Uk Kennel Club Introduces Mate Select Programme

[lappiemum]

From the Kennel Club website (http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/2947) :

'Woof, He's Fit' - The New Doggie Dating Website That Puts Health First

24-Feb-10

The Kennel Club is developing a revolutionary new database that will enable people to find a perfect mate for their dog which will help to improve the health of future generations within the breed.

In a first of its kind, the Mate Select programme, which will be accessed via the Kennel Club website, will allow both occasional and regular breeders to assess the impact that a proposed mating will have on the genetic diversity within a breed.

As new health screening tools are developed, these will also be incorporated into Mate Select so that, in future, breeders will be able to select mating pairs which will maximise the chances of producing healthy puppies whilst having the optimum impact on the breed’s genetic diversity.

These IT developments will greatly expand the Kennel Club’s ability to collect and store health information on registered dogs - information that will allow the development of new health screening tools which will find their way into Mate Select and improve the health of pedigree dogs.

The Kennel Club wants to ensure that these healthy puppies go on to loving homes and has launched a new Breed Information Centre on its website. This includes a Health Test Results Finder, which records the health test results for any Kennel Club registered dog; an Accredited Breeder application that gives potential owners a list of responsible breeders in their area; and a Find a Breed application to show which breed’s characteristics would best suit their lifestyle. Click here for more information.

Kennel Club Communications Director, Caroline Kisko, said: “People do a lot of thinking about their perfect partner but dogs’ needs are relatively simple - to find a mate that will give them healthy puppies, which will then be matched with loving owners.

“A lot of science is going into the Kennel Club’s new database, but the end result will be that the computer will help dog owners find a mate for their dog, which will give them the best possible chance of producing healthy puppies.

“Not only can we help to match the right dogs with each other, but equally important is matching the right puppy buyers to the right puppy and our newly launched Breed Information Centre will help people to find the right breed and the right breeder.”

Nick Blayney, former President of the British Veterinary Association, has spoken about the importance of the new database for dog health. He said: “The Kennel Club has helped develop many DNA tests and has a number of health screening schemes that are run with the British Veterinary Association and this knowledge should be central to any breeding decision. Sometimes though, there is so much information to compute that breeders often don’t know where to start. This database will do the complicated calculations for them, showing them clearly which dogs will make the most suitable match in order to produce healthy puppies.”

Health test results and details of any surgery or operations that a dog has had will be inputted into the health database by dog owners and vets and will then be verified. Dogs will then enter the ‘dating pool’ and be matched with other dogs, of the same breed within the surrounding area, on the basis of their Estimated Breeding Value (the genetic value of the dog based upon health considerations). Work is already under way on the database which will be available by the end of the year, and the Mate Select programme within the following twelve months.

Professor Jeff Sampson, Kennel Club Chief Scientific Advisor, said: “The Kennel Club has been working with scientists to develop Estimated Breeding Values for many years. These EBVs are based on very complicated calculations such as the prevalence of certain diseases in a particular breed or the size of the gene pool. The database is the first of its kind to be able to compute all of this information and to tell breeders not only which two dogs will produce the healthiest offspring, but which pairings will have the most positive effect on the overall health of that breed.

“The programme will be available for pedigree dogs, because we know their heritage and therefore have more information available for them, but we hope that information about all other dogs will also be fed into this database. At the moment we have frighteningly little information about diseases within crossbred dogs, but this database will help to throw light on this grey area and help us, therefore, to improve the health of pedigrees and crossbreeds alike.”

[sandgrubber]

Amazing! Hope it turns out to be functional and not a grand schlumozzle. It's sad how much health information is gotten only through whispers between friends, and that's unverified information.

[Jed]

It will be interesting to see how it works in practice, and I guess, whether using it is optional or compulsory.

[mersonmalinois]

Hmm, it's easy enough for us to check on dogs' health here in the states at the OFA & CERF websites. Sorry, but I wouldn't want outsiders offering their opinions on breedings. They have no info about temperaments/workability and those are extremely important.

[becks]

I wonder who, if anyone would use it??

[mersonmalinois]

I wonder who, if anyone would use it??

None of the breeders I associated with (here & abroad) would likely be interested. Would people join and then they can get the breeding suggestions from these people? Sounds like a group of folks wanting to make money to me, but then I am a skeptical American who is used to others screwing people out of their cash.

[becks]

i wonder if you use the database and then the suggested stud dog and go on to have health problems with the litter, would the KC be open to being sued?

[mersonmalinois]

i wonder if you use the database and then the suggested stud dog and go on to have health problems with the litter, would the KC be open to being sued?

That's a really good point, becks. Also, veterinarians have to send in info on any surgeries the dogs have to the database? What?? Like veterinarians are going to sit down after a day's work and email all the info to the database? What if a mistake is made there?

Sorry, I'm not a fan of this proposed system. Dedicated, ethical breeders have so much more info on bloodlines/health/temperament than any database can ever hope to acquire.

[becks]

I can't see vets making a note of the dogs registered name as well as the pet name, for any normal treatments, I was thinking it was more to do with eye screenings, hip scores etc. I do wonder what operations would need reporting.

[lappiemum]

the forum conversations that I'm readin from people in my breed over there are dubious about its effectiveness/practicality as well. I know for my breed here, which animals I would and wouldn't use, and would not require a database to tell me. However, we are still relatively few in number, so we all tend to know the individual breeding dogs.

[sandgrubber]

Press releases are open to question . . . but a few things bother me about this one on rereading the announcement.

1. it says A mate (singular). I'd much rather have a few mates selected, as the one that is best from a health perspective may be butt ugly.

2. it doesn't say whether reasons will be given for the selection. I would not be willing to use a program that didn't say why.

3. seems likely that there will be a few dogs that are outstanding for health reasons . . . .they will get first pick every time, ending out with narrowing of the gene pool instead of broadening it

4. I'd much rather have help eliminating dogs from my list of possible studs

5. doesn't say if the program will ever say "You should not breed this dog. Full Stop." Some people need to be given that message.

6. it says 'local' dogs . . . chilled semen AI is no big deal, so why limit yourself to local dogs?

Edited February 27, 2010 by sandgrubber

[Janba]

In a first of its kind, the Mate Select programme, which will be accessed via the Kennel Club website, will allow both occasional and regular breeders to assess the impact that a proposed mating will have on the genetic diversity within a breed.

I read this as a program that lets you try a proposed mating not one that will tell you which dogs. The results could come out as something like this proposed brother/sister mating I just put into the Anadune database. Th results are only as good as the data that is put in as in this case the bitches CEA results haven't been entered so it works it on the probablity of 50% she's a CEA carrier when in fact she's clear.

Possible_Mating_of_Cole_Lai.pdf

[becks]

Press releases are open to question . . . but a few things bother me about this one on rereading the announcement.

1. it says A mate (singular). I'd much rather have a few mates selected, as the one that is best from a health perspective may be butt ugly.

2. it doesn't say whether reasons will be given for the selection. I would not be willing to use a program that didn't say why.

3. seems likely that there will be a few dogs that are outstanding for health reasons . . . .they will get first pick every time, ending out with narrowing of the gene pool instead of broadening it

4. I'd much rather have help eliminating dogs from my list of possible studs

5. doesn't say if the program will ever say "You should not breed this dog. Full Stop." Some people need to be given that message.

6. it says 'local' dogs . . . chilled semen AI is no big deal, so why limit yourself to local dogs?

to answer point 6, that would involve getting special permission from the Kennel Club before the breeding is done. Distance from a stud dog in the UK is not a valid reason to AI

[sandgrubber]

to answer point 6, that would involve getting special permission from the Kennel Club before the breeding is done. Distance from a stud dog in the UK is not a valid reason to AI

From a breeding perspective, closeness isn't a valid reason to use a dog, either.

Are you saying you need permission to do a chilled or frozen semen AI in the UK . . . so if you wanted to use a dog in, say Northern Ireland and you lived in, say, Cornwall, you'd be expected to drive and do a natural mating? What if you want to use a Scandanavian or Canadian dog?

[angelsun]

The only thing I keep seeing is the references to crossbred dogs....I can see this being used to promote yet more mixed breeds by saying that they are 'genetically compatible (superior) to purebreds...great marketing tool....

(I am amazed at how a bunch of pencil pushing IT people suddenly feel they are qualified to tell long time and successful breeders that we're doing it wrong because X doesn't add up to Y)

[AmandaJ]

It looks like an Estimated Breeding Value program - I'm not a big fan of those personally

[sandgrubber]

If you go to the Kennel Club website and follow the links on the story, you'll find a BREEDER INFORMATION section. Apparently this service is going to allow you to look up health records on any bitch or dog . . . and in time veterinary information will feed into it. Thus, in time, you may be able to look up sire, dam, and the grands and get hips, elbows, any major health conditions, cause and age of death, etc.

[PomsNZ]

so......

IM after a stud for my wee girl, and do the test.

the dog is 5 times her size, has a nose the length of a borzoi, and coat of a chihuahua, and the body length of a daccy.

the mating may kill her, but at least the pups will be healthy?

[becks]

to answer point 6, that would involve getting special permission from the Kennel Club before the breeding is done. Distance from a stud dog in the UK is not a valid reason to AI

From a breeding perspective, closeness isn't a valid reason to use a dog, either.

Are you saying you need permission to do a chilled or frozen semen AI in the UK . . . so if you wanted to use a dog in, say Northern Ireland and you lived in, say, Cornwall, you'd be expected to drive and do a natural mating? What if you want to use a Scandanavian or Canadian dog?

Yes, you need to get permission, it can take 6 - 12 months to get this permission as it has to be discussed by comittee at the KC.

I have a puppy here with a spanish sire, her breeder drove to spain to mate the dam. This is one of the uses we have for the Pet Passport scheme.

Crufts BIS Ch Jafrak Phillip Olivier was born after his dam took a trip to France for mating (result was 3 pups)

If you go to the Kennel Club website and follow the links on the story, you'll find a BREEDER INFORMATION section. Apparently this service is going to allow you to look up health records on any bitch or dog . . . and in time veterinary information will feed into it. Thus, in time, you may be able to look up sire, dam, and the grands and get hips, elbows, any major health conditions, cause and age of death, etc.

These health results are already available, the KC is currently adding to the database dogs from the 80's

http://www.the-kennel-club.org.uk/services.../health/search/

the problem is sometimes with eg eye test results, the vets hold on to them until they have a large amount to send in, occasionally the results go missing and the owner has to email the results to the KC for them to be added, so the results you see aren't always the most up to date.

[becks]

so......

IM after a stud for my wee girl, and do the test.

the dog is 5 times her size, has a nose the length of a borzoi, and coat of a chihuahua, and the body length of a daccy.

the mating may kill her, but at least the pups will be healthy?

I would hope we are expected to do our own research on other things not covered by this database!