Want Your Blood To Boil?

[Longcoat]

From the Norwegian paper:

Basic rules and recommendations for breeding healthy dogs

1. Only functionally, clinically healthy dogs should be used for breeding; dogs with chronic diseases should never be bred unless we know for sure that heritability plays no role in causing the disease. If a dog suffers clinically from a disease that is suspected, but not proven, to be inherited, the dog should not be bred. If close relatives of such a dog are used for breeding, they should be mated to dogs from bloodlines with low or no occurrence of the same disease.

2. The breeding program should not exclude more than 50% of the breed; the breeding stock should be selected from the best half of the population.

3. Avoid matador breeding. A basic recommendation should be that no dog should have more offspring than equivalent to 5% of the number of puppies registered in the breed population during a five-year period.

4. A bitch that is unable to give birth normally, due to anatomy or inherited inertia, should be excluded from further breeding – irrespective of the breed.

5. A bitch that is unable to take care of the newborn puppies, due to its mentality or inherited agalactia, should be excluded from further breeding.

6. Dogs with a mentality atypical for the breed, and aggressive dogs, should be excluded from breeding.

7. Screening results for polygenetic diseases should be used for preparation of an individual breeding value, based on both national and international screening results. The average breeding value for the combination should be better than the average for the breed. Screening should only be recommended for diseases and breeds where the disease has a major impact on the dogs' functional health.

8. Results from DNA tests should be used to avoid breeding diseased dogs, not necessarily to eradicate the disease.

9. Breed specific health issues that cannot be diagnosed by DNA-tests or screening programs must still be included in a breeding program.

10. The raising of puppies, with correct feeding, environmental exposure, stimulation by their mother, breeder and others to develop social sense and response, must be basic in all breeding.

If these simple basic recommendations were implied in a breeding program, we would attain a considerable improvement in the dogs' functional health.

That sounds quite reasonable to me. Most of those points are items which the majority of breeders are aware of, and do anyhow.

No one wants to breeds diseased dogs, dogs which can't whelp, or care for pups.

I dislike that the assumption of PDE, and spin offs that registered breeders are all dishonest, lying idiots, who know nothing, and have no regard for the dogs, which is far from the case. I dislike all breeders being demonised by people who have nfi about the ethos of purebred dogs ... which is exactly the same as the ethos of purebred anything.

We need to remember that it is breeders who brought the dogs to where they are. Breeders make mistakes, new breeders may need to learn more.

Most breeders will choose the best stud dog, and that may or may not be the dog with the most points. Health, conformation, temperament and suitabilitity for the bitch are more important to most breeders than show wins, although show wins are important too.

eg, breeder I know has a Gr Ch and imp ch in the kennel. Last litter was by an unshown dog, "because he was the best for THAT bitch". And that is how most breeders think. Shows give people an opportunity to see the dogs, and get an idea about them, but that is not the only criteria breeders choose for using a dog at stud.

I think breeders themselves are the ones to decide whether to linebreed or outcross, because they are the ones who know the dogs and the lines.

Genetic diversity - I would actually like some definitive proof that there is a problem before we throw our aprons over our heads and scream and wail. There is no definitive proof - saying "things will get worse" doesn't cut it with me. Where is the proof?

We are importing dogs from o/s with different lines and using them and it occurs to me that I have a dog which is, as far as I know, unrelated to any other dog in the state. Line bred dogs as a rule have no problems - if you have a good line, it makes perfect sense to go back into that line to continue to produce good dogs.

Norwegian regulations would be fine with me.

Interesting point Jed which makes perfect sense to use the best dog for a particular bitch. However, you see often in some breeds a particular dog that nearly every show kennel has used for stud usually an imported dog which appears to be the flavour of the month. Surely this dog cannot be the best dog for every bitch in all these cases is what I question???. It appears the dog produces a show winning litter, then nearly every kennel wants a litter sired by this dog???......I may be wrong but it's certainly how it appears

[Jed]

Longcoat

Interesting point Jed which makes perfect sense to use the best dog for a particular bitch. However, you see often in some breeds a particular dog that nearly every show kennel has used for stud usually an imported dog which appears to be the flavour of the month. Surely this dog cannot be the best dog for every bitch in all these cases is what I question???. It appears the dog produces a show winning litter, then nearly every kennel wants a litter sired by this dog???......I may be wrong but it's certainly how it appears

There are dogs used a lot because they throw good pups

there are dogs used a lot because they have tested clear of genetic problems

There are dogs used because the breeder feels they would be the best dog for the bitch

There are dogs used because the breeder is inexperienced, and feels that Dog A who is as you describe, would be the one to use.

I would like to cite the case of the dog in NZ, imported from England.His father is a Crufts winner. He is from an old and very well regarded kennel in England, and from an old tried and true line.

He is an outstanding dog. He has been used a lot, both in NZ and with frozen semen in Aust. His pups are big winners - as they deserve to be.

He has, in my humble opinion, taken the breed forward in one enormous leap. And it needed it. His pups are all over the place. I personally think that is wonderful, as they are quality dogs.

I think this is all good, he has taken the breed forward. His daughters will probably be outcrossed, and his sons will stand to all sorts of bitches.

Good dogs like this happen now and again, and if they are used a lot, it's all good. I can remember top dogs of the past being used like this, and 20 - 30 years on, I see no detriment to the breed by their use. I see more detriment from the use on inferior dogs or from random breeding without regard to pedigree.

Breeders, once they have used a popular dog, will go on with the line in various ways.

We should consider that most of our breeds were begun with just a few dogs. Some breeds were almost wiped out during the war - and recovered with the use of a few dogs. Because breeders were knowledgable and careful, the dogs we have today do not have significant problems - when compared with the dog population at large (including x breds).

Poor qualilty dogs are usually due to poor quality breeders. Once the quality of the breeders improves, the quality of the dogs improves too - you see it in some breeds. New breeders enter the fancy, learn as they go, make mistakes, breed a lot of pets. They need to learn to read a pedigree, which a lot of them cannot do.

Then they either get out, or they stay and make worthwhile contributions to the breed.

I don't think close breeding is the problem. The quality of dogs used in the close breeding may be a problem, but there are plenty of good kennels which have line bred for decades without problems. I really do think problems would have occurred by now, rather than in the future.

I used to breed horses. Good ponies with nice temperaments, which could win in the ring, or give someone a good ride. Easy to train horses, which lived long in perfect health and soundness. They could win in hand, under saddle, at sporting events, or at jumping.

They were all very closely line bred to long dead luminaries of the breed. I did what the breeders before me did. My big winning stallion had ONE pony as the sire on every line on a 10th generation pedigree. He died of old age. He saw the vet twice in his life. Once he had an allergic reaction to a sting or something, and needed antihistimines. I suppose you could put that down to a compromised immune system, but I don't think so!! Once he was injured.

Stud anything are bred on the same principles. Don\t blame the method, don't blame the standards, blame the people applying the method and interpreting the standard.