowledge that a problem exists. but im not going to freak over the problem. im going to solve it. hence the reason for my courses of study in college. im still learning.

I have some small premilinary sort of half assed ideas for exapnding purebred population size...but the effort in bringing them to fruition would be extremely difficult and there's lots of holes in the idea...but basically..

its not unheard to take existing breeds and recreate extinct breeds. the idea would be instead to take a health tested and carefully recorded population and recreate an existing breed suffering from inbreeding depression...keep at it until they breed true and then cross them into the suffering population...effecting an increase in base population.

there's a lot more to it than that but that was the basic idea..and again..its full of holes...I have more learning to do.

It's actually not hard return to proper 'type' even after an extreme outcross. Just look how fast these 'Corgi x Boxers' got back to being indistinguishable from 'pure' Boxers. It would only take a few generations and a decent amount of breeders working on it to get a good population of new blood into the genepool. It would just take a concentrated effort and backing by the breed clubs.

Many breeds are related far back in the pedigree anyway, or share many common characteristics; if people just wanted to stay inside a similar 'type group' you'd have even less problem outcrossing while preserving breed type.

[zimandtakandgrrandmimi]

Cattanach is who got me started thinking about it.

there are problems. some concerning scale. others concerning assessment of breeds to be included in secondary populations...the prevention of undesirable traits emerging through expression of recessives that wouldn't have otherwise been paired, what kind of frequency of outcrosses to secondary typed populations would be ideal for optimal maintenance of both populations etc etc etc etc...

and that's just on the science side of things.

[Pai]

The major issue with a closed registry system, is that you can only 'select away' from affected dogs to a certain point, until you've actually done more harm than good because you've tossed out so many 'affected' dogs that you're left with a highly inbred population. So you may have eradicated PRA, for instance, but now you have inbreeding depression (lower fertility, cancers, immune system weakness, etc). The ideal would be to have a balance between selective breeding for type/temperament and selecting the most genetically diverse dogs to put together.

Outcrossing, while of course not being a magic bullet with no issues on it's own, is just the fastest and best way to inject a lot of diversity with minimal work (compared to trying to recreate entire breeds from scratch an then adding them to the existing population). We have a lot of genetic knowledge nowadays to help us, the main problem is that breeders who feel is heresy to have 'impure' dogs or to breed 'non show worthy dogs' (which is what the first few generations of outcrosses would be) will not want to do it.

I kind of agree with the UK's idea of having an independent body of vets and scientists that collects data and makes determinations of which breeds need help. Right now there isn't a lot of collected data that can paint an accurate picture of how good or bad things are in most breeds. An objective third party that works with breed clubs would help a lot, I think. But we' need kennel clubs to support change as well, since the shows and ribbons and prestige are a huge motivation for a lot of people and could be used to 'motivate' change as well.

[spanielorbust]

Originally Posted by Pai

The major issue with a closed registry system, is that you can only 'select away' from affected dogs to a certain point, until you've actually done more harm than good because you've tossed out so many 'affected' dogs that you're left with a highly inbred population. So you may have eradicated PRA, for instance, but now you have inbreeding depression (lower fertility, cancers, immune system weakness, etc). The ideal would be to have a balance between selective breeding for type/temperament and selecting the most genetically diverse dogs to put together.

Outcrossing, while of course not being a magic bullet with no issues on it's own, is just the fastest and best way to inject a lot of diversity with minimal work (compared to trying to recreate entire breeds from scratch an then adding them to the existing population). We have a lot of genetic knowledge nowadays to help us, the main problem is that breeders who feel is heresy to have 'impure' dogs or to breed 'non show worthy dogs' (which is what the first few generations of outcrosses would be) will not want to do it.

I kind of agree with the UK's idea of having an independent body of vets and scientists that collects data and makes determinations of which breeds need help. Right now there isn't a lot of collected data that can paint an accurate picture of how good or bad things are in most breeds. An objective third party that works with breed clubs would help a lot, I think. But we' need kennel clubs to support change as well, since the shows and ribbons and prestige are a huge motivation for a lot of people and could be used to 'motivate' change as well.

I can't wait for Sunday to say Hallelujah. Its nice to be on an open forum with posters who will actually speak about these ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsuXbkrA_AQ

[zimandtakandgrrandmimi]

a different sort of kennel club is what I have in mind...in a sense anyway.

and you can maintain reasonably diverse population with moderately loose line breeding and certain types of backcrosses punctuated by line and regional outcrossing. which would be your reasonably effective management until a good plan for improvement can be set into motion

I also think certain breeding schemes need to reevaluated. not totally overhauled but revamped and revitalized. but that's another complicated thread.....

the numbers crunch out like that anyway.

[Pai]

Originally Posted by zimandtakandgrrandmimi

a different sort of kennel club is what I have in mind...in a sense anyway.

and you can maintain reasonably diverse population with moderately loose line breeding and certain types of backcrosses punctuated by line and regional outcrossing.

A lot of other domestic purebred animals already do this. Rats, horses and cats, for instance (though I've only lightly skimmed thru various breeder info for their clubs). It's not anywhere near as abhorred with other pet animals the way it is with dogs... not sure why the dog fancy seems so much more uptight about it.

[Spicy1_VV]

Problems can and do exist from inbreeding but it seems to vary by population. Some dog breeds which are inbred are not suffering from problems associated with inbreeding depression/health issues. Others do very quickly and continue to worsen. Maybe we can learn something from these different populations.

There is also the possibility to bring in other breeds to help fix problems or add genetic diversity in general. I plan to possibly bring in Staffordshire Bull Terrier into my lines at some point in the future. Not the over done show type of course.

Originally Posted by bully

Yes.. You'd think it would be easy to find a bloody scale and ruler to weigh and measure them.

Breed clubs use wickets as they are more accurate.

You certainly don't need a scale. You can tell if a dog is too heavy by looking at it, not to mention the judges feel them as well. Scale reading is irrelevant.

[spanielorbust]

Originally Posted by Spicy1_VV

Problems can and do exist from inbreeding but it seems to vary by population. Some dog breeds which are inbred are not suffering from problems associated with inbreeding depression/health issues. Others do very quickly and continue to worsen. Maybe we can learn something from these different populations.

There is also the possibility to bring in other breeds to help fix problems or add genetic diversity in general. I plan to possibly bring in Staffordshire Bull Terrier into my lines at some point in the future. Not the over done show type of course.



Breed clubs use wickets as they are more accurate.

You certainly don't need a scale. You can tell if a dog is too heavy by looking at it, not to mention the judges feel them as well. Scale reading is irrelevant.

Not trying to be difficult, but which ones? Every breed I have looked at is particularly predisposed to at least a few health or behavioral issues. That is health or behavioral issues that are higher in prevalence in that breed as compared to others, or as compared to the mutt population. (Cavaliers have 20X the rate of heart murmurs).

Admittedly, I mostly watch the small breeds.

I'd would really love to find out which closed registry breeds are thriving, as their clubs might have a model which can then be used by others that are struggling.

One I have thought of is the Jack Russell Terrier, but then I'm not sure if it part of a closed registry system yet.

[zimandtakandgrrandmimi]

actually mine and Spicy's particular breed of choice is relatively healthy in general. the only really prevalent issue I know of is dysplasia. Spicy might be able to correct me on that if nessecary.

but our particular breed arose under...well...strenuous circumstances that would have killed off at least a good chunk of any seriously defective dogs...but there's no way yet to ethically duplicate that kind of testing.

[Xeph]

From what I've been reading and learning, the Giant Schnauzer is also quite healthy.

Also, in AKC there ARE Wickets and dogs ARE weighed...BUT they have to have a height or weight disqualification written into the standard. If there is no DQ for either a dog cannot be weighed or wicketed.

[Laurelin]

Originally Posted by spanielorbust

Not trying to be difficult, but which ones? Every breed I have looked at is particularly predisposed to at least a few health or behavioral issues. That is health or behavioral issues that are higher in prevalence in that breed as compared to others, or as compared to the mutt population. (Cavaliers have 20X the rate of heart murmurs).

Admittedly, I mostly watch the small breeds.

I'd would really love to find out which closed registry breeds are thriving, as their clubs might have a model which can then be used by others that are struggling.

One I have thought of is the Jack Russell Terrier, but then I'm not sure if it part of a closed registry system yet.

I read it as there are breeds that aren't nearly as bad off as others, even within certain classifications. Paps are infinitely more healthy overall than cavaliers for example. The only real issues are PRA and patellar luxation which are generally small dog issues to begin with. But then the cavalier has a lot more problems.

On that note I think it would make lots of sense to try a project where they backcrossed cavs to phalenes because didn't the phalenes go into that breed in the first place? You'd even be staying within the breeds used to create that breed and you'd be staying within the toy spaniel family.

There's some awesome work going on in Sweden with the Clumber spaniel that actually Nova showed me, Xeph (since you're the only one that knows Nova). She said they're talking about doing a similar project with cavaliers but the cav breeders have mixed reactions.

Mostly Swedish but you get the idea:

http://www.clumber.net/page_1238420066108.html

They registered in two clumber/cocker spaniels as clumbers by now. And it didn't take many generations at all to get back to an 'acceptable' clumber conformation. I think the newly registered dogs are something like 1/4th english cocker spaniel.

[Spicy1_VV]

Originally Posted by spanielorbust

Not trying to be difficult, but which ones? Every breed I have looked at is particularly predisposed to at least a few health or behavioral issues. That is health or behavioral issues that are higher in prevalence in that breed as compared to others, or as compared to the mutt population. (Cavaliers have 20X the rate of heart murmurs).

Admittedly, I mostly watch the small breeds.

I'd would really love to find out which closed registry breeds are thriving, as their clubs might have a model which can then be used by others that are struggling.

One I have thought of is the Jack Russell Terrier, but then I'm not sure if it part of a closed registry system yet.

I would agree that most breeds have their own set of health issues if that is what you mean. What I was speaking of is the problems people see with inbreeding depression might not be a problem in one breed but can be a big problem in another.

There are different categories of what one could consider genetic problems
Inbreeding depression
Hereditary (regardless of breeding, you can get if mixing breeds. though specific breeds usually have their own known health problems)
Phenotype related problems, which wouldn't be caused by a disease that is inherited but by the conformation of the dog

The Coton De Tulear seems to be a healthy breed, I don't know how inbred they are or not, but they are a pure breed. They don't appear to have any significant hereditary health issues.

What I was speaking of is inbreeding depression though. Not all breeds go into dire straights when inbred. Perhaps there is still lack of genetic diversity, which could be an issue. Especially where a possible illness is concerned, it could wipe out a large part of the population.

As Zim mentioned of the APBT. They are not a breed without health problems, but they also are not a breed in dire straights either. Yet they are inbred, some heavily inbred. Some are inbred for generations without the issues seen in inbreeding depression.

That isn't to say that there are not exceptions and some don't have problems. American Bullies which I don't consider most to be pure APBT/AST, but none the less many call them Pit Bulls do seem to have wide spread problems. From immunity, dermatitis, demodex, dysplasia, allergies, joint problems. Not all but more then enough. I know some people which breed bullies, they have less dogs than myself, far less than what I've had. Yet the majority of their dogs have health issues if not all of them. They continue to inbreed of upon these dogs making things worse and worse. Breeding themselves into a hole. When they have only a few dogs and 1 has demodex, 1 has torn ACLs, 1 has reoccurring skin/ear infections allergies and the other a shoulder which slips out of place that says a lot. One issue might be the fact that the most healthy dogs were not started with? Too many breeders who breed without health as a concern at all? Very, very few foundation dogs (some with the healthier dogs are the ones who do implement other lines into the classic bully lines)?

If we look at the APBT we can see health issues like allergies, cancer, thyroid though not always in inbred specimens. It also surely depends on the line. You can have 12 from lines a&b who have been inbred for generations who do not display any negative effects of inbreeding. They have longevity, leading a long and healthy life. They don't have allergies, demo, cancer (which is a tricky subject, there are genetic cancers, environmental cancer, certain dogs more or less likely to get it dependent on other factors, cancer that strikes any dog whether inbred pure bred or very mixed mutt), anything but small litters, no thyroid issues and don't seem to have issues with contagious disease. Then you could see 12 from lines c/d/e which do have an incidence of specific cancer within them, several have allergies, a couple with demo and/or becoming ill with a contagious disease these dogs might not be exactly heavily inbred and a couple might even be out crossed but they still get the undesirable genes from the line which has them.

Considering the high amount of inbreeding you'd expect the breed to be a train wreck with most having one or more of these issues and wouldn't expect so many to be without any issues. I guess that is how I look at it. I know there are other breeds with issues who are not so much inbred with lines not anything near as inbred as some APBT lines. The APBTs isn't poorly because of it. I don't ignore that inbreeding depression exist and take the word of breeders who have seen it first hand. I know though that it doesn't effect all breeds equally. It is because of the APBT that I used to be skeptical of such a thing really impacting a breed and causing so much damage.

My breed I wouldn't exactly consider closed registry however, though most keep their lines there are breeders which breed out to the other pit bull breeds. Though the funny thing is that I sometimes feel that certain AST or those bred to AST lines actually bring our APBT scores overall down because they are submitted as APBT (thanks for dual registration).

[zimandtakandgrrandmimi]

I have a suspicion that the dogs that went into the creation of the apbt were on the whole generally healthier due to the survival of the fittest nature of the foundation breeds, the survival of the fittest time period in which they came about and that being pushed further by (whether you like it or not) dogfighting.

a genetically sick dog would have little to no chance of survival in a rat pit or fighting arena. and as a result..they weren't bred. becausee they died.

but there's no way to adequately and ethically duplicate that kind of testing...

[Pai]

Simply looking at the commonly inherited defects a breed has does not actualy show how 'sick' they are. For instance, Jack Russels are one of the least inbred terriers, but I've seen like 20 different diseases that are 'known to appear in the breed'. But the incidence of them all is VERY LOW. The same diversity that allows all those diseases a chance to occur in JRTs also keeps those diseases rare, because with more diversity comes less chance of getting 2 'bad gene' carriers to have puppies.

Then you have toy breeds with Patella Luxation or PRA-PRCD, but those are also very rarely occurring (in responsibly-bred lines). All of the diseases you seen in purebreds occur in ALL dogs, and even a mutt can get PRA or whatever. What you have to look at is the overall percentage of a breed that is affected by a certain defect. Most diseases are very rare in some breeds, while others are obviously getting sick more often than is normal. But the fact that breeders track and record every incidence of sickness (no matter how uncommon) in their lines is not, by itself, a sign that the entire breed is in trouble or is being bred irresponsibly.

What people often forget, is that 'Pedigree Dogs' are not a single monolithic group. There are thousands of different clubs with many members who all have different standards and philosophies about dog breeding (and many times, they have intergroup fights over it). It's one reason why change comes so slowly.

[Laurelin]

Originally Posted by Pai

Simply looking at the commonly inherited defects a breed has does not actualy show how 'sick' they are. For instance, Jack Russels are one of the least inbred terriers, but I've seen like 20 different diseases that are 'known to appear in the breed'. But the incidence of them all is VERY LOW.

Then you have toy breeds with Patella Luxation or PRA-PRCD, but those are also very rarely occurring (in responsibly-bred lines). All of the diseases you seen in purebreds occur in ALL dogs, and even a mutt can get PRA or whatever. What you have to look at is the overall percentage of a breed that is affected. Most diseases are very rare in some breeds, while others are obviously getting sick more often than is normal.

That is also good to remember. Paps for example are prone to PRA and patella luxation but the actual percent that is affected is minute. I have known hundreds of papillons and known 2 with patella luxation and one with PRA. I wish I knew the percentages off the top of my head... I'd like to say around 3% but that seems too high for the ones I've known.