Genetic bottlenecks, environmental pressure, and the development of dog breeds

I read MANY blogs. Somewhere in the range of a couple hundred. News, photography, scrapbooking (to make me feel guilty), and of course animal behavior, sheltering, all the Cardi blogs, legislation blogs, Gizmodo and Freakonomics and Lifehacker and Dooce, etc.

Some I read to keep me honest–Nathan Winograd is good at that.

Some I read because deep down some part of me wishes I lived the life of that blogger–the Daily Coyote comes to mind.

And there’s one I read because after I read his stuff I have to turn off the computer and go stare at the sky. Stephen Bodio is a hawker, a dog owner and breeder, a cattle rancher, a man who has dust in his boots and an incredible amount of deep and true thought in his head.

He wrote recently and touched on a few of the current genetic arguments surrounding dog breeds, which I thought dovetailed neatly into what I’ve been talking about in terms of genetic diversity in breeds. So I’m not going to quote him but I am going to use a few of the example breeds that he brought up.

Breeds as landraces are very, very old. A landrace is just as useful as a breed but it tends to be defined solely by the job it can do and by its environment–if you think about the Border Collie before it was ever registered, you get an idea. Their appearance can vary–if you mean appearance like “show quality” you could say the appearance varies a lot. Some Border Collies are substantially larger, some smaller, some have prick ears, some drop, color and coat type and leg length can vary. But in many other ways they are very similar–most people can still reliably identify them as Border Collies, and they all work in basically the same way.

The difference between a landrace and a breed is that a breed generally has a closed population, where individuals are bred only to other members of that breed. When you’re working with a landrace utility is king–if a dog shows up that kills rabbits really well, you’ll want to keep him around to breed to your other rabbit-killing dogs even if he doesn’t look exactly like them. But he’s unlikely to look totally different from them either, because there’s a certain body type and size and speed that naturally lends itself to successful rabbit killing. So among landraces there is a certain amount of sharing of genetic material–if the rabbit killer also happens to be a decent fox chaser, he may be used by people who like chasing foxes too.

Landraces probably developed along the same lines that dogs became domesticated hundreds or thousands of years prior–the dog wanted it and the human wanted it, and dogs have a tremendously plastic body and brain and from that symbiosis came dogs that were more useful at doing certain dog-human things than their ancestors had been.

So very, very long ago we can see what we think of as the major types of dogs. The Far East pioneered the idea of the dog purely as a companion, and they like the very stylized appearance of the flat-faced small dog, and so the flat-faced companion dog begins to spread along the trade routes coming west. This was happening thousands of years ago–the flat-faced small companion dog is very ancient.

Another group, probably in Germany, liked a type of dog that had very short legs, because short legs enabled the dog to do some things that long-legged dogs could not do. They probably began using them as hunting dogs but when the trade and conquest routes brought the short-legged dogs to other areas where hunting was not the predominant activity that dogs did, the owners of those dogs realized that short legs made some of their activites easier and made those dogs very useful. So, and again this is thousands of years ago, we already have a corgi landrace herding in Wales, a Vallhund landrace herding and hunting in Scandinavia, a Dachshund landrace hunting in Germany, etc.

The earliest true breeds, where pedigrees were maintained and it was understood that you only breed members of that breed to each other, are also extremely old. They grew out of an increased specialization of the landraces, a desire to have greater predictability in terms of exactly how big, small, tall, short, or useful that dog was.

There are only a very few of those true early breeds still around. Most of the breed-origin myths that are droned over the picture at Westminster are romantic fiction. But some of them DO still exist. One is the Sloughi (not Saluki), one is the very primitive Basenji, another is the Chow, and I think the Pekingese makes the list as well.

So the vast majority of the breeds we know today became closed, where individuals were not bred outside the breed, only in the last couple hundred years. It’s important not to therefore conclude that all dogs looked the same before that point, or anything close to that. If you traveled through Europe in 1600, you’d see an incredible number of distinct-looking dogs and probably hundreds of what we’d call breeds. But there was still communication between the breeds, sometimes slight and sometimes heavy.

When identification of breeds and registration of individual dogs, and eventual closing of studbooks, became fashionable in the 1800s, two things happened: Existing breeds were identified and codified and registered, and older breeds that were seen to be in danger of extinction or in come cases had already become extinct were re-created. So the Ibizan Hound and the Pharoah Hound were re-created, as were the Irish Wolfhound, the Elkhound, and many others. It seems unlikely that any of these were created from absolutely nothing; it’s a lot more likely (and certain in a few of them that I know the history of) that people passionate about a disappearing breed or landrace gathered the last remaining members of the population and then bred them to dogs that were as similar as possible to them in appearance and function.

At any rate, we have between 1850 and 1900 a whole ton of breeds being gathered, registered, and from then on bred only to each other.

By the 1930s there are a whole bunch of breeds that have their stud books closed (in other words, no more dogs are ever going to be let in).

Here’s where it gets sticky. In the 1920s and 30s distemper was killing dogs off in huge numbers. And then the advent of World War II and the extreme levels of starvation and hardship in Europe dealt a horrible blow to a large number of dog breeds.

Sussex Spaniels, for example, almost completely died off or were killed. The population dropped to just eight individuals. Shar Peis dropped to incredibly small numbers even more recently, as of the late 1970s. Lundehunds were reduced to six total. Cavalier King Charles Spaniels almost disappeared and were only saved by intense inbreeding in the 40s. Flatcoat Retrievers almost died out as well. The list of breeds that was reduced to only a bare handful of individuals is pretty long.

This is the definition of a genetic bottleneck. If, after the event or environmental pressure that kills off the vast majority of the population is over, no more founding individuals are added, then the entire breed (or, in the case of certain animals like the Asiatic lion, the entire species) becomes an expression of only those six or eight or whatever individuals.

A founding population that is that small is extremely risky. The likelihood that you can develop a genetically diverse and healthy ongoing population from six or eight or twelve already related members is small.

And, in fact, we do see that risk played out in these breeds. Sussex with their low fecundity and heart issues, Cavaliers with heart and brain problems, Lundehunds with mysterious digestive issues and early deaths, Flatcoats with cancers that effectively cut the breed’s lifespan in half.

So we have moved, in most breeds, from a situation of quite a bit of genetic information coming into and leaving the landraces to gene pools that are entirely based on a startlingly small number of dogs and where zero genetic material comes into or leaves the population.

We have effectively made each breed into an endangered species.

I can tell you, from far too many late nights up studing population ecology, that one of the things that is considered an immediate emergency in an endangered species with no available genetic material from the outside is keeping the heterozygosity of the population absolutely as high as it can be. It is considered so critical that the at-risk populations are constantly monitored for COI and also a direct measure of heterozygosity called MLH, and increasing heterozygosity is a key sign that the population has hope and may succeed and survive.

There are very few, if any, endangered species experts monitoring dog populations. That’s because the “dog” is not in any way endangered. Taken across the whole world it’s in great shape. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that individual breeds are not at critical danger of collapse and extinction. Both in absolute numbers and in size of gene pool, there are a strartling number of breeds that should be considered critically endangered. Even in the more numerous breeds, the representation of founding members is extremely poor and the average mating is equivalent to full-sibling.

If we don’t pay attention to this, we WILL pay the price, or the next generation of breeders will pay the price. I don’t know how much more plainly to put this–we’ve been breeding in a way that is very unlikely to be sustainable. And since we’re the ones making the decisions, it’s up to us to do our best to fix it.

High coefficient of inbreeding and disease

One of the things I’ve read recently by a breeder of a different breed (not Cardis) is that high COIs are absolutely essential to keep disease from spreading through a population.

Here’s how that line of reasoning works.

If I have a population of dogs that does not have Spotted Snarkle disease in their pedigrees, and I know that, I should keep breeding those dogs only within their own lines because breeding outside their lines will spread Spotted Snarkle disease.

The logical outcome of this is that the entire breed becomes very segregated, with some lines “known” for Spotted Snarkle disease, others for Awl Border disease, others for Maniac Mouth, and so on.

Increasing the genetic crossover, the exchange of genes between these lines, is therefore “dangerous” because then ALL the lines have all three diseases! Oh noes!

Here’s why that’s wrong.

Let’s create two populations.

Population A has a thousand dogs. 900 of them are free from Spotted Snarkle and 100 of them have pedigrees that are “known for” it. Of the 100, fifty are carriers of the disease and 25 actually have it. Every dog who actually has Spotted Snarkle is culled. The populations are rigidly separated.

Total population year 1: 1000

Incidence of Spotted Snarkle: 25

All affected dogs are culled, but the carrier population remains segregated. As a result,

Total population year 2 (assuming identical numbers of births and deaths): 1000

Incidence of Spotted Snarkle: 25

Population B has a thousand dogs. 900 are free from Spotted Snarkle and 100 are in pedigrees that are known for it. Same situation; fifty carriers and 25 affected dogs. The populations are allowed to freely interbreed. Again, all affecteds are culled.

The 50 carriers move out into a population of 925 other dogs. Therefore, the chance of a carrier meeting a carrier moves from 50% to around 5%.

Total population year 2: 1000 dogs.

Number with Spotted Snarkle: 2.5

So has Spotted Snarkle moved out into the whole population? Yes. Is the population still better off? YES. There are many fewer affected dogs; the problem has radically improved.

That’s how maximum genetic diversity works. Even though the incidence of deleterious genes is wider spread, the chance of identical deleterious genes meeting is MUCH lower than in an inbred population.

Proponents of high COIs and rigid segregation of lines forget some very key population truths.

One problem is that they’re assuming “success” based on only a tiny, tiny, TINY fraction of the number of diseases, genetic disorders, and weaknesses that actually exist. You can’t claim success if you’ve avoided Maniac Mouth when you have no idea what other 500 genes you’ve concentrated in your little insular population. High COI is not just associated with creating or avoiding the “sexy” diseases, the big flashy ones like Addison’s disease. It’s associated with an increased risk for low-grade, old-age, late-onset diseases. Mastitis. Kidney disease. Smaller litter sizes. Lower growth rates. Senility. Worms and other parasites. Vitamin deficiencies. Lower resistance to infections. The list is VERY long.

The second, and most sad, of the things that advocates of high COI ignore is the fact that breeders lie. They lie a LOT. I am thankful to have mentors in both Danes and Cardis who have been honest with me, but by the end of my time in Danes I could have written a book about breeders lying about pedigrees and about health. I hope things are different in Cardigans, but when when I was breeding my last Dane litter and was looking at pedigrees of stud dogs between a third and a half of them I was rejecting because I knew that at least one dog, or one health result, was false or at least very suspect. The tragedy of this, beyond the moral downfall of that breeder and the sadness and pain she causes to everyone who breeds based on a lie, is that you really can’t count on your “safe” pedigree. Not to any great extent.

If the goal of an entire breed is to keep COI low, the overall incidence of disease will be lower even if you were deceived in a pedigree or by a breeder (or that breeder’s breeder, ad nauseam). You will keep disease expression lower across the board, protecting future generations from the hundreds of diseases we can’t test for and that don’t make the headlines. And you will keep the population’s ability to respond to new, unknown threats at its highest level.

Another, more sentimental, benefit from my point of view is that spreading genes around keeps you concerned about the whole breed, and links you to and bonds you with many more breeders. It keeps the world small. You won’t be as willing to cut people down if you know they’re part of your pedigrees and you’ll be concerned with the eradication of disorders across the whole breed because your dogs participate across the whole breed.

The scandal of marketing purebred dogs

Did I get your attention? I hope so.

Because it’s true. It really is a scandal. We, meaning the community of reputable breeders, have a HUGE problem with our marketing plan.

As in, we don’t have one.

Here’s how it usually goes-does this sound familiar? Have you maybe said this yourself?

Good breeders never have to advertise-their puppies are sold before they’re born.

Good breeders are never found in the paper or online.

If you have to advertise, you’re doing something wrong.

I am sure people are bristling right now at the mere thought that I would imply that they needed a marketing plan. What are we, puppy mills?

I have one question for you: Did you sell your last litter or give it away?

Did you require a contract and a bill of sale?

Did you interview buyers and pick the best ones?

If so, you are a producer. You made, and sold, a product.

But-but-they’re not products! They’re our loves, our blood and sweat and tears!

YES. And that is EXACTLY why we need to market, and we need to get on the stick and do it NOW.

Because you know who is really, really good at marketing? The community of bad breeders, careless breeders, puppy mills, and the euphemistically titled “commercial breeders.” And you know who else is really, really good at marketing? PeTA, and the HSUS. They’re geniuses at it, in fact.

As is revealed in this fascinating and essential video given to beef producers, PeTA and the HSUS work hand-in-glove in an extraordinarily effective way. PeTA is the one that makes the outrageous statements. They’re the ones asking that fish be redefined as “sea kittens”; they’re the ones putting naked models on billboards. They are purposely outrageous, outré, over the top. Because coming right behind them is the HSUS. The HSUS seems so kind, so moderate, and isn’t it a humane society? Those are the people that run shelters, right? So if there’s one of the whole United States, that’s pretty good. When governments and town councils and businesses are thoroughly freaked out by a couple hundred PeTA protestors, in comes the HSUS to say “Just give us a little bit. It’s for the good of the animals. You can save so many by mandating spay/neuter at four months-your shelter populations will plummet. You can do a great thing by making sure that there are no animal hoarders in your city-nobody needs more than three dogs at once.”

And communities and companies and individuals say wow, these people are so reasonable, so well-intentioned, so organized and supported by studies. We love animals. We need to protect them. This seems like a really good law, or a really good regulation, or a really good city bylaw.

And where are we, the careful and responsible breeders? We’re driving our vans into school gymnasium parking lots where the city council meeting is scheduled, having been alerted by our newsgroups or the AKC that an important vote is taking place.

And we all come in, all of us middle-aged women with sensible hair and skirts that still have dog hair all over them, and we line up to speak.

And the city council says, “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Bob here from the HSUS-he’s the one sitting over there in a suit, talking with the mayor-has been working with us for weeks, helping us craft this policy. I’m sure you breeders are concerned about losing your livelihood, but we love animals. We have to protect them.”

And THEN, only then, do we try to explain about a hundred very complex concepts involving who the HSUS is, what its agenda is, why dogs are not our livelihood, why we’re not the enemy.

So far, we’ve gotten away with this in a lot of towns and cities. But our days are numbered. You can bet they are. And if breeders show up at a city council meeting and there isn’t a very eloquent and organized argument, if there’s not someone who can systematically make and refute points, we look like idiots. Idiots who make money by breeding dogs.

So that’s one problem. We have no visibility and no identity in our communities.

The other one is all about selling puppies.

And this is where I know I’m ruffling feathers. So before you yell at me via the comments, hear me out. THEN yell at me.

We – meaning the small community of reputable breeders, because we are very small compared to the community of careless breeders or commercial breeders — have done an incredibly poor job at articulating why it is a legitimate choice to purchase a well-bred purebred, but it is NOT a legitimate choice to purchase a poorly bred purebred. We have done an even worse job articulating why it is that we’re not the enemies of homeless dogs everywhere. And we’re invisible.

When Joe and Sally Smith decide it’s time to get a dog, and they love their neighbor’s Lab so they decide to get one, they are making a purchasing decision. The intent has been resolved. Joe and Sally are savvy consumers, so they are looking to make a good decision about where to get their dog. They have heard about puppy mills and have a vague idea of wanting a high-quality puppy. Their neighbor said that he paid $500 for his dog, which sounds really high to Joe and Sally, but they want a healthy and nice dog. They turn first to the Internet. EVERYONE TURNS FIRST TO THE INTERNET. This is an absolutely VITAL thing to realize.

Joe and Sally google “Labrador retriever puppies.” Well, you know what that results page looks like. When they click on the nextdaypets or puppyfind or pets4you links, they find hundreds of results, with dogs ranging from $300 to $2000. Some are “champion sired,” some “champion lined,” some “champion quality,” some have a “champion pedigree.” From reading through the pages, Joe and Sally get the idea that the whiter the Lab is, the higher quality it is. And the blockier the head is, the better. And it seems like people mention health a lot, and hips. But FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS for a dog? That’s ridiculous!

Let’s look at it from a marketing perspective.

The couple has already decided to get a dog. They do not need convincing to purchase.

They are confronted with many PRODUCERS and many PRODUCTS. There is zero clear differentiation between products. There is a huge price range. There is no authority, no CNET reviews or Consumer Reports. No external expert means that the decision is typically made based on LOCATION, CONVENIENCE, and PRICE, as long as a basic level of product quality is promised.

During this search and deliberation process, Sally and Joe were never made aware of the differences between products. There was no clear statement of how you distinguish between good and bad producers. There was no explanation of why prices vary so much, or what you get for your purchase price. And they had NO idea that there was a Labrador Retriever breed club that met every third Tuesday three blocks away.

I just googled “Labrador Retriever Puppies Massachusetts.” Do you know where the link for the Labrador Retriever Club of Greater Boston, which is a great club that has a ton of good information, was? NOWHERE. I went out to page 23 of the search and it never showed up.

Try it for your own state, for your own breed. I did it for about ten breeds in Massachusetts, and the only one that brought up the breed club within the top one or two listings was “corgi puppies Massachusetts,” because whoever runs the Mayflower site is really, really good (seriously, it’s a great site and should be a model for breed club sites everywhere).

Sally and Joe spend an hour on the Internet and receive at least two dozen “touches,” which is adspeak for contacts (ads or review statements) about a particular product. NONE of them have been by reputable breeders. No, we’re in our houses sitting on hair-covered couches talking about how no good breeder should ever advertise.

The classic line of thought behind our abhorrence of advertising is that if you advertise, you must be selling to whoever responds. Only breeders who don’t care about who they sell their puppies to advertise.

Think about this. We want to be more choosy about who we sell to, so we don’t tell anybody we have stuff for sale.

How do you think Harvard got to the point that it can reject over NINETY PERCENT of applicants? By refusing to advertise? No, Harvard spends millions of dollars a year to make just two very clear statements: We are the most selective university in the world, and a degree from Harvard is a jackpot. They don’t see selectivity as a liability-they brag about it. And so the very best and the very brightest fight like the dickens to present themselves as good enough to get admitted.

Or how about Sub-Zero, or Ferrari, or any one of a hundred top companies. They don’t hide and think they’re diluting their brand by advertising. They advertise precisely so that they can attract a huge pool of potential buyers, the vast majority of whom can’t afford the product. But those people don’t say “That car is too expensive; the manufacturer must be cheating.” No, now they desperately want the car, or the fridge, or the ring, or the coffee.

We MUST do the same thing. We MUST make very clear, unequivocal statements. We MUST clearly articulate who we are as producers. We must be absolutely positive about what makes our product preferable to others. We must become top-of-mind when Joe and Sally decide they want a puppy, and we must be so attractive that they will change their lives (install fence, hire a dog walker, sign up for training, etc.) so they will be approved for a puppy.

If you think the AKC is going to help us, think again. Whoever the geniuses are over at AKC who are panicking about the fact that registrations are down has decided that the way to fix it is to do exactly what they SHOULDN’T do. They’re leaping to dilute the brand by courting commercial breeders and pet shops. Don’t believe me? http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=wqstdd&spid=-3#/page6/

This is a direct quote from the October AKC Gazette: “Management has been directed by the Board to aggressively pursue all dogs eligible for AKC registration. We intend to reach out, communicate and educate those in the retail sector as to why an AKC puppy is the gold standard and why they should be registered with the American Kennel Club… The AKC used to dominate the marketplace. Even places like Macy’s and Gimbals sold AKC puppies. Owners who purchased their first purebred from a retail outlet… added to AKC registrations.”

This has the very real potential to pit reputable breeders against the AKC. We’ve already been saying that AKC registration means nothing more than the paper it’s printed on, and we should now be preparing to actively fight the perception that AKC means quality. We have to emphasize that AKC as a registering body is a filing cabinet, nothing more. It keeps track of our pedigrees and it keeps track of our show wins, and for that favor we give them a lot of money. We are happy with the AKC’s support of shows and health studies and welfare, but that doesn’t mean that a white piece of paper with a seal on it means squat about the quality of the dog. Again, it all comes down to defining the producer and defining the product.

So here are my rather controversial recommendations on how to change the current situation:

Breed clubs (and I mean local as well as national) need to hire a consultant for search engine optimization. It’s a relatively small expense.

Breed clubs need to have a front page oriented toward potential buyers, with market-acceptable statements (like “Labrador retrievers: the whole package”) and a forward-facing (consumer-facing) series of articles. This does NOT mean that you have to “sell” the breed. Quite the contrary. When the potential buyer clicks on the “whole package” link, he or she will be brought to a market piece that emphasizes how only the most qualified and prepared buyers should be thinking about this breed, what the huge misconceptions are about the Lab and its needs, and how to distinguish between a good and bad breeder.

Breed clubs and individual breeders need to make very clear PRODUCER and PRODUCT statements. We need to differentiate between good and bad breeders. We’ve been reluctant to do this in the past for a variety of reasons, but it’s a huge mistake. We have invited the public to perceive the entire community of dog breeders as a cohesive group, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I would say we need to become more aligned with the community of dog rescue than anything else. Most of us are extremely involved in rescue, far more than any other group of dog professionals. We need to forge alliances (as individual breeders–I think that the clubs are already doing a really good job at this) with local rescue professionals not only for the good of the dogs but so that, when the legislation is introduced, the rescue people see us as friends and not enemies.

We need to become very visible to the community. I ranted a bit about this in my article on breed-specific legislation, but it bears repeating. I rarely if ever see an obviously show-quality dog being walked in town or down the road. We are not the visible dog lovers in our towns and cities. Clubs can get involved too-a meet the breed booth at the local “town day” (around here they’re all “festivals”-Apple Festival, Blueberry Festival, Strawberry Festival, etc.) with massive distribution of pamphlets that are rescue-friendly and that do a good job at telling interested people why you never buy from a careless breeder.

As breed clubs, we need to address the issue of the puppy advertising websites. I don’t think it would be out of the question to have good breeders actually participate on the sites, as long as the care in placing the puppies is not compromised, but there should at least be an effort to provide an ad that’s a “front” for the breed club. Make it the MOST adorable and MOST perfect, renew it once a week, and direct people to that rescue-friendly information about how to find a good breeder and why the breed isn’t for everyone.

We need to recognize the power of the lowest-common-denominator sites-craigslist is the flagship. I would advise AGAINST advertising actual dogs on craigslist, but the breed club should have a constant presence. If the club posted two messages a day: “NEED TO FIND A NEW HOME FOR YOUR LHASA? WE’RE HERE TO HELP” and “LOOKING FOR A LHASA PUPPY? DON’T GET SCAMMED! CLICK HERE” a great deal of good information could be given out.

Here’s what I’ll be doing personally (so hold me to this, Internets!):

I’m writing to our state Extension office about leading a dog 4-H club. Goodness knows I am bossy enough. I was heavily involved in 4-H growing up, it’s a good program, and it teaches kids personal responsibility and self-efficacy. That makes it a really good fit with dogs.

I’m writing to my local shelters and rescues offering three things: 1) that I will foster/get into national rescue any rare breeds and definitely any corgis. I will almost certainly get no nibbles on that, because the Northeast has the opposite of a problem with homeless rare- or small-breed dogs, but it has to be done. 2) I’ll offer health-information or breed-specific help. Good breeders basically have PhDs in “Dog”-I’ve spent the last ten or fifteen years gathering information and doing research. If I can be of use, I’ll try. 3) I’ll offer free baths and grooming to dogs being surrendered. I have a boatload of expensive grooming equipment, and while I am not a great groomer I can at least get a dog clean and de-matted and do a 4f strip with the clippers.

I’m talking to my library about offering a reading-to-dogs program. This is the most long-term goal, because generally dogs should be certified therapy dogs before they get into this program. So the first step is to get the Cardigans’ championships finished so I can get them back into training, second is to enroll them and Ginny in a TDI class, third is to get them actually certified. The great thing about this is that I’ll also be able to take the dogs to hospitals and so on once I am not drowning under little kids here at the house.

I’m going to do a pretty big re-design of my website (not this blog, the Blacksheep website) to conform to some of the above ideas on giving information to potential buyers. I don’t get a lot of traffic there but I have to practice what I preach. I’ll let you all know when I’m done.

And-yes-I’m going to get out there on the roads with the Cardigans. I know why we don’t do this, believe me. Most good breeders have enormous fenced yards and at least somewhat enormous bottoms from sitting all day in front of the whelping box. But the community needs to know that I exist, that the Cardis exist, and that the real enemy is not good breeders.

I’m going to be in West Springfield this coming weekend, all four days. I renew my offer to walk any dog show newbies around and show you what a dog show means, and I welcome any discussion (or verbal beat-down) from other breeders. Come find me–I am the one with the gorgeous fit Cardigans and the beautiful children and the sensible hair and enormous bottom .

Canine Health Foundation (CHF) Biennial Conference, and a post in which I use the word “stupid” a lot

I’ve been meaning to highlight this report, which is a summary of lectures given at the Canine Health Foundation’s Parent Club Conference (“parent club” means the big-mama clubs that make decisions for an entire breed, as opposed to the local clubs–so my local club is the Yankee Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club, but my parent club is the Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club of America–and each parent club was encouraged to send delegates to this conference).

The Canine Health Foundation is the research-supporting arm of the AKC. It donates millions of dollars a year to fund studies and research on canine health, and it relates directly to breeders via the Canine Health Information Center (CHIC). CHIC was set up to have a centralized repository of health-testing information; each participating breed designates the health tests that they consider best practice for that paricular breed. If you get all those tests done on your dog, the dog recieves a CHIC number.

The upshoot for breeders and owners is that the CHF is a little different from the larger vet organizations in that its main audience is a body of educated and dedicated breeders, not pet owners. For that reason they, I think, sometimes feel freer to make recommendations that other bodies feel are too dangerous because of the “unwashed masses” assumption (that all pet owners are stupid and won’t show up for vet appointments, and that they’re stupid and won’t keep dogs safe or fenced, and again that they’re stupid and if left to their own devices will prove to be the downfall of dogdom, so we say or do whatever we have to to get them in to our offices and get their dogs taken care of and sterilized).

So, here are some highlights:

- While spaying is still considered beneficial, health-wise, because of the risk of pyometra and mammary tumors, the best studies show that neutering actually has a deleterious effect on dogs. This report is the first time I’ve seen it put this baldly–as recently as a year ago I was hearing that the risks and benefits were basically balanced, but this is an excellent retrospective analysis of evidence that neutering gives a several-times-higher risk of several cancers, of obesity, of ACL tears, and even of some behavioral disorders. The implications of this finding for breeders are staggering–neuter contracts are now called into question, as are recommendations that performance dogs (agility, obedience, and so on) be neutered, training facilities refusing to accept unneutered dogs, etc.

- As breeders have been yelping about for years, there is no evidence that mixed-breed dogs are in any way healthier than purebreds, and in fact mixed-breed dogs are more likely to have some of the genetic disorders that breeders routinely test for (hip dysplasia is one, thyroid is another). However, this effect, which should lead to a longer lifespan, is ruined in some breeds by the concentration of extremely bad genes (such as cancer in Boxers). So owners, ask your potential breeder, if you are puppy-hunting, what bad genes exist in the breed and what they are doing to minimize your puppy’s chance of getting them. And breeders, you now have good studies to point to to disprove the idea that cross-breeds are healthier.

- The “chicken and egg” scenario of ACL tears has been reversed (this is actually quite dramatic). It used to be assumed that the arthritis vets were seeing in post-ACL-tear joints was because of the ACL tear; this research shows that in fact the ACL tears are due to arthritis and bacteria/inflammation in the joint. So the current therapy, which is surgery, can provide physical stability to the joint again, but has not cured or even addressed the root cause.

- (This one is WONDERFUL) Core vaccines are defined to be rabies, distemper, parvovirus. After the puppy series, distemper and parvo vaccines are to be given NO MORE OFTEN than every three years, and seven- to ten-year intervals should be seen as absolutely normal. Rabies is still mandated to be given every three years, but longer-term challenge studies are being done. Titers are to be seen as very useful, but the levels of the antibodies are immaterial. Any positive titer should be seen as a sign that the dog has an adequate antibody response and does not need to be vaccinated. Bordatella vaccine is largely unneeded except for “lap dogs” who never leave a house or yard and are never exposed to other dogs and are then kenneled in a kennel-cough hotbed. Leptospirosis vaccine should be given only where lepto is a current problem, and never at the same time as other vaccines. Lepto has a very high reaction rate, especially in small dogs. Lepto vaccine is ineffective after nine to twelve months.

Nutritional
- Probiotics have been shown to be effective in many ways, including strengthening overall immune response, and should be considered for every dog.
- High-fat, high-protein diets are dramatically better than high-carb diets (to this I give a resounding “No DUH!” but I suppose it’s good to have it finally ratified by a governing body). In particular, high glutamine levels are very protective.

The full report, which is an absolute must-read for breeders and serious owners and has lots more than I’ve summarized in this post, is here.

Pedigree Dogs Exposed: Introductory Material

Here are the links to the program:

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpP0e-V18M0

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjBz42obDvQ

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EKL8SZU6PI

Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYfmHnO5bxw

Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnNZb6yUwYg

Part 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU4a_cKsQh4

Here’s how the Pekingese Standard has been changed (the major points; there are also some minor ones):

- Face shape (the standard now says nose not too short, muzzle must be evident, relatively short and wide. Well-defined chin, only a slight wrinkle, preferably broken, MAY extend over the bridge of the nose)
- Eye size (went from “large” to “not too large” )
- Leg length (it is no longer “short”; it’s “relatively short”)
- Neck length (from “short” to “relatively short”)
- Body type (they completely removed the “heavier in front than in rear” line)
- Coat is really dramatically changed (original was “Long, straight, with profuse mane extending beyond shoulders, forming a cape around neck; top coat coarse with thick, softer undercoat. Feathering on ears, back of legs, tail and toes. Length and volume of coat should not obscure the shapeliness of body. ” New is “Moderately long, straight, with mane, not extending beyond shoulders, forming a cape around neck. Top coat coarse with thick, softer undercoat. Feathering on ears, back of legs, tail and toes. Length and volume of coat should neither impair the activity of the dog nor obscure the shapeliness of body. Excessive coat must be heavily penalised.”)

Older Standard (Nov. 2004):

General appearance: Small, well balanced, thick-set with great dignity and quality. Any signs of respiratory distress under normal conditions are unacceptable and should be heavily penalised.

Characteristics: Leonine in appearance with alert and intelligent expression.

Temperament: Fearless, loyal, aloof but not timid or aggressive.

Head and skull: Head large, proportionately wider than deep. Skull broad, wide and flat between ears; not domed; wide between eyes. Nose short and broad, nostrils large and open. A wrinkle, either continuous or broken, should extend from the cheeks to the bridge of the nose in a wide inverted ‘v’. This should not adversely affect or obscure eyes or nose. Pinched nostrils and heavy over-nose wrinkles are unacceptable and should be heavily penalised. Muzzle wide with firm underjaw. Profile flat with nose well up between eyes. Pronounced stop. Black pigment essential on nose, lips and eye rims.

Eyes: Large, clear, round, dark and lustrous. Free from obvious eye problems.

Ears: Leather heart-shaped, set level with the skull, carried close to the head and not coming below line of muzzle. Long profuse feathering.

Mouth: Level lips, must not show teeth or tongue. Firm under-jaw essential.

Neck: Short and thick.

Forequarters: Short, thick, heavily boned forelegs. Bones of forelegs slightly bowed between pasterns and elbows. Shoulders laid back and fitting smoothly into the body. Elbows should be close to the body.

Body: Short, heavier in front than rear, with a distinct waist. Broad chest and well sprung ribs slung between forelegs. Level topline.

Hindquarters: Hindlegs lighter than forelegs, with moderate angulation and definition of stifles. Firm hocks. When viewed from the rear, legs are reasonably close and parallel. Absolute soundness essential.

Feet: Large and flat, not round. Standing well up on feet, not on pasterns. Front feet slightly turned out. Hind feet point straight ahead.

Tail: Set high, carried tightly, slightly curved over back to either side. Long feathering.

Gait/movement: Slow, dignified, rolling gait in front. Typical movement not to be confused with a roll caused by slackness of shoulders. Close action behind. Soundness in forequarters, hindquarters and movement is of the utmost importance.

Coat: Long, straight, with profuse mane extending beyond shoulders, forming a cape around neck; top coat coarse with thick, softer undercoat. Feathering on ears, back of legs, tail and toes. Length and volume of coat should not obscure the shapeliness of body.

Colour: All colours and markings are permissible and of equal merit, except albino or liver. Parti-colours evenly broken.

Size: Ideal weight not exceeding 5 kgs (11 lbs) for dogs and 5.4 kgs (12 lbs) for bitches. Dogs should look small but be surprisingly heavy when picked up; heavy bone and a sturdy well-built body are essentials of the breed.

Faults: Any departure from the foregoing points should be considered a fault and the seriousness with which the fault should be regarded should be in exact proportion to its degree and its effect upon the health and welfare of the dog.

Note: Male animals should have two apparently normal testicles fully descended into the scrotum.

October 9, 2008 Standard:

General Appearance
Small, well-balanced, moderately thick set with great dignity and quality. Any signs of
respiratory distress for any reason or inability to move soundly are unacceptable and should
be heavily penalised. Not excessively coated.
Characteristics
Leonine in appearance. Alert and intelligent expression.
Temperament
Fearless, loyal, aloof, not timid or aggressive.
Head and Skull
Head fairly large, proportionately wider than deep. Skull moderately broad, wide and flat
between ears, not domed, wide between eyes. Nose not too short, broad, nostrils large and
open. A slight wrinkle, preferably broken, may extend from the cheeks to the bridge of the
nose in a wide inverted ‘v’. This must never adversely affect or obscure eyes or nose.
Pinched nostrils and heavy over-nose wrinkles are unacceptable and should be heavily
penalised. Muzzle must be evident, but may be relatively short and wide. Firm underjaw.
Lips not obscuring a well defined chin. Defined stop. Black pigment essential on nose, lips
and eye rims.
Eyes
Clear, round, dark lustrous and not too large. Free from obvious eye problems.
Mouth
Level lips. Must not show teeth or tongue. Firm under-jaw essential.
Neck
Relatively short and thick.
Forequarters
Relatively short, thick, heavily boned forelegs. Bones of forelegs may be slightly bowed
between pasterns and elbows accommodating ribs. Elbows should be close to the body.
Shoulders laid back and fitting smoothly into the body. Standing well up on feet, not down
on pasterns, which should be strong and not too close together. Absolute soundness
essential.
Body
Relatively short. Distinct waist. Broad chest and well sprung ribs slung between forelegs.
Level topline.
Hindquarters
Hindlegs strong and well muscled but moderately lighter than forequarters. Excessively
narrow hindquarters to be heavily penalised. Moderate angulation. Well defined stifles.
Firm, low hocks. Strong rear pasterns, parallel when viewed from the rear. Absolute
soundness essential.
Feet
Large and flat, not round. Front feet may be slightly turned out. Excessively turned out feet
to be heavily penalised. Hind feet point straight ahead.
Tail
Set high, carried tightly, slightly curved over back to either side. Long feathering.
Gait/Movement
Typically slow, dignified, rolling gait in front. Typical movement must not be confused with a
roll caused by slackness of shoulders or with other indications of unsoundness. Any
slackness of shoulders and elbows, and any indication of unsoundness in feet and pasterns
to be heavily penalised. Movement not to be hindered by excessive body coat.
Coat
Moderately long, straight, with mane, not extending beyond shoulders, forming a cape
around neck. Top coat coarse with thick, softer undercoat. Feathering on ears, back of
legs, tail and toes. Length and volume of coat should neither impair the activity of the dog
nor obscure the shapeliness of body. Excessive coat must be heavily penalised.
Colour
All colours and markings are permissible and of equal merit, except albino or liver. Particolours
evenly broken.
Size
Ideal weight not exceeding 5 kgs (11 lbs) for dogs and 5.4 kgs (12 lbs) for bitches. Dogs
should look small but be surprisingly heavy when picked up; heavy bone and a sturdy wellbuilt
body are essentials of the breed.
Faults
Any departure from the foregoing points should be considered a fault and the seriousness
with which the fault should be regarded should be in exact proportion to its degree and its
effect upon the health and welfare of the dog.
Note
Male animals should have two apparently normal testicles fully descended into the scrotum.

Inbreeding and using COI to analyze potential pairings (yet more on Pedigree Dogs Exposed)

One of the topics that Pedigree Dogs Exposed brought up was inbreeding, or the practice of breeding together close relatives in order to come up with a more predictable result than you’d get if you bred two unrelated dogs.

(people who know this already can check out here and resume close to the end, because I want to explore exactly what inbreeding is and why breeders do it)

In my family (my own background) there are closely related (first cousins or closer) women who are as short as 5′2″ and as tall as 5′11″, and from very light-boned and tiny-framed to big and broad. In Doug’s family, there are women from 5′0″ to 5′8″ and who span a similar range of frame sizes. That means that when we had female children, even though I am 5′6″ and he’s about 6′0″, we would never expect every child to grow up to be my height or even between my height and his height. It’s quite possible that I carry a bunch of genes that code for shorter height than I myself show, and it’s quite possible that I carry a bunch of genes for taller than I am. His situation is similar.

And, in fact, this is borne out in our family. We have an average to tall daughter with a strong frame, an average daughter with a narrow frame, a very short and tiny daughter who is proportional, and a baby who (so far) is tall but light.

We did not reproduce predictably when it comes to height and skeletal weight.

On the other hand, we have very little variation in our families when it comes to hair and eye color and skin color. We both come from families that are exclusively fair, with either blonde/brown or red hair, and eye color is very consistently blue. So we had absolutely no surprises when it came to the skin, eye, and hair color we produced–everybody’s blonde or red and has extremely light skin and blue eyes, and there’s no possibility for anything different. In this area, we will always reproduce very predictably.

This is, basically, just the way it works in dogs. If you breed together dogs with a wide variety of genetic expression behind them for a particular trait (this is also known as heterozygosity), you will produce dogs with a wide variety of genetic possibilities and therefore many different physical appearances.

If you breed together dogs with a narrow range of genetics behind them for a particular trait (homozygosity), you will produce dogs with a very narrow range of physical traits.

This can also work if you have just one parent who is very homozygous for traits. Most of us have a lot of different alleles that control which genes are expressed. I don’t want to get too much into junior high genetics, but if I’m Aa Bb Cc dd, and Doug is Aa Bb Cc Dd, our kids could be (AA, Aa, aa), (BB, Bb, bb), (CC, Cc, cc), (Dd or dd). Those lowercase pairs are recessive traits. If, on the other hand, I’m Aa Bb Cc dd, and Doug is AA BB CC DD, his capital letters will overwhelm all my lowercase letters and none of the possible recessive traits will be expressed. This will create a group of children who look much more alike than they would if he had a mixture of dominant and recessive alleles and so did I.

One of the most potent ways to reduce heterozygosity and reliably produce offspring that look very similar to the parents and to each other is to breed to relatives. You can immediately see how this would work–nobody’s contributing that black hair from across the ocean, or that olive skin.

And so this has become a major tool in the dog breeder’s repertroire.

Over a long period of time, you can develop an extremely reliable system for making predictable dogs. (This is not, by the way, how most breeds are formed–this is how some breeders operate within established breeds. It is important to keep this in mind.) Breeders who do this can end up with such a distinctive look to their dogs that it’s immediately apparent whose dog that is across the ring, even if you’ve never seen the dog before.

And it’s not only true that those breeders have very predictable or distinctive looks in their own dogs; because of the lack of heterozygosity their dogs are very likely to produce that look even when bred to unrelated dogs. So you can get that look by choosing one of their stud dogs to breed with your bitch, even though your bitch doesn’t look much like them at all.

An important variant on inbreeding is LINE-breeding, which is a form of inbreeding where the genes of one particular individual or a closely related individual are concentrated in the resulting puppies. For example, if I have a bitch and I really like her, but I think her great-grandfather on her mother’s side had a prettier head, I would not breed her to a relative on her father’s side, or to her own brother. I’d breed either to that actual great-grandfather or to his brother or to another dog related to him. I’d try to concentrate the genetic material of that handsome g-grandfather as much as I could, in an attempt to create puppies that look as much as possible like HIM, not like any other dogs.

Line-breeding is still inbreeding, but we give it a different term to show that we’re not just concentrating genetic material randomly (as you would if you bred brother to sister). You’re doing it to try to re-create the aspects you like of a single dog or group of dogs in the pedigree.

So why are you talking about goldfish in the title, then, you may ask.

COI is actually short for coefficient of inbreeding. The dog’s COI is a numerical expression of how many shared ancestors he or she has. For example, if you look at just the dog’s parents, the COI will be zero, because the parents are (obviously) not the same dog. But if you go back another generation, you see that the parents were half-siblings. This throws the COI up to around 15%. If the parents were full siblings, the COI is 25%. If the parents were full siblings AND the grandparents were related AND the great-grandparents were related (or the grandfather one one side was also the great-grandfather on the other side, etc.), you can quickly get up to a COI of 30-40%. At this level the puppies are quite inbred.

What often happens in dogs is that when you’re looking at two paper pedigrees, which usually list four generations, and imaginging a cross between these dogs, you see a few shared relatives but not a huge number. So you can conclude that you are not breeding closely related dogs. But when you expand the search to ten generations (from 64 dogs to 1024 dogs) you very frequently find that in fact you are breeding the equivalent of cousins. The ancestors in common were found in those prior generations. So the breeding you thought was between dissimilar dogs is not. There are several breeds that have high COIs across the board, like Australian Shepherds and Standard Poodles. The average COI in those breeds makes the typical breeding, even when very few or none of the dogs in the five-generation pedigrees match, closer than first cousins. You don’t see that until you get back to ten generations or so.

You can keep pushing COI further and further back, but at some point it becomes less useful because you start hitting the founding dogs of the breed and that can artificially inflate the COI (because those are behind every single dog in that breed). So ten generations is considered pretty standard.

OK, here’s where we come to the controversial part of my little tale.

Many dog breeders use the COI to help choose breeding partners, but they actually push toward a HIGHER COI rather than a lower one. They will seek out those individuals with high COIs because those are the ones that are going to make a more predictable puppy.

The generally accepted “formula” in show dog breeding is to breed closely (make high COIs) for the majority of breedings, bringing in an “outcross” (a lower COI) only occasionally. This is, invariably, related to me as “what my mentor told me to do” or “a respected older breeder told me to do.”

As I said, this is an incredibly potent method for making predictable looking puppies. You can get yourself a lot of champions that way.

BUT…

I’ve been involved in many more species than dogs, and I can tell you that the only breeders who have the philosophy that closer breeding is preferable to outcrossing are the dog fancy and the import-bred Arabian horse fancy. The rest of every other group I’ve been involved with (cow, goat, sheep, rabbit, other horse) thinks that this is CRAZY and INSANE. They don’t even use the words like we do–it’s not an “outcross” if you breed to an unrelated sire; it’s just a normal breeding.

They breed relatives only for specific purposes and they don’t keep doing it, or they may deliberately inbreed for a couple of generations to make one inbred sire that can be used on a lot of unrelated females to create a specific result, but then they don’t keep inbreeding. The vast majority of their breeding decisions put together completely unrelated animals.

If you have no genetic heterozygosity, you have vastly reduced resistance to disease across the population (because every dog has the exact same genetic resources to use to fight disease; there won’t be some that do better than others), and you have a very real danger of ending up in a genetic corner with nowhere to go. There are about a hundred other reasons, some more or less important, but the bottom line is that there’s a reason that animals evolved behaviorally to seek out the least-related genes to pair with.

I understand the drive toward predictability in type, but we’re facing a situation in purebred dogs where so many breeders have done this for so many decades that we have a super tiny gene pool even in the common breeds. This is a situation that is instinctively understood to be unhealthy by just about everyone who is not breeding show dogs; as I said, in every production- or longevity- or health-based species (in other words, where “success” in that species means the ability for it to consistently do a job) they do not follow this strategy. The elevation of predictability–not even type, it has to be predictability in type–above other considerations is something that needs to be done with extreme caution.

It’s also very pertinent that we are under fire from welfare groups and the general public for doing this kind of inbreeding–and honestly there’s no difference in terms of genetics between linebreeding and inbreeding; those are labels we dog folk put on it to say we are inbreeding to a specific dog or set of dogs, but it doesn’t mean a lot objectively–and this is going to become a battleground.

The breeders of production species have managed to create very high-quality breeding programs without using a high COI. Showing goats or showing sheep or showing rabbits is just as demanding as showing dogs– in fact, in goats (with which I am most familar) it’s actually MORE demanding because the judges have to give critiques and because you have a linear appraisal system where the animal is compared to a mythical perfect goat. So your goat is exposed as crappy no matter how many other goats it has beaten in the show ring.

That’s an important lesson, I think. They did it, and continue to do it, by pairing animals that move toward a desired look and a desired production level, without using close breedings.
I do want to be clear on this, now that I’ve made everybody mad: COI tells you nothing about whether the two dogs are going to produce high-quality offspring. I could get a really low COI by breeding to an entirely different breed, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good move. You still have to choose a stud dog or bitch based on his or her quality and health testing and so on. And a low COI shouldn’t trump the more immediate issues of temperament or disease. COI is one more tool you use to structure a breeding program, especially a long-term breeding program, and it helps you understand how your prospective matings will or will not support your efforts and what I hope are the efforts of your breed club.

Committing to a lower COI as much as you possibly can–not to the detriment of the dogs, but as a general rule–will create a breed that is substantially more sustainable over the long term (I mean decades or centuries here, which is–I hope–an important part of how breeders are planning their breedings).
If I can say one thing about this and have it be remembered, it’s this:

There’s a story I heard years ago of a young woman who was putting in the roast for Sunday dinner. Her guests watched as she carefully cut off a portion of one end of the roast before putting it in the pan to cook. One family friend asked “Wow, that’s really interesting. Why do you do that?” She said, “My mom, who was the best cook I know, taught me to always do this.”

Fascinated, the friend called the woman’s mother. “Why do you cut the end off the roast?” She replied, “My own mother, who was a fabulous cook, always did it, and I have always thought it was important too.”

And so the friend called the elderly grandmother, related the story, and said “So what is it that makes cutting the roast end so critical?” The grandmother laughed and laughed. “My goodness!” she said. “I didn’t have a big enough roasting pan. I had to cut the end off the roast to fit it in the pan!”

The time of just following what an older breeder told us is over. Own your own decisions! You must know what you are doing and be able to explain exactly why you are making the breeding decisions you are making, and “so and so told me it worked” is not enough. We are breeding in a totally different and often overtly hostile environment and, if we are not already, we’re going to be under an incredible amount of scrutiny.

Inbreeding is a huge part of why we’re perceived as borderline animal abusers. So if you choose to inbreed (and you can’t avoid this by looking at a short pedigree; the many-generation COI is important), you need to be able to justify it based on facts and studies and in-depth knowledge of the dogs and the pedigrees, not on what someone else always did.

Or, someday, you or somebody in your breed is going to be sitting in an interview room being made to look like at best a fool and at worst a pervert. If you think I’m overreacting, go watch Pedigree Dogs Exposed.

Implications of the Kennel Club decision on the Pekingese: Pedigree Dogs Exposed

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Introductory Material (links to the program and a comparison of the old and new Pekingese standards)

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Part 1: The background of the decision

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Part 2: How Pedigree Dogs Exposed was both factually incorrect and wrong in its conclusions

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Part 3: The Pekingese in particular

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Part 4: So where do we go from here?

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Related Topics: Inbreeding

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Implications of the KC decision on Pekingese, Pedigree Dogs Exposed, part 4

Implications: What’s next?

1)      We must have good, logical, specific, TRUE, and ethical answers to the following questions, remembering that most people have little or no experience with the well-bred purebred. Don’t lose sight of this! Most people go through their entire lives and never meet even a single show dog. They already think of show breeders as a group of weirdos who don’t like normal dogs, and this recent criticism has fueled the “us” (owners and dogs) versus “them” (breeders) view. If we avoid these questions, or don’t have well-thought-out answers to them ( “because you just don’t understand” or “because that’s what makes a good show dog” are NOT good answers – we have to have answers that focus on the good of the dog and its suitability as a pet), we will only fall deeper into this hole.

We must also willingly and proactively admit that these body shapes ARE mutations, and DO require a lot of care to breed properly. We should immediately tell our prospective owners that the unhealthy short leg, or short face, is a legitimate danger to the dog.

Individually and as clubs, we must consider:

Is the brachycephalic head an unhealthy head? Does it disqualify the breed as a pet? How much does it affect normal quality of life? How does it change the care the dog must receive? How can you recognize an unhealthy brachycephalic head as opposed to a healthy one?

Is the achondroplastic leg an unhealthy mutation? What is its purpose? What is a sound achondroplastic leg as opposed to an unsound one?

Is it cruel to breed dogs with a lot of hair (or no hair at all)?

And so on–carefully consider anything that could legitimately be called a mutation, whether of skin or hair or bone or ears or head or whatever.

Are we doing absolutely everything we can to respond to genetic disease? If we are, how do we communicate that in a clear and succinct way to our puppy buyers?

Is our breed in a genetic corner scary enough that we need to consider cross-breeding with another breed? (Listen, I know how unpopular this is, but this decision will be made for us if we’re not proactive about it.)

2)      We must realize the implications of buying the lie that mutations are bad. If we try to toe that line, purebred dogs as we know it will end. A three-inch leg will NOT satisfy this requirement better than a two-inch leg. A short muzzle will NOT satisfy this requirement better than a flat face. The only logical outcome of this kind of philosophy is that all dogs end up looking like wolves again.

3)      We must make sure that the public sees the truth – that we got into this activity because we are knowledgeable, careful, passionate dog owners. It’s tragic that the opposite is usually assumed. We need to emphasize the nature of our involvement with dogs as being 98% pet owners and dog lovers and 2% exhibitors, that we show dogs to enjoy time with them, that we don’t make money on litters, that we are heavily involved in rescue, that we sponsor research and homeless dogs, and every other great and good thing show breeders do.

Get out there! Show breeders should be walking dogs through town, should be coming to the street fairs, should be bringing dogs to groomers, etc. Don’t let your dogs sit in the backyard while every other human on the street is walking a Labradoodle and enthusing about what a great dog they are.

Danny, the Peke so unfairly featured in the Pedigree Dogs Exposed program, is now nine years old and healthy and happy. Why wasn’t this emphasized in the Kennel Club response? Why wasn’t Danny immediately shown, running happily around his yard and flirting with his bitches? Instead, the world is left to believe that he probably walked off the green carpet at Crufts and fell over dead.

The best defense is a good offense. This cannot be said more clearly. Breed clubs need to take firm control of this issue and present a TRUTHFUL picture of their breed and their practices, or they will have that picture painted of them-and it will not be flattering.

The implications of the KC decision on Pekingese, Pedigree Dogs Exposed, part 3

I want to spend some time now looking at the specific situation with the Pekingese standard, because the changes made to it are the distillation of the new direction the Kennel Club has decided to take in its (regrettable, in my opinion) response to the concerns raised in the Pedigree Dogs Exposed program.

Pekingese were the first to fall in what is going to be a wholesale razing of standards because they have the misfortune of combining all of the mutations (and they are mutations, that much is true) that the program highlighted.

Pekes have a brachycephalic face, they are achondroplastic, they are often gotten pregnant via AI and given c-sections, they have great quantity of coat, they have a tail up over the back, they have long spines in proportion to their height, they have heavy shoulders and forequarters, and (let’s face it) they walk funny. For an agenda that focuses on appearance as an indicator of health, they’re walking around with big red targets on their backs.

What I want to do first is explore exactly how tortured a typical Peke’s life is, and then move on to what the implications of this move are going to be for all registered dogs. I don’t think I’m exaggerating or overreacting when I say that this will have very profound and very far-reaching effects throughout dogdom.

Pedigree Dogs Exposed made so many terrible assertions about Pekingese dogs that many viewers probably wondered how on earth the dogs could even make it through the day. But the Peke is actually, in the grand scheme of things, a pretty hardy little dog. They run like crazy-yes, even the ones with the show-quality faces-they jump, they play fight, and they live terribly long lives, well into their teens. You need to stop and realize what that means-they have a lifespan between four and six years longer than the average Golden Retriever. Four to six years longer than Flat-coats. Six years longer than the average Great Dane. They are stubborn, charming, demanding dogs with a fiercely devoted following, and if you buy one you are much more likely to have it die of old age than anything else.

The health problems that occur in Pekingese dogs do relate to the dog’s face. A proportion of the dogs will need soft palate surgery, and probably more should get it than currently do. The poorly bred dogs, whose breeders are not paying attention to this issue, can also have stenotic nares, where the nostrils curl inward and restrict free breathing. Labored breathing affects the health adversely, (eventually) causing tracheal problems and heart problems.

The question is Does this need disqualify the Peke from existing? I would strongly argue that the answer is no.

Palate surgery is one day in the life of the dog; it is not a risky surgery and when done with a small laser does not even require stitches. Stenotic nares surgery, where it is necessary, requires only two sutures. These procedures, alone or in combination, totally solve the breathing issue and resolve any discomfort.

What the Kennel Club should have done, in my opinion, is immediately respond to criticism about SHAPE by emphasizing QUALITY OF LIFE. Pekes generally have an extremely high one. This is not a breed in crisis.

What needs to be changed, I would argue, is that breeders should stop any form of insisting that the face is not an issue. They must instead fully acknowledge it and take responsibility for making sure it never affects the dogs’ quality of life. If breeders established as a standard best practice that puppies be kept until the palate could be evaluated, and that any puppy or young dog receive any needed surgery before being placed, without exception, they would do a great deal of good for the individual dogs and for the image of the breed.

This would almost certainly necessitate a longer period of time before the puppies could go to homes; a possible “fix” could be the use of a palate deposit or similar, where part of the purchase price could be held in anticipation of the surgery. If the dog needs the surgery, it is “free” or at a much reduced cost to the owner; if the dog does not need the surgery everyone goes on his or her way with a happy and healthy dog.

Why is this so terribly important, and why should every breed club take notice and strongly consider allying with the Pekingese contingent to fight this?

Let’s look at the mutations that were targeted in the television program, and look at how the Kennel Club changed the standard to move toward erasing exaggerations in EACH area. Most people think that the face is the only thing the KC cares about. This is entirely false and you’re asking to have your standard changed underneath you if you don’t pay attention. Complacency is a VERY BAD IDEA.

Face: If we take the necessity for soft palate resection or stenotic nares to be criteria for a needed change in the standard, EVERY brachycephalic breed is in danger. Every single one of them, even those with as much muzzle as a Boxer or American Cocker, needs tracheal surgery on a more or less regular basis. LENGTHENING THE PEKE MUZZLE WILL NOT FIX THIS. This is SO IMPORTANT to understand! Let me say it again:

If the necessity for palate surgery is the criterion, nothing less than a full (same length as backskull) muzzle will suffice.

That means the Kennel Club can be expected to target the following breeds:

American Cocker Spaniel

Boston Terrier

Bulldog

French Bulldog

Shih Tzu

Tibetan Spaniel

Boxer

Affenpinscher

Brussels Griffon

English Toy Spaniel (what the UK calls the King Charles Spaniel)

Japanese Chin

Pekingese

Pug

Legs: The Kennel Club specifically changed the leg length on the Peke. The Pedigree Dogs Exposed program called for an end to the breeding of achondroplastic dogs (who are “mutated” and “deformed”).

This means you will see pressure on, if not changes to the standard for,

Basset Bleu De Gascogne

Basset Fauve De Bretagne

Basset Griffon Vendeen

Basset Hound

Dachshund (all six varieties)

Clumber Spaniel

Cesky Terrier

Dandie Dinmont

Glen of Imaal Terrier

Sealyham Terrier

Scottish Terrier

Skye Terrier

Swedish Vallhund

Pembroke Welsh Corgi

Cardigan Welsh Corgi

Lancashire Heeler

Wrinkle: This was specifically mentioned as a problematic mutation. Look for targets painted on these breeds:

Bullmastiff

Dogue De Bordeaux

Mastiff

Neapolitan Mastiff

Shar-Pei

Bloodhound

Coat: is already being radically changed in the Pekingese standard. Others that share the excessive coat mutation:

Puli

Chow

Bergamasco

Komondor

Poodle

The Bichon group: Bichon, Havanese, Bolognese, Maltese, Coton

The hairless breeds: Chinese Crested, Mexican Hairless

Eye size: The large round eye is being changed. Other breeds with similar eyes (that are not already targeted under the anti-brachycephalic language):

Lhasa Apso

Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Pomeranian

Chihuahua

Thick bone/heavy forefront: Most affected breeds are already noted here under another mutation, but I think the Clumber Spaniel could fall into this category

Commonly bred by AI/commonly delivered by c-section: Because it is not recognized that these decisions are made by breeders who are nervous about disease, need to get a breeding done in a short amount of time, and won’t tolerate losing puppies, this will also be perceived as a health issue. Expect most of the toy breeds, the short-bodied muscular dogs, and many of the very large breeds to be blamed.

Common congenital issues: Now here’s where we’re going to really get in trouble – as if we haven’t already. The RSPCA has already made the case that deliberately breeding ANY dog with a congenital issue or with the possibility of passing along a congenital issue is “pain-breeding.” Think about this very carefully. Is your breed currently fighting an issue? Goldens and Flatcoats and Rotties and Boxers and Bernese and Danes with cancers and heart problems; Collies with CEA; Poodles with SA; breeds with storage diseases, breeds with low puppy vitality, breeds with Addisons and Cushings. Let’s make the pile higher: Dalmatians with deafness; Keeshonds with thyroid disorders; Dobermans with von Willebrands and color dilution alopedia; the fifty breeds at increased risk for bloat.

I know of very few, if any, breeds that do not have one or two issues that are more common than in the background population.

Unless we are very clear on the benefits that deliberate purebred development brings – that yes, your Smooth Fox Terrier is more likely to have patellar problems than average, but is healthier and more predictable in these other four ways – we are going to find ourselves playing a very uncomfortable game of defense against people who do not like us, who do not think dogs ought to be deliberately bred at all, and who view purpose-breeding that changes body types as immoral and quite possibly illegal.

The other thing nobody’s talking about is what this decision and the changes in the standard are going to do with the UK Pekingese. The United Kingdom has historically been a repository of some of the very best genes in purebred dogs. They REALLY know how to breed dogs. For such a small country, they have an incredibly huge number of dogs being exported to all corners of the world to enrich and better the gene pools and conformation of many breeds. The herding dogs, of course; the Labrador and Sussex and Clumber and other sporting dogs; many of the giants (I absolutely love the UK Danes; they have the fronts and shoulders that put the US dogs to shame); etc.– all of them exist there in an excellence of form and function that exist very few other places.

The changing of these standards is going to effectively rip these breeds out of international consideration, and vice versa. Crufts, which has been the show against which all other shows are compared, will no longer be allowed to use the standards that draw breeders from the US and all over the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. That means that it will no longer be a meeting of the best of the best. The UK will no longer be the arbiter of quality.

And there is a very real danger that the FCI (the standards-keeping body for most of the world except the US, Canada, UK, and Australia) will throw the UK Pekingese out if it physically changes. This has already happened with the US Akita when the US decided the breed should be larger and stockier and be many different colors; the FCI split the breed into two (the American Akita and the Japanese Akita) to indicate that the US Akitas had indeed become a different breed. Accordingly, the two are no longer allowed to be bred together.

If this is what happens to the UK Pekingese, the breed will effectively be stranded in one country, unable to contribute to or access the gene pools of other countries, or to be shown against the Pekingese in other countries.

The implications of the KC decision on Pekingese; Pedigree Dogs Exposed, part 2

If you haven’t already, read part 1 first.

So what is wrong with what the Kennel Club is doing? Why is it such a bad decision?

I want to answer this in two parts: First, why Pedigree Dogs Exposed was incorrect, totally and fantastically and horrifyingly wrong, in its conclusions. Second, what this means to the community of UK breeders and, because the world of registered dogs is in fact very small, to breeders around the world.

Let’s examine the assertions of the Pedigree Dogs Exposed program, one by one. I’m going to leave out the Pekingese stuff for now, because I want to examine that breed in particular in Part 3.

1. Purebred dogs have radically changed in the last 100 years.

The pictures the documentary uses to supposedly “expose” the changes in purebred dogs are totally false. You cannot make statements about a dog based on a photo of a POOR EXAMPLE of the breed! I can go find you a poorly bred long-legged Basset right now in 2008; doesn’t mean that the breed has changed.

From 1931. See the front legs?

This Time cover is from 1928. This adorable puppy doesn’t yet have a chest that fills in the crook in his front legs, but he is without question a basset. The ear set, length of ear, bone, etc. are very comparable to the modern type.

From 1950

For more show Bassets from the 1950s and 60s, start here. Exploring the Lyn Mar Acres pedigrees will keep you busy for hours.

Oh, and just because I promised, here’s a 2008 Basset (found this one on one of the Internet puppy finder sites, which means that now I have to take a shower to wash the skeeze off):

Moving on: The bulldog they say is the historic one absolutely isn’t. That’s a PIT bull dog, not a bull-baiting dog.

What they actually looked like in 1850 (look at how short the face is):

1898:

1917:

1919:

1936:

Bulldogs: (1950s):

Modern (2007): This is a show Bulldog (a Polish boy). Look at the angle from his nose to his lower jaw. You can see that his upper teeth would be only slightly inside his lower teeth. Note that he’s actually more moderate than the dog from the 1950s!

This is the exact skull the program said was representative of the English Bulldog:

This is not only an incorrect skull but a grossly malformed one. The dog would have had serious trouble eating or living anything close to a normal life.

By the way, this is a skull sold by a medical research company, which would, of course, have nothing to do with determining the normative Bulldog skull. And it’s on the first page of a google images search for “bulldog skull”– the research done for this program was incredibly shallow and irresponsible.

This is the actual Bulldog skull, as described by the illustrated standard–in other words, this is the skull that is seen as the highest achievement of deliberate breeding:

It is absolutely obvious that show breeders do NOT want the unhealthy skull, would immediately reject the unhealthy skull, and would be horrified by any animal in that condition.

2. How about the Bull Terrier! They’ve totally changed! You can see how the skulls have changed through the decades!

Answer: This is the skull series they animated to supposedly show changes (found, yes, in a google images search):

It’s irresponsible of anyone to use that skull series to show that bull terriers used to look like X and now look like Y. That skull series shows exactly what the study says it does, which is that dogs have an extremely plastic phenotype and you can cause rapid changes in a short period of time.

In order to say that bull terriers looked like X in year 0 and look like Y in year 30, you have to show far more than one skull per year and you have to find the NORMATIVE skulls. There’s a huge variation in type according to deliberate breeding (or the opposite, careless breeding) and I could find you identical skulls to every single one of those, all labeled AKC-registered Bull Terriers, in 2008.

Check it:

The “1890s” skull:

The “1950s” skull:

The “unhealthy overexaggerated skull”:

The “hey, that’s pretty moderate, why don’t breeders do THAT” skull:

ALL of those are BTs, ALL are from the late 2000s, and the one who is a champion, the head they want? Yep, #4.

Here’s another example, a top-winning Bull Terrier from the 70s: still think the breed is in rapid flux?

3. Rhodesian Ridgebacks have a ridge, which is a form of spina bifida, and because of the ridge they have horrible painful dermoid sinus formations. If they would just breed the ridgeless dogs, they wouldn’t have this problem!

Answer: That statement was just categorically untrue. The ridge is NOT a form of spina bifida; it’s a cowlick. Ridgeless dogs do NOT have a lesser chance of having dermoid sinus formations. They are two separate issues. Dermoid sinus, by the way, is actively battled and bred against by good Ridgeback breeders.

4. Horrible Ridgeback breeders cull puppies without ridges!

Yes, some do. And I want to explain why. It’s not because they’re evil. It’s because ridgeless dogs don’t look like Ridgebacks. They look like a hound-pit bull mix. They are very rarely picked up as Ridgebacks when they come into rescue, so they’re not valued and are not turned over to purebred rescue. Ridgeless dogs are very likely to be put to sleep, assumed to be a dangerous cross-bred. Many end up as bait dogs in dog-fighting rings.

The fate of a ridgeless dog is far less than certain if the first and original owner does not act responsibly, and every breeder knows that you can’t always trust owners to act responsibly.

So, as a breeder, if you know that a certain percentage of your ridgeless puppies are going to end up living horrible lives of pain and confusion and loneliness and then be put to death, even if it’s only one percent, you have a decision to make. You can send them out there, trying hard not to think about that one percent, or you can make sure that their lives are short and painless and they never know fear or hunger or fighting. It is an individual decision that no breeder makes lightly. We LOVE our puppies. We ADORE our dogs. Every single time we lose one it is a personal tragedy. So while I may have certain convictions about what I would do, I have a great deal of sympathy for those who make a decision that is different.

5. Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are unhealthy because uncaring breeders (who, it is pretty explicitly implied, enjoy causing dogs pain) are trying to produce a tiny skull that doesn’t leave enough room for their brains.

Answer: Nobody knows exactly why syringomyelia is a problem in CKCS. The round head type is not appreciably different from many other small dogs, including the English Toy Spaniel, the Shih Tzu, the Maltese, etc. Across the world, good breeders are horrified and are doing something about it. I would bet money that almost every health issue that the documentary pounced on was uncovered by good breeders, the research paid for by good breeders, and the population of good breeders is freaking out and trying to fix.

Note here: (<– linky)

Look at the summary of DNA research. Every single study is being paid for by the breed clubs of various countries, meaning that every penny is coming from the pockets of the breeders themselves.

No one is sure, yet, how to get rid of syringomyelia in CKCS. My sister-in-law owns two Cavaliers, a mom and son, who were given to her by a breeder who MRId the mom and found very mild signs of the disease (the dog is pain-free). That particular breeder was completely clearing out (finding good homes for and never breeding again) every single dog who had any signs of the disorder. The mom dog was imported from England, did well in the shows here, the breeder spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on health testing, and then gave the dog away. That’s the kind of response good breeders are giving to these horrific diseases.

Right now the Cardigan people are tackling IVDD (disc disease). You know who has worked to describe the disease? breeders. Who is donating thousands of dollars to DNA research? Breeders. Who is pushing everybody to do cheek swabs, bringing the swabs to shows, pressuring every owner they can think of? Breeders.

There is no body of individuals more dedicated to stamping out canine genetic disease than the ethical purebred breeders. Every year, the purebred clubs donate literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund studies to identify genes, they are 90% of the customer base for the genetic testing companies, they are the ones pushing for health registries, they rigidly police their own ranks and disavow anyone who is knowingly breeding unhealthy dogs. I’ve never met a single cross-breeding breeder who will volunteer their dogs for studies, but it’s commonplace in the show world. I have a friend who has driven her Danes hundreds of miles, twice a year, on her own nickel, for years now, just so the researchers can do serial ultrasounds on a related family of dogs. When the call goes out for cheek swabs and blood tests and x-rays and echocardiograms, show breeders consider it their duty to respond–never seen a Puggle breeder do anything of the kind.

The idea that breeders are sinister in this is absolutely untrue. There ARE bad apples. Of course. But when you look at the entire body of responsible breeders, it’s an overwhelmingly concerned and careful group of people.

6. It’s a symptom of how terrible CKCS breeders are that they continue to breed affected dogs.

Answer: http://www.cavalierhealth.org/smprotocol.htm is an absolute required read to understand this issue. It is a fact that if no Cavalier with any form of indent in the skull is ever bred, the breed will cease to exist. This seems to be a skull formation that exists throughout the breed (and is NOT, and NEVER HAS BEEN, the result of breeders trying to get a smaller and smaller skull regardless of the consequences). The goal of the protocol is to minimize symptoms and the expression of the actual disease, and to move toward a breed that has no skull indentation. Within this protocol, it is acceptable to breed dogs that have the skull indentation but are asymptomatic, as long as you are breeding them to dogs that do not have the indentation.

7. There are a few good breeders, but most of them are in it only for the ribbons and don’t care about health.

Answer: This really isn’t true. The reason that doesn’t work too well to ignore health if you’re a breeder is that it’s very difficult to exist on your own. You have to buy puppies, use other people’s stud dogs, and hopefully other people will ask to use yours. Since there is a huge, HUGE amount of peer pressure within the group to never lose sight of health testing, you will not be welcome. Puppies will not be sold to you; you will not be able to use stud dogs. Your own stud dogs will not be in demand. So you will not succeed consistently or at all.

I know the Dane world better than I know the Cardigan world, yet. So I can tell you that in the community of blue/black breeders, which is maybe 30-40 active and inactive kennels across the US, there’s a set of four or five “show” breeders that do not health-test consistently, or they do health test but they don’t make decisions based on those results. Everybody knows it and nobody will touch them with a ten-foot pole. The non-testing breeders all stick together and they breed to dogs owned by the other members of that group. They are not respected by their peers, nobody sends puppy people to them, and if we can warn puppy people away from them we try. They’re so shunned that most of the other breeders won’t even breed to something with those kennel names in the pedigree–those non-tested dogs as parents or grandparents taint even otherwise excellent breeding prospects, even if the offspring dog has finished its championship, even if the dog itself has health testing. Those non-testing breeders have effectively totally shot themselves in the feet.

So no, I don’t think that there are many more non-testing breeders than there are testing breeders. The dog show world is intensely political, it’s not really “fair” in many ways. It’s far from perfect. But the pressure to consistently health-test, in every breed I’ve seriously investigated or been involved in, is SERIOUS AND REAL.

8. The show ring is the real evil; because it only looks for beauty, breeders only care about looks.

Answer: The community of good breeders knows that the show ring is purely a place where the conformation of the dog is evaluated. Conformation is only one piece of the puzzle. We think that shows are VERY important, and goodness knows we love the gorgeous dogs who are the top winners, but if you are savvy and watch the dogs actually being bred, you’ll find that some of the top-winning dogs of all time have very, very few offspring. That’s because within their breed, even though the breeders recognized the beauty of the dog, it was not a suitable stud dog or brood bitch because of some health, temperament, or ability shortfall.

That’s where the real question of responsibility comes in. Breeding only for looks is, for obvious reasons (that’s what they see on TV), what everybody thinks we do. But it’s far more often that I hear “I’ve got this lovely bitch at home and there is literally not a male in the country I want to breed her to” than the opposite. It would be EASY to breed for looks and nothing else. But you bankrupt yourself ethically and you do a huge disservice to your dogs if you do.

The one place where I think that the program had some leverage with me was with the rears on German Shepherd Dogs. I happen to be a person who thinks that GSD rears are in terrible shape right now–but what they don’t tell you on the video is that the majority of everybody in the show dog community who are not GSD breeders thinks GSD rears are crazy. “My gosh, I can’t even look at them; they look crippled” is the most common show-ring comment. I HOPE that someday they get their heads out of their armpits and realize that it’s nuts, but I will say that even with the enormous change in preferred style, they’re STILL OFAing their dogs. They’re still testing and still breeding carefully. And not every dog is that extreme–I’ve seen the ones that wobble and I hate it, but I’ve also seen dogs winning that are, yes, overangulated and yes, too far down in the rear, but they can stand normally.

In any other breed, a dog who stood like that in the rear would go to the back of the line. Dog shows are NOT about health; they are about soundness. So you could have a dog with lymphoma win Best in Show as long as he looked sound and muscular and his gait was perfect. That’s why you always insist, as a breeder, and why you must insist as a puppy buyer, on health testing as well as show participation.

How about temperament? Any registered dog on full registration (as opposed to limited, which means that the breeder doesn’t want the dog shown or bred) who is not spayed or neutered can be entered in a dog show and can walk in the ring. That means there are absolutely dogs with poor temperaments in the ring. Again, this is one of the reasons that you sometimes see those top winners with very few offspring. If the handler is good enough to keep the dog from biting the judge, it can and will win. If it does bite, it will be excused and/or disqualified and after 3 DQs you’re done; you can’t ever show the dog again. Dogs that attack other dogs and do harm will sometimes be immediately banned, sometimes not. That’s why you never, as a breeder, breed to a dog without either getting your hands on him yourself or getting the opinion of someone you trust who HAS had their hands on him.

I would honestly invite anyone who is interested in this subject to attend a dog show. I strongly suspect that you’d not find a crazy freak show full of unhealthy dogs. I’ve said this before and I’ll offer again–if someone in the New England area wants to attend a show (to look at the different breeds, to see whether show dogs are abused, to see if this documentary is correct, etc.) and I can get there, I’ll walk around with you and show you what’s going on and what happens with the different breeds.

9. Mixed-breed dogs are healthier and have better temperaments than purebreds because they have hybrid vigor.

Answer: Here’s the way it usually works: Mixed-breed comes into vet. Vet says “I’m so sorry; your dog has osteosarcoma. These things just happen sometimes.” Boxer comes into vet. Vet says “I’m so sorry; your dog has osteosarcoma. It’s because he’s a Boxer.” Labeling plays a HUGE part in our perception of purebred health.

The other thing that happens is that people’s experience with purebreds-and this includes VETS’ experience with purebreds-tends to be almost exclusively with poorly bred ones. How many actively showing, health-tested, hunt-tested Labs have you ever met? How many World Sieger Shepherds? If all you’ve ever met are badly bred purebreds, of COURSE you think they’re all unhealthy and squirrely–they probably are, because they’ve been bred for nothing more than an certificate of registration, and with no more care than you’d use in choosing a pair of socks. An UNTESTED purebred is a very poor health risk, because if you’ve got two dogs on the street at least they have to be strong and sound enough to get tab A into slot B. Purebreds have no such restriction; a bad breeder will find some way to get the bitch pregnant.

There is absolutely no such thing as hybrid vigor in dogs. Hybrid vigor is a term that means that when you breed two TOTALLY unrelated breeds, or even two species, the resulting babies are bigger, taller, stronger, healthier than either parent. So Brahma-Limousin cows, for example, are heartier than either Brahma or Limousin purebreds. In order to take advantage of hybrid vigor, you have to keep breeding the originals–in other words, you don’t keep breeding the Brahmousin to each other or they become just another purebred with no advantages; you’re constantly producing new ones using the two unrelated breeds.

All purebred dogs are about 150-200 years old, and they all came from the same place (Europe). Aside from a few primitive breeds like the Chow, genetic testing has proven that even the breeds that look old are modern European creations (much to the chagrin of the Ibizan hound people). Until 200 years ago, there was no notion of a closed stud book, so while you had some lines that were relatively pure, the fact is that if it could herd and looked mostly like a corgi it WAS a corgi, and the same dog in another part of England would possibly have been labeled as desirable Shetland Sheepdog breeding stock.

So when you breed a Labrador and a Poodle, for example, you’re not accessing any “hybrid vigor.” You’re putting back together two breeds that were probably freely exchanging genes no more than a couple hundred years ago. The hip dysplasia in Poodles is the same hip dysplasia as is in Labs. The genes for thyroid disorders in Dobermans are the same as the genes for thyroid disorders in Rottweilers. You’re right that the genes have to meet to be expressed–and they’re quite as likely to meet when you cross-breed as when you breed two purebreds, except in the relatively few breeds that have genuine issues with a few cancers.

I have four dogs in the house, all of which I love dearly. The Cardigans represent the best lines in the US. They have strong, enduring structure, their backs are not too long or too short (won’t break down under stress); their teeth have a perfect bite so they’ll always be able to eat, even in old age; their front feet turn out no more than 30%, so they won’t get arthritis. They’ve been genetically tested for PRA, heart, hips; I know exactly how long their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and gg-grandparents lived and what they died of (actually, thanks to the great good health of Cardis, most of those dogs are still alive). I have an accidental cross rescue, a dachshund/Jack Russell Terrier. He’s also achondroplastic, like the Cardigans, but in his case there’s been no care to make sure his feet don’t turn out too much or that his back is level and strong. His elbows do not touch his body, so he can’t run as fast or corner as quickly as they can. His feet turn out and are flat, so he doesn’t have the tendon system he needs to keep his feet from hurting when he gets older. I have no way of knowing whether he’ll suffer from eye, heart, hip, or spinal problems as he ages. I also have a “designer dog,” a deliberately crossbred Papillon-Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. She has cherry eye, a congenitally deformed jaw, and bowed front legs, and for her whole life I’ll have to watch out for glaucoma, epilepsy, spinal disorders, brain disorders, etc., because none of those have ever been tested for, as far as I know, in her generations of puppy-mill ancestors. So from my point of view this is not even close to an argument.

10. The dog on the program was so congenitally deformed that he had to sit on an “ice pillow” so he wouldn’t die!

Danny, the Peke pictured, was on a cool bed, which is an extremly common tool used in the show ring to keep the dogs comfortable so they won’t pant. It’s got a gel inside that is at room temperature but helps transfer heat, and it feels pleasant to the dog, like lying on a tile floor. Some exhibitors will put an ice pack under the bed to cool it off. We don’t want them to pant because an open mouth makes a bad picture. Judges can’t see the profile of the dog’s head properly if the dog is panting; the dog can’t show an alert or pretty expression when it is panting. We like to have a nice photograph, too; it’s important to us as breeders that photos show our dogs at their best. Danny was in no danger of overheating. It had been a very long day for everyone; Danny was going to need to have his picture taken hundreds or thousands of times and was under hundreds of lights. That made him pant, so his handler wisely let him lie down on a cool bed. No dog would ever lie down on an actual ice pack, any more than you’d lie down on a block of ice.

11. Purebreds are so deformed that they have to be bred by AI and have c-sections!

There’s a huge difference between “have to be” and “usually are.”

Good breeders typically get one or two or three litters from each female. Every single litter is extremely precious and represents the investment of years of effort and thousands and thousands of dollars, and we LOVE our breeding bitches. That means that we have a very low tolerance for the risks associated with breeding.

So a large proportion of ALL breeders, across ALL breeds, preferentially use AI (either “fresh,” where the male is collected right there and the bitch immediately inseminated, or surgical). They don’t want to risk infection, injury (I’ve had a male injured during breeding, so I know this happens), or the possibility that either dog won’t get the job done.

Pekingese CAN breed normally, but their breeders are very worried about the possibility of injury when the two dogs involved are short and heavy, so they do AIs. As I said, this is true across the spectrum of breeds including those very “natural” in shape and size.

There are SO many reasons that dogs end up with sections, and some are a “weakness” and others are not. The c-sections we had with the Danes were on a mother and daughter; the mom’s section was because she had dead puppies inside that had set up a huge infection; she delivered five live and five dead puppies and I sectioned her for the last (live) puppy. Her daughter’s labor stalled out, and when the vet opened her up she found the puppies “shrink wrapped” in an extraordinarily tight uterus (she actually had to be spayed to get the puppies out). For each, if I had let the labor progress she would eventually have delivered. But we would have had what I considered, at the time, exhausted and terrified, too high a chance of losing puppies or mom. Objectively, looking back, I don’t know.

Neither bitch could be bred again, obviously (massive infection and scarring, mandatory spay), but even though this was in mom and daughter I don’t think I would have called it a genetic weakness.

If you have a whole bunch of related dogs who are all ending up with primary inertia–yup, I’m willing to call that a genetic problem. But the number of times I’ve actually seen that isn’t high. Most of the times when you have a high incidence of c-sections it’s for slow labors, which IS something I’d love to have erradicated in purebreds, but the reason they’re sections is that it’s a nervous breeder who sections quickly and for any reason that could possibly lead to puppy death (ummm, guilty as charged).

And of course a true dystocia you’ve got to section or everybody dies.

I’m honestly not sure there’s ANY data about c-section frequency in dogs. I’ve certainly never seen a study or seen a study referred to. You have to understand that c-sections in dogs are run entirely by breeder judgment; except for the very rare complete dystocia, these are ALL breeders making the decisions. So rates are heavily, probably almost completely, influenced by personal comfort levels and not necessarily by any kind of medical reality.

Let me give you an example: I have a friend, a GREAT breeder, who breeds Mastiffs. She sections every bitch, every time. They do not get a trial of labor, nothing. For her, losing a puppy is absolutely unacceptable. She also needs the predictability of being able to take two weeks off work for each litter. So she progestone tests, knows the day of ovulation, schedules the section for the exact day when delivery should occur (this is actually OK in dogs–there’s not a wide range like there is in human women), and sections every bitch.

So she’s got multiple generations getting multiple c-sections. But *could* those bitches have free-whelped? Quite possibly. She could, in fact, have the freest of free-whelping Mastiffs in the entire country, but the stats would not reflect that.

I have another friend, a Bull Terrier breeder, who NEVER sections except for a complete dystocia/malpresentation. She wants the bitch to whelp no matter what. She’s lost large proportions of entire litters during the whelping process; almost every litter has at least one or two stillborns. So are her dogs statistically complete free-whelpers? Absolutely. Would they be free-whelpers if they lived in my house? VERY doubtful.

Pekingese (and bulldogs and pugs and so on) CAN free-whelp. But they will lose puppies if they do, and these are already breeds who cost a huge amount (not just in money) to get pregnant and who have small litters. A single stillborn represents half the litter, often. When canine c-sections are relatively safe and ensure that you get every puppy out alive, for many breeders (across ALL breeds) and or many repro vets, this decision is absolutely understandable.