The Scandal Of Marketing Purebred Dogs

[corvus]

I know Svartberg's work intimately. It is well done IMO, although James Serpell might not say so. It's actually pretty correct to leave the traits in quotation marks. They were derived from factor analysis, which means they were given a name by the author that the author felt best described the factors involved. It doesn't mean that he was trying to identify those traits with particular behavioural measures. He took the measures and then did a data reduction thing where he was looking for behaviours that occur in clusters and then he named the clusters, basically. Aggressiveness gets splashed around in animal personality studies a bit, but it doesn't generally come with the emotional baggage when used in the popular media. Also sometimes called assertiveness or extraversion. Incidentally, he's the only one I know of that has data to suggest breeding for the show ring essentially homogenises personality across groups. It may be something specific to Sweden.

[sandgrubber]

I know Svartberg's work intimately. It is well done IMO, although James Serpell might not say so. It's actually pretty correct to leave the traits in quotation marks. They were derived from factor analysis, which means they were given a name by the author that the author felt best described the factors involved. It doesn't mean that he was trying to identify those traits with particular behavioural measures. He took the measures and then did a data reduction thing where he was looking for behaviours that occur in clusters and then he named the clusters, basically. Aggressiveness gets splashed around in animal personality studies a bit, but it doesn't generally come with the emotional baggage when used in the popular media. Also sometimes called assertiveness or extraversion. Incidentally, he's the only one I know of that has data to suggest breeding for the show ring essentially homogenises personality across groups. It may be something specific to Sweden.

Interesting. I didn't read the methods carefully, but thought it was something like factor analysis and putting labels to clusers. I also remember some of their tests involved someone dressing up in a white sheet and jumping out at the dogs. The fact that the Labrador shows up in the top quartile for aggressiveness suggests that his definition of 'aggressive' doesn't coincide with the usual usage of the word. My Labs put on a good show and don't back down when surprised, and would respond fearlessly to someone in a white sheet. They also seek out the source of power tools or gunshot. But faced with, say, attack by a Jack Russell, they look to me for guidance rather than going into attack mode.

Probably better to put this in a fresh thread, but you say: "he's the only one I know of that has data to suggest breeding for the show ring essentially homogenises personality across groups". Has anyone else worked with a large enough data set to draw conclusions about show temperament? Has anyone reworked the Swedish KC's data to come up with different conclusions?

Edited July 22, 2013 by sandgrubber

[Steve]

Hardly anyone looking for a dog knows what to do with a pedigree, and of those that do, I would bet a lot of them just can't be bothered. I certainly can't, and I'm a research fiend. My partner wanted a bulldog a while back. I said fine, but you have to do the research and find some healthy lines. Big surprise, we don't have a bulldog. Whenever anyone says they think they want a particular breed but want x, y and z traits, people here tell them to research their lines, because there's a fair bit of variation within breeds.

I agree - people who are looking at a potential breeding dog or show prospect may be more interested but they are definitely in the minority.

[Steve]

Hardly anyone looking for a dog knows what to do with a pedigree, and of those that do, I would bet a lot of them just can't be bothered. I certainly can't, and I'm a research fiend. My partner wanted a bulldog a while back. I said fine, but you have to do the research and find some healthy lines. Big surprise, we don't have a bulldog. Whenever anyone says they think they want a particular breed but want x, y and z traits, people here tell them to research their lines, because there's a fair bit of variation within breeds.

To a pet person, first and foremost the pedigree is a guarantee that they are getting what they paid for. That is a purebred pup of identifiable parentage.

Some who chose to buy a pup without papers are not so lucky.

I've seen a few BYb "Whippets" that clearly aren't.

I agree with this too but I dont think they are concerned with the details past that Mum and Dad were purebreds and their pup is therefore predictable.

[Steve]

'Pedigree' just means a table of descent. Can be of people .... or just about anything, even cars ... but mostly now attached to purebred dogs.

And it doesn't mean anything about quality of dogs listed in that table. It's just a chart.

It's how a pedigree is used that counts ... & what information exists outside that table about the dogs' characteristics, which can be for good or ill.

However that information is kept... in breeders' heads or in records they keep ... that's the data for making decisions about breeding.

Quality comes from breeders' making best decisions they can about breed characteristics like conformation, temperament & health.

And also from how they interact with their dogs & puppies to provide socialization & environmental experiences. That hardly gets referred to re 'quality' in purebred dogs.

Yet those neural pathways laid down.... especially when young... via learning ... is just as 'physical' as conformation. And hugely related to behaviours of dogs. This is backed by extensive research.... but rarely gets mentioned in accounts of benefits that can be associated with purebred dogs.

The pedigree has potential, but as used, it hides as much as it reveals. How I wish pedigrees were kept like human family trees, with records of year of birth and death. I would love to be able to select for longevity! The easiest thing to pick up from a pedigree, how many titles are behind a dog, is hardly definitive. It does tell whether the owners of a dog's ancestors entered their dogs in dog shows, and it will let you select for dogs that did well in both bench and field. It tells you nothing of a fantastic, healthy dog that was never entered in a show. It lets you see whether there has been line breeding or inbreeding in the last three to five generations. But it's hard work to extend that back to eight to 12 generations as required to get an accurate read on COI. If you want to find out whether the lines are prone to early onset cancer, epilepsy, behavioural problems, or other grave, potentially genetic faults, forget it.

Btw, there are dogs that don't have the right look for the breed whose pedigrees are faultless. If you breed two solid colored Labradors who are heterozygous at the K locus, you can expect that around 1/4 of the pups will come out with mismarks, eg., some brindling or black and tan looks. The pedigree does not guarantee against recessive traits that occasionally get expressed through the lottery of genetic mixing.

We now have a system which does exactly this and ads in all manner of data to be included in the pedigree - not just a pedigree or records kept by individual breeders but data which can be accessible to all those who come to breed dogs with that ancestry to utilise as a selection tool. Things such as what work a dog has done, test results, scores age at death,what they died from as well,any temperament issues, health issues etc including awards etc regardless of where they obtained them from and who recognises the awards.

Because it would be too tricky and slow to build this data by only relying on breeders pet owners etc are also able to add information to build the pedigree picture.its taken the idea of estimated breeding animal systems used in livestock breeding to a different level because of what we as dog breeders need to select for.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Steve