Sheridan

We now have ramps at the back door, in and out, thanks to my clever brother-in-law who measured it all up and built them. I still need to get non-slip surfaces put on the top so I'll be toodling to Clark Rubber through the week.

Dogs don't have to be kenneled to get kennel cough.

I don't know what you guys on on about. Breeds are constantly being modified, as long as you can still make out the breed, what is the problem? Here is an example of modified breed I saw this morning.LOL http://www.ibelieveinadv.com/2009/06/lifebuoy-handwash-dog/ http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2011/07/pug-loaf.html Forget that, I would like you to respond to my previous posts regarding bringing in heritable diseases if stud books are opened. Why won't you respond to it?

Shortstep has notably ignored this post.

I never said that all purebred dogs were sick, I do say they are all inbred by the very nature of closed stud books. I never said that outcrossing was magic bullet for all health problems and infact said several times I did not say or believe that, only to have you imply that I said it again. So no problem to me, here it is one more time. Outcrossing and cross breeding is not a silver bullet for all health problems. It works very well for simple recessive diseases it would help if applied correctly, certainly closed stud books do not help with these diseases at all. It should be in a our tool box and effort should made to assure this happens. Like it or not these topics are not going away. Currently UK KC has now made it possible for their breeders to lower their inbreeding levels for the first time in who knows how long, I applaud them for that. I have just heard that some of the KC in Europe will be following with their own programs. It's not going away. I also noted this morning in the UK that several breeders had on their web sites that they were using the new Mate select and had written a bit about inbreeding and their desire to reduce in their breed and in their litters and had the COI posted for the parents and their litter. These were KC Accredited Breeders and were doing all the right things, health testing and showed their dogs, they look like very good caring breeder to me. It's not going away. So now I am going out to do some pruning. (That is gardening, and why they call me the gardener opps I mean The Stig.) Open stud books would be a disaster for breeds where the mode of inheritance of a disease is unknown. I can point at any old dog that looks like a wheaten and go, 'That's a wheaten' and sure it might be. If it is and it's pedigree is unknown, I might well be introducing a protein-wasting disease into a line that previously did not have it. The only tests for protein wasting diseases show that the dog doesn't have it on the day of the test. Open stud books are not a magic bullet where a mode of inheritance is unknown and it behooves you to acknowledge it.

So toydog, what do you thinkof the British Kennel club haveing done this, they are now an open stud book for all breeds including chi, any dogs that looks like the breed passes any maditory health tests will be registered, 3 generations later the pups are full KC registration ready for export to OZ! Actually this is what happened way back in the 1930's with the Tibetan Terriers, one of the main sires of early litters was an unknown parentage dog found on a dockside and was accepted into the studbook because he looked like a TT, went in front of a panel and was judged to have all the characteristics of a TT, so therefore must have been a TT, he went on to be the foundation sire of one of the well known kennels of the early years. However the lady who was the foundation breeder of the TTs was not amused to have this happen and the shit hit the fan so to speak, but life went on and he went on to produce lots more progeny. No DNA tests back then, just observation. So history is repeating itself, gee haven't we come a long way, not. Story goes that when wheatens were accepted into the Irish Kennel Club (despite being the oldest of the native Irish terrier breeds), they lined up a bunch of wheatens and irish terriers and went, 'That one's a wheaten, that one's an irish terrier, that one's a wheaten ...'

So do you want ANKC to close the stud book to UK imports that go back to their new apendix registered dogs? These dogs will not have pedigess listed even if they have them (I think). So would be just any dog by a purebred kennel club standards I would think. For example a WKC dog could be imported to the UK and now registered into the KC, 3 generations later his great grand pups could find their way back to OZ, so would you want to block these dogs from being in the ANKC due to the apendix working dog in the pedigree? What will you do if the ANKC did like the KC did and just announce with out warning, they are doing the same open stud book policy here !!! What of heritable diseases where there is no test? At least with a pedigree you can track which dogs have it. Without a pedigree it's a crap shoot.

The aim of the cangen list is to save purebred dogs. How the hell do you do that by routinely and universally crossbreeding them? It doesn't routinely promote crossbreeding but rather, diversity. There are some people who crossbreed on the list but most people are purebred breeders.

The aim of the cangen list is to save purebred dogs.

A controlled outcross is not the answer for every disease in every breed, but it certainly could be the answer for many of the diseases in many breeds. That is the real point and not that it may not work for some disease. What I find really frustrating is even in the case of the Dalmatian, where the work has been done and successfully, most breeder would rather breed dogs with disease than use a dog with a cross some 10-13 or more generations ago and prevent the disease in their dogs. It boggles the mind. Personally I think any breeder who refuses to bring the healthy genes into their Dals should be banned. I guess it will take the RSPCA to make it a welfare issue and get a government law made first. It may take a new generation of dog breeders to effect some of the needed changes. I just hope that breeding for 'breeds' is not totally banned by then and that most breeds are not already lost or are too far gone before we start to see the needed changes happen. The same objections are being raised currently over the backcross project for IRWS and that's a cross to an irish setter.

Bumping ... No one has a hydraulic grooming table?

Exactly as we now know that inbreeding has a detrimental effect on threatened species. Our results have important conservation implications. First, ignoring inbreeding depression will substantially underestimate extinction risk. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol6/iss1/art16/main.html#relationship Inbreeding is a big risk for threatened animals. Thank goodness domestic dogs as a species are not threatened!! And thank goodness dog 'breeds' are not separate species. We can open our stud books (a model only in our minds) and cross bred to another breed of dog to reduce COI, remove or control a genetic disease, to modify an extreme trait or to remove defect traits which are wide spread in a breed and many other uses, in any of our breeds. Tthere is no reason to skirt the dangerous world of inbred threatened species with our dog breeds. If we allowed it, there is no problem keeping genetic diversity in any 'breed 'of dogs. But we do no allow it and currently there are more than few dog 'breeds' that are considered threatened. We just have to use this current science and cast aside the ideas and science of 100-150 years ago. We have moved on and now we need to bring our dog breeding practices up to date. I don't disagree with this in principle; however, as wheaten terrier people found, crossbreeding to another breed is not a magic bullet to remove or control genetic disease.

And a rather confusing thought. I hate this "all pure breeds have issues" crap. And it IS crap. What inheritable conditions do Whippets have? Where are the legions of this breed that suffer from inherited health problems and cost their owners a motza in health bills?? Beats the hell out of me. Why ARE poodles so long lived if they are plagued by health issues??? I hate generalisations when they are inaccurate. The idea that all breeders should "own up" to the notion that the dogs they breed are walking congenital disaster areas is a nonsense. And the sooner people stop lumping all breeds together on this issue, the better. Ok, well you tell them to not do that, to leave the poodles and the whippets in the kennel club alone. Certainly we can say 'Not in my breed'. We will see if that helps to solve the problem. Except that Kennel Club members are actually few and far between. Pedigree dogs in the UK may be many but few of their owners and breeders belong to the KC. And it would have been far more logical to make it a money issue with means testing people's incomes rather than an animal issue. Geeze, over reaction much. I hope you can grasp the difference between "some" and "all" at some point. No one's denying there are issues. No one's suggesting a ban on discussion of them. But your constant assertion that the sky is falling for the health of all purebred dogs is simply untrue. I think these issues do need to be discussed but it would be nice to lose the hysteria and misinformation perpetrated by shows such as the one you're referring to and actually focus on the facts. And on this point, recently, the sky became rather more blue for wheaten terriers because all the money wheaten owners, breeders, and the AKC, etc, have poured into research has borne fruit (to mix my metaphors). The researchers have found a genetic 'hotspot' for the protein wasting diseases wheatens can get. It's very exciting news and will lead eventually, hopefully, to a real genetic marker test. No falling skies for wheatens! My apologies if this non-falling sky news sticks in Shortstep's craw.

Does anyone have a hydraulic grooming table? Thinking of getting one for Grumpy as I'm having trouble getting him up on my current table (I can't lift and he's Mr Grooming Reluctant). Wondering if they're any good. There's two on Clipperworld and they are around $200 difference in price.

The pedigree breeding system in the UK is different to Australia. You don't have to be 'registered' as you are here, from what I understand.

The dog was free but the 'kennel' was over $300,000 ...

Sounds like the gardiner's at it again.

I didn't so much change breeds to a wheaten; it was more like adding to a list. We were thinking of another kerry but then my dad saw Dermott, our eventual wheaten pup's sire. 'I want one,' he said. And so get one we did. Didn't make me want kerries any less.

Having heard some real horror stories about co-ownership, I would never co-own a dog.

I rang the emergency vet and they said they only have the clinic number. Crisis averted, though.

Emergency seems to have been averted. Thanking you.

It says to ring the emergency vet.

Grumpy had an operation this afternoon and we left just as the clinic was shutting. I need to ask the vet a question urgently about his condition. Does anyone have an out of clinic phone number that they can PM me, please? The emergency clinic cannot help; I need information from the vet who treated him.

I intend to advertise there, already got a listing on the Trading Post. Nothing wrong with advertising there or anywhere else. It's how you vet the potenial buyers that counts not where the came from. As a kid, my family got our purebred registered dogs from ads in the paper.

I have a query: how are you going to know if a dog is a purebred registered dog? Are there going to be dog police to ask for papers at entry?