Roseclipt

Yes, doubling up on the merle gene is considered to be lethal white. So merle to merle matings are not a good idea. I met a dog last year who was the result of merle to merle breeding, copped the double merle, and had something like 10% vision. Harlequin to harlequin also produces semi lethal white - Mendelian expectancy 25% in each litter. These pure white puppies are usually deaf, and sometimes blind or vision impaired. They are usually euthanised at birth. Or they used to be, until some breeders found they could sell them ....

It seemed to me that their issue is that piebald will hide the merle, leading to possible inadvertent merle to merle mating. They are not as worried about the effect of the piebald gene on its own. There is deafness in breeds that have piebald. Steve questioned whether there is another gene at work and it isn't just the piebald gene on its own, but it is well known that a dog without pigment in its ears will be deaf. Usually piebald dogs have coloured ears, and so deafness isn't common, but the way the gene works is a little bit unknown. In some breeds, two piebalds can result in extreme white pups, and the pups have less colour than either parent. Not sure what happens in dachshunds. Merle is a dominant patching gene, and cannot be hidden by pied. Pied is recessive to merle, and merles can carry (and do) carry it.

Best advice I can give you is to make absolutely certain ALL paperwork is correct, and to have copies of everything. Most companies do the quarantine paperwork correctly, but remember that most do not do your purebred re-registration paperwork. You must have registration certificates for the dog(s) from a country recognised by the ANKC, the certificates of collection for the semen, the signed (by the owner) form for the re-registration of the dog in Australia, and the signed forms for the registration of semen. Also the airbill and the quarantine clearances. Also many FCI countries will not issue an export certificate for semen. I have, in partnership, just brought in 5 collections from Zurich with Sires On Ice, and all went faultlessly. Cheers, Lesley.

Doppler echo is available in Sydney - at North Shore Veterinary Specialist Centre. Auscultation is also very good, but preferably by a heart specialist. Putnam scoring for patellas can be done by an experienced Vet., and the results sent to the OFA for certification. Forms can be downloaded. Animal Genetics in Florida have a wide range of tests - you can apply for kits by email. If Aust. certification is required, your Vet. should check chip numbers and take the swab for you. Very well priced - less than half of what you pay out here. Cheers, Lesley.

Definitely not a new problem - in the early '90's, we imported 3 male Danes, 1 from Norway iid'd to the UK, 2 bred in the UK. 1 was fertile, never any problems, 1 sired 1 litter out here, then sterile, and 1 became sterile at a young age. We were fortunate to be able to do experimental karyotyping on the dog who sired one litter, and found he was an XXY, so were able to karyotype his progeny as well, and clear the carriers out of the line. The 3rd one who became sterile was actually fortunate, as he developed DCM, so had little impact on the gene pool. It is not at all uncommon for bitches from the northern hemisphere to have breeding problems once they get here - I have known of a number who have not bred on across different breeds - some producing 1 or 2 puppies, some none at all, others requiring prog. shots to hold litters.

BREED : FRENCH BULLDOG DOG : SUPREME CH. PENDRAGAN IN TOTO AGE : 4 YEARS DATE : 07/07/2012 OWNERS : DAVID & LESLEY THORPE & JOE DAIDONE HANDLER: JOE DAIDONE :)

1 x French Bulldog on 07/07/2012 - Supreme Champion Pendragan In Toto

Absolutely agree - people do pull dogs from breeding programs because they fail health tests or just plain aren't good enough. I think they should be pulled from the main register - it is just that our registries seem to have a mind of their own instead of doing what is perceived to be "the right thing" by their membership. In this case of them NOT being removed, I am sure the Wolfhound breeders will know what to avoid. Because of this attitude of "the powers that be" none of us can be sure of our purebreds. If it wasn't for the internet very few of us would have known ....

After WWII, when Germany was pretty well destroyed, the German Great Dane breeders over there rounded up any dog resembling a Dane that they could find. These went before a panel of experts, and if they were considered to be a purebred, they were entered in the Stud Books as "findling" - foundling. You can still see these entries today if you have the Stud Books, and I wouldn't be surprised if this were true for quite a number of breeds. I would presume the Wolfhound breeders know what to avoid, and will breed accordingly. :) Cheers, Lesley.

At 6 weeks it is usually a pointless vaccine as they may, or may not be, covered by Mum's antibodies. Eight weeks vax is ideal, then rehomed at 10 weeks before second shot at 12 weeks, then another at 16 - 18 weeks. Of course, if you are using Protech that is a different story .....

And here: http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/carasc.pdf

Ummmmm - A body of research done here in Canada seems to counter claims by Roundup's maker, Monsanto, that it is safe. Five years ago, a graduate student at the University of Manitoba, Jennifer Magoon, found statistically significant links between the use of crop sprays and serious health problems with infants born in farming areas of the province where such sprays were commonly used. Those problems included low birth weights, spina biffida, respiratory distress, jaundice, Down syndrome, cleft palate, retinal degeneration and cataracts. Her findings do not mention Roundup. But she singled out herbicides as the class of crop chemical she was most concerned with. In 1997, the Ontario Farm Family Health Study surveyed almost 19 hundred male farmers in Ontario who'd been exposed to several chemicals, including glyphosate in their faming activities. It concluded that their partners were "more than twice as likely" to miscarry or give birth, prematurely. In 2,001 another phase of the same study, surveyed almost 4 thousand pregnant farm women in the same province. All had been involved in farming activities, milking cows, cultivating or seeding the fields and sometimes helping their partners mix and apply the herbicides. 395 of those women experienced miscarriages. All had been exposed to a variety of pesticides, including glyphosate. In the words of the study, "Among older women (over 34) exposed to glyphosate, the risk of miscarriage was three times that for women of the same age who were not exposed to this active ingredient."

If you have a look around on the OFA site, you can download a form for Putnam scoring, which is about the only test available for LP. Your Vet. then fills in the score sheet, and it is then a relatively easy step to have it recorded and certified by the OFA, and a certificate issued. I usually prefer to have two different and experienced Vets. check the patellas, just in case. This is obviously not perfect, but is the only way available currently, AFAIK. On a slightly different note, I once sold a show potential puppy to another breeder (silly me). The puppy went lame a couple of months later, the other breeder took it to their Vet. (who was supposedly an expert), and was told the pup had shocking HD. Thinking that was strange as generations of ours had been scored, I arranged to take him to my own Vet. - he actually had a broken toe on his hind foot, and had excellent hips. Moral is: not all Vets. are created equal ....

So very sorry to hear this. Thinking of you and Willow's family.

She seems to have bred many crossbreds - her ads. are on something called "buyandsell" in different capital cities. I don't understand why, if a court order was issued against ownership for 5 years, there are still animals on the property, according to her neighbours.

http://www.rspcansw.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/46230/RSPCA_Media_Release_-_Animal_Cruelty_Charges_Windsor_Local_Court.pdf

We have a Grand Ch. male with all his health tests done and available. His stud fee is $2,000, and he is producing show champions (if you are interested in showing). Yes - some of us, definitely No fee payable until puppies on the ground, and yes, a litter is two or more whelps. I don't know about anyone else, but we come from another breed I don't know about harder work - the Frenchie litter was the most fun I have ever had with puppies. With my Danes I slept downstairs in a purpose built whelping room for 5 weeks - with Frenchies it's next to the bed - bliss. Four or five puppies compared to the 18 we have had with Danes - bliss. Easy to pick up - my back thanks me. Costs are also a helluva lot less than with a giant breed. With our biggest male Danes at 115kg, and our bitches at least 85kg, we reckon 12 Frenchies = 1 Dane. Not that you would want that many - they are lovable little fiends

Health testing in this breed costs just over a thousand dollars per dog - this is for spine and hip scoring (spine scoring currently unavailable as only Prof. Wyburn was doing it - but a Vet. experienced with Frenchie backs can give an opinion), HC DNA, patella scoring (Putnam method with OFA certificate) and a Doppler echo for heart. Litters should be x-rayed at 8 - 10 weeks to give early indication of where any hemis are. As they are a dwarf breed (Molossian), not a toy breed, hemis should be expected, but if in parts of the thoracic area should cause no problems. Hemis in the lumber area, or fused vertebra, can be another matter. There are gradings of spines from 1 - 3; 1 being partially wedged, 2 being fully wedged and 3 being hemi or butterfly. Empiric evidence from spines worldwide seems to indicate that the positioning of hemis may be hereditary. Breathing can be an issue - they require wide, open nostrils. As with all braccys, long soft palate can be a problem. Parents with this in any severity should be excluded from breeding programs. Because of their smushy faces, heat stroke can occur, even in a dog with no nostril or palate problem - they are not an outside dog. My lot freely run the paddocks, but are brought inside when the weather is hot or muggy. The price of puppies is outrageous, and anyone who buys a pup without seeing testing results of parents have rocks in their head. Breeders should be testing for the welfare of the breed, and their future puppy owners. Puppy buyers should be insisting on it. Personally I think a thousand dollars is a cheap price for 10 years of joy with these little guys.

It is a real can of worms. The thing is that most dogs today are for companion purposes - most of us no longer keep greyhounds to run down kangaroo for the table, or retrievers to bring back a duck for dinner. Our lives no longer depend on our dogs for survival. The main issue must be excellent care (kennel or Vet.), proper socialisation and environmental enrichment. The biggest kennels of the past - kennels like the Send Great Danes - kept over three hundred Danes at any one time. They had 1 kennelman/kennelmaid to 2 - 3 dogs, which provided a fabulous level of care to the dogs. They were a show breeder, but the dogs were also obedience trained. There is a clip on youtube, which shows the great temperaments, etc. Today, wages are an issue for any large breeding establishment. How could anyone afford to pay the kennel help for a high level of care?

Another vote for Jessica Kada Sires OnIce! She just sent semen to the UK for me, and has sent to NZ for me previously. Faultless service and paperwork!

What part of "BULL" or "BUELL" do you not understand? I love this! I have both Although one is French, and the other a dinosaur tuber - an S3T .....

How about the ANKC, through the State Controls, makes health testing for known Breed health problems, compulsory? It is not as though all registered breeders' dogs are perfect. But whilst individual breeders may health test, many do not, and certainly not as a cohesive whole. This is left to the Breed Clubs (God help us all!), some of which do very little. We now have the ability to do a lot of this - hips, spines, elbows, eyes, hearts, patellas, tracheas, etc. This is not draconian, just common sense. Why would anyone want to either breed, or buy, a puppy from anything but the soundest parents possible? Then the ANKC, or Dogs NSW, or whatever could actually say - buy from a registered breeder with health tested stock.

And a very valid one. As I said, it doesn't work for all - diversity of opinions. But I looked around at the breeders who may have wanted my puppies, and decided that they were better off in great pet homes, where they didn't become battery dogs, but loved companions. As to breeding more than once, well, yes, also a valid opinion, but the "one litter" method worked for us, as we only needed one good one to go on with, and I knew my lines quite well. My nightmare was generally weeding out the potential buyers, and my rule of thumb was that no puppy went into a home that wasn't as good, or better, than the one they came from. I owed them that.

Ethics. You cannot legislate for it. Population genetics - diversity - also in human primate, so there will always be difference of opinion and consciousness. Polarisation of opinion - there seems to be no middle ground in anything anymore. You can try to make your own little slice better and ensure that those under your care and responsibility have the best of lives. We can only control what is under our direct guardianship. I am a believer in only breeding from the soundest of animals, so I health test for all that I can, and guarantee my puppies. I am a believer that I only need to breed a bitch once to get a better result than her if I am doing my job correctly, so don't see the point in breeding multiple litters form the same bitch. I am a believer in the "birth to death" responsibility, so that I chip, and before that, tattooed. I am a believer in putting every puppy that I am not keeping with me on limited register. I am a believer in supplying a voucher to an owner so that the desexing is at no cost to them at an appropriate age. I am a believer in taking, or buying, back any puppy or dog that I breed that can no longer be kept by their owner. I do not believe in the exploitation of animals - but do I not exploit them by selling them? These things work for me - but they may not work for you. So who is right? And who sets themselves up to be the ultimate judge? This, I think, is the impossibility of legislation against puppy farmers ever working correctly- we will ALL be caught in that trap. Maybe, in an ideal world, microchipping, with every breeder and stud dog owner responsible for the costs of every dog of theirs that turns up in the pound? Verification of parentage and ownership of parents by DNA prior to chipping? Verification of every breeder at chipping time with 100 points identification? After all, it has to be done for a bank account.

Only other thing I would add re supervision is pay attention to your local bird life. If you hear them hysterically going off at something, it could well be a snake. The birds are a good early warning signal. Absolutely - the native miner birds are fantastic sentinels, and will actually chase them off. Here they usually combine with the pee wees, butchers and maggies, and the din is tremendous. As a rule of thumb we always check when they are really noisy - if it is up high in a tree, it will be a hawk, but if they are swooping near the ground, it has always been a snake. We grow lots of grevilleas to encourage them here to feed.