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[MalteseLuna]

I would also chat to Alan Wilton - he knows alot of people in the field although he will be away soon you can always email him. Claire Wade is very knowledgeable as well.

I also would aim for a PhD project or Post-doc project.

Additionally the project doesn't have to be thought up by the student - supervisors can offer PhD projects to students or advertise them to find candidates.

This is kinda what happened with me - supervisor suggested a project to me that had been suggested to him by a conservation group he is involved with and he knew me as I did my honours with him.

[Greytmate]

If it was my money and I could afford it, I wouldn't bother with an Honours project. Aim higher if you have the resources.

Yes, I agree. I've done genetics honours, and one year just isn't as long as it sounds - there's really not enough time in one year to really get into the research and follow it up like you can while doing a pHD or even a masters.

I'd say the best thing is to work out what question you want answered, and then go talk shop with some university academics in the relevant field to find out what approach they'd take and what parts they think are do-able within the constraints of a pHD or masters.

They will be keen to talk. Universities are always looking for business like this.

[deerhound owner]

It doesnt go against MY grain to have a chat with Paul but his area of expertise isnt what Im looking for. I actually left a message early last week to speak with Clare Wade - she did ring back but I was out of the office so Ill give it another go this week.

Yeah Claire is great, I think she may also be the one working on the inbreeding pedigrees thingy but don't quote me on that.

they shouldn't just say inbreeding = bad. The IW study I posted earlier shows that if you go all the way back to the origins of the breed IW are severely inbred, something like they are all related to 6 dogs, yet they are not showing any signs of inbreeding depression, no decrease in life expectancy or litter size (the big inbreeding effects shown in other species). The author suggests that the deleterious genes have actually been purged along the way making them less likely to appear.

We are told there is a study going on where CC pedigrees are being analysed to see the level of inbreeding - thats nice but regardless of whether the study shows we do it a lot or not much where does that take us and how does it help the dogs - all I can see it doing is either giving something to the ANKC to defend accusations with or giving those who are accusing them something to argue with.

This goes back to the baby steps thing. It is not practical to look at the health vs inbreeding relationship of every dog in every breed it would take you years and years and by then the results would be irrelevant anyway. So first you need to look at a few select breeds... take the ones that have very low numbers and the ones that have high numbers and work out their effective population size. Study 1! Then you can collect health information for one or two breeds with low effective populations and one or two with high effective populations and see if there is a difference. Study 2! Then you can think what would improve the situation based on the results. If for example you have high inbreeding, low effective population and a high incidence of deleterious genes in a breed then you can look to bring in new lines from overseas or if none are available you may have to look at outcrossing for a generation to a similar breed without the deleterious genes in question or open the studbook to working line registers etc etc. So several studies later, something that doesn't seem relevant to the dogs themselves may end up greatly improving their health. *disclaimer - this is only an example i'm not saying this is what they will find they may find the opossite like IW and then bringing in new genes may actually introduce problems.

It's important to remember that lots of dogs doesn't = a high effective population. If you have 10 dogs but they are all very closely related, your effective polutation size is only 1, where as if you have 10 dogs that are from completely different lines your effective population may be 10. Breeds with very small numbers are often much more aware of this and work hard to bring in new genetics.

Edited November 29, 2010 by deerhound owner

[Max#1]

Or imagine if you could set up a genotyping screen. Once heritable genes that lead to diseases/other problems are identified. Like the breast-cancer gene screen that can be done for humans. The rate at which this technology is going, I can imagine that it wouldn't be long before this would not be prohibitively expensive. Just today I heard a seminar given about the $1000 genome (sequencing, that is). That would be a sure-fire way to put puppy mills out of business, if the cost of such a test was low.

*Puts hand up for a job*