Doctors Wade and Cattanach don't want you to buy this puppy. They'd rather have you buy one without an anus or a functioning immune system.
In a previous post I spoke about new research making Dr. Bruce Cattanach’s old understanding of the Bobtail Gene obsolete and reopening the debate about the ethics of this gene which he had previously (more than 15 years ago) declared problem free. But Dr. Cattanach decided to weigh in on the current debate over the Toller x Aussie outcross and his position is disappointing and uninformed.
I am somewhat amazed at the positive responses to this cross. I have had 20 years of vitriol against my Corgi x Boxer cross for every reason imaginable, but I kept it going as I felt that to give up – and so failing – I would damage the leverage it gave to the concept of breed crossing for health reasons. So the seemingly easy acceptance of the Toller cross is perplexing even if done for a different reason.
I really don’t know what to make of this statement, as it sort of reads like sour grapes. It’s unfortunate that Dr. Cattanach has gotten “vitriol” against his work, but he’s clearly learned enough to handle just criticisms. My analysis against his outcross comes after decades of new evidence and his unwillingness to acknowledge new findings. I don’t consider it vitriol.
It’s strange that Dr. Cattanach is seemingly jealous about the positive vibes the dog world has for the Toller cross litter. If I had to estimate why one has been received with more praise I can think of two immediate causes. One, Dr. Cattanach’s work paved the way and quelled many fears, so this new cross is benefiting from Cattanach’s work. It’s a pity he’s not more supportive. Two, this cross was done for much more noble reasons. As I’ve already documented, Dr. Cattanach inserted a problematic gene into a breed to avoid a docking ban. While it’s an interesting effort for the political reasons and documenting how easily breed type could be restored, the motives are decidedly shallow and superficial.
Does Dr. Cattanach really expect the world to beat a path to his door when he built a WORSE mouse trap?
However I had great difficulty achieving what I did with just the one gene to be transferred. It really needed more than one individual to succeed fully. I am therefore quite sceptical about this Toller effort to increase the diversity across the whole genome.
Dr. Cattanach has really moved the goal posts to an unjust distance in coming out against this one cross. He is holding this one cross to the standard of “increase the diversity across the whole genome.”
That’s unfair. No one claimed that doing one outcross could accomplish this goal! How about we evaluate a single outcross in a rational manner and judge its power to effect change commensurate with what we should expect from a single breeding. A single outcross can not save an entire breed, but it can certainly bring in much needed diversity and vitality to a single breeding program, a whole kennel and all the dogs that are bred to that line for several generations.
Any breeder who is disappointed with the options within their breed can accomplish this style of outcrossing themselves. And many more breeders will need to do this before we can claim that Tollers as a breed are refreshed. The LUA Dalmatian project was only one out-cross and the entire breed is not yet free from uric acid problems, nor will it be for many generations to come. But you have to start somewhere and if we want fundamental change in our breeds, we’re going to have to accept that breeders will out-cross for a slew of reasons and that this isn’t that scary of a prospect. It might just mean that we have to go back to objectively evaluating the dogs we see right before us instead of being overly obsessed with their hidden and mostly irrelevant pedigrees. If we limit “allowable” out-crosses to combat single recessive diseases that are 100% saturated in our breed pool then we will never see the day when our breeds are getting healthier rather than the current reality where they are getting worse.
I think this needs to be done at a scale only possible at KC level with several crosses perhaps involving several breeds, and then there would be the yet trickier part of keeping the diversity while somehow getting back to breed type. That numbers of people might independently attempt this is frightening; it could result in no more than a mongrel mix-up.
I agree with Cattanach, this does “need to be done at a KC level” and of course I’m in support of using “several breeds” with “several crosses.” This is all true, but it’s not a just criticism of what this one breeder has begun to do. It really should be reserved as a criticism for the Toller breed club and for double-speak geneticists like Claire Wade who put their name on papers which advocate genetic diversity and proactive health measures but then declare zero reason to out-cross in their own breeds and attack those who do.
What good does Dr. Cattanach do by bashing this beginning step? He didn’t bring his out-cross program to the world after just one breeding, the dogs weren’t even retroactively registered with the KC until he had back-crossed several generations. So if there is some amount of “sausage making” with out-crossing, where the intermediate results aren’t indicative of the final product, isn’t it a bit rash to just criticize this nascent effort?
Is this out-cross so detrimental that it needs to be cut off at the knees by someone with Cattanach’s clout? I think he does great harm to anyone who would choose to out-cross for any reason by being so negative.
Jemima said…
Bruce’s position and enthusiasm managed to get the project sanctioned by the Kennel Club and the acceptance of it has paved an important way. Of course, the KC’s endorsement of the project was because of the impending threat of the docking ban; which the anti-dockers would argue is not the most worthy of motives.
His stance here even brings into question my previous view that his out-cross program was a good example of how one can work within the registry/breed club to accomplish something like this. In retrospect, Jemima makes a good point, that it’s perhaps much easier to get a conformation club to go along with an out-cross for conformation reasons when they are being threatened with a BIG BAD BAN on docking tails from those EVIL AR folks. Perhaps Dr. Cattanach’s efforts aren’t that informative to the rest of us who would support an outcross that you can’t see in the breed ring, one that is done for health reasons, for vitality, for genetic diversity, for longevity, for temperament, instead of one that allows you to keep some little irrelevant but highly valued feature like an earset or a particular length of tail.
If Dr. Cattanach paved a trail for future breeders, no one has yet to walk down that path in the 20 years since his out-cross and we’ll soon celebrate the 40th anniversary of the commencement of the LUA Dalmatian out-cross. The first and last men to walk on the moon completed their missions in the years and days before the LUA Dalmatian cross and man has not set foot on the moon since; nor has man endeavored to out-cross a breed for health reasons. One requires billions of dollars and the greatest minds the world has to offer in an attempt to overcome nearly insurmountable odds. The other requires two dogs and a little patch of grass. Why must we create political obstacles which make an out-cross more rare than a man walking on the moon?
If superficial out-crosses are the first step, how are we ever going to get to the next phase if the heroes of Step One decide to handicap future efforts like Cattanach is doing here? There hasn’t been another example of an out-cross in the KC since Cattanach did it, so the theory that he greased the wheels for those that followed hasn’t produced any results. If we want results, we should try a new strategy, 20 years between out-crosses is long enough.
I am sceptical for another reason too. It almost seems that the Toller cross was done to resolve the high level of inbreeding but if there is no consequent problem of the inbreeding, to my view, the need for the cross does not exist. Is the breed impaired by the inbreeding? Frequencies of certain defects have been presented but I have seen nothing on the distribution across the breed (is the whole breed at risk?) and any indication of the inheritances. Everything seems based on a ‘belief’ that there will be problems even if there are none as yet. If there are indeed problems now or clearly looming, yes, go ahead or at least experiment and see what difficulties there are. But let this be done in an organised controlled way and on a scale commensurate with that needed.
Did Bruce just criticize someone about the NEED to out-cross? Really? Perhaps he can review my Toller articles and comment. Recall that Cattanach argued from ignorance before, claiming that there were no side effects from the bobtail gene, that litter sizes were not reduced, homozygous puppies and their problems never lived long enough to be born, etc. None of his assumptions were true and the bobtail gene is decidedly less wonderful the more we find out about it.
We already know that Tollers don’t live long, they have high rates of auto immune disease due to an MHC allele that is pervasive in the breed and few other alleles to turn to, as well as growing evidence of numerous other problems. We also know that the gene pool is severely limited due to a very very small founding population in the KC dogs. Is that not reason enough? How small of a founding population can we justify? Only two dogs perhaps? Is that where we’re going to draw the line.
Cattanach was wrong about the dangers of Bobtail and if he thinks there’s no justification to outcross Tollers, he’s wrong again. Here’s a small list of conditions known to run in Tollers: Hemolytic Anemia, Addison’s Disease, Hypothyroidism, Pemphigus, Immune-Mediated Polyarthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Congenital Deafness, Epilepsy, Pulmonary Stenosis, Steroid responsive Meningitis-arteritis, Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate, Mega-esophagus, Collie Eye Anomaly, Skeletal Dysplasia & Chondrodysplasia, and Herniated discs. More Tollers will suffer one or more of these conditions than will toll ducks even once in their lives, more will die young than will win Conformation Championships, and many more Tollers will be bred to dogs that are as close as siblings than will ever hoped to be out-crossed.
What more does Cattanach need to see?
Finally, there was a question on unneeded puppies in my breed cross. This was no problem when one presented the objective. Potential owners were told what the cross was all about. There was annual get-together where everybody met together with their dogs of different generations to observe progress It was a tea-and-cakes gathering in the garden and all were made to feel part of a research study that all could, and did, boast of participation. I still have contacts with many of the owners although the early dogs are long since dead.
Bruce Cattanach
www.steynmere.com
25 August 2011 22:56
Is Cattanach suggesting here that because the breeder of this Toller x Aussie litter isn’t a research scientist who can cloak his project in a veil of academia that these puppies aren’t going to find good homes? The sales value of “pedigree” and “purity” are as low now as it has ever been and the public’s awareness of hybrid vigor and appetite for designer dogs and other mixes is as high as ever. Given the choice between a show bred Aussie or a pedigreed Toller, I think any rational human would look at these hybrid puppies and agree that it’s a better product.
I see a resistance in Cattanach to come to terms with the health concerns in the bobtail gene in the same way Claire Wade doesn’t want to consider an outcross for MHC or any other reason. They both downplay the health concerns and I’d say both have a biased reason to do so: they are both highly invested in their dogs as they are. Wade doesn’t want to give up “purity” and Cattanach doesn’t want to reconsider the bobtail gene. Both are highly educated biologists who should know better.
Neither one thinks that you should buy what the Toller x Aussie breeder is selling, but do you buy what Wade and Cattanach are selling? I don’t. Like a bobtail without an anus, I think they’re both full of it.
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Anton
Christopher
Lawrence Dillard
Lech
Stephanie
Essere
Bravo!
“Any breeder who is disappointed with the options within their breed can accomplish this style of outcrossing themselves.”
This is me. I don’t breed with the goal of returning dogs to registration hell, though. Even if I wanted to, the obstacles to getting my Afghan crosses registered would be insurmountable.
The fact that these geneticists actually advocate waiting until the breed is heavily affected by inbreeding or there is a very high incidence of disease to do an outcross shows how little they actually understand about breeding animals within a closed system. Why the fuck would you want to use cripple animals and breed them to healthy ones to try and ‘save’ the crippled ones? What kind of crazy reasoning is that? Why not plan so you never have crippled animals in the first place?
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
I agree Jess.
Cattanach’s views on inbreeding and the present problems in Tollers is also disappointing. Does he really believe that a breed needs to be at the precipice of ruination before we consider an outcross? It doesn’t appear that he has considered an outcross for ANY of the other health issues he has investigated in Boxers.
So where does that leave us? It’s ok to outcross to a dangerous gene soley for the sake of aesthetics and to thumb your nose at the EVIL AR folks who want to tell you what to do? But gosh, your breed is so inbred with such a limited gene pool, it has a known disease NAMED AFTER the breed, and we need to meet some further standard than that before we’ll even consider an outcross?
I have a pdf titled “Dogs really are man’s best friend —Canine genomics has applications in veterinary and human medicine!”
This is what it says:
“The purebred dog population was created by man and consists of partially inbred isolates called breeds, which are akin to geographically isolated human populations such as Ashkenazi Jews or Icelanders, as they are the products of closed genetic pools.”
and
“While pedigree dog breeding has selected for traits desirable to man, the by- product of years of selective inbreeding is that many breeds of dog are predisposed to inherited diseases such as cancer, heart disease, deafness, blindness and autoimmune diseases.”
Why do we look at a closed human group like the Amish or the LDS fundamentalists, that have higher rates of disease, and think, “Oh, they should marry outsiders!” yet such a thought with regards to dogs is blasphemy. Cognitive dissonance at its finest.
I hate the defeatist attitude evidenced by Cattanach and the DCA, as well. “Oh, it’ll take forever for there to be change to the ENTIRE GENE POOL, so why even bother?” Oh, shut up. Let the breeders decide whether they think it’s worth it, why don’t you? Most breeders can read a pedigree, can’t they? Avoid the results of an outcross, or don’t. Simple.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
I haven’t reviewed what Cattanch’s recommendations on Boxer diseases, but there’s a lot of harm that can be done by rushing to stomp out each successive disease that we find in dogs and it seems like this plan is the only one Cattanach would OK. Wait until some recessive is pervasive and only then try to do something about it.
His statement: “That numbers of people might independently attempt this is frightening; it could result in no more than a mongrel mix-up.” is irresponsible and is really playing into the unwarranted fears of the Pure-Blood-Brigade, that you let one guy somewhere outcross and your whole breed would become MONGRELS! Nonsense.
I’d LOVE if a number of people tried this. To refresh old blood and to even create new breeds. This is how all of our breeds were formed and that turned out well. Why should we fear the same processes today? Because too few people have even tried? Because we don’t have estates of rich men with hundreds of dogs who played around with mixtures?
Cattanach’s writings about “breed type” make it clear to me that he’s into placing great importance on the minutia of conformation. Nothing functional or important, but what is popular, faddish, and “correct.” This is the same poor logic that creates crippled GSDs, flat faced Pugs, and hounds with ample “furnishings.”
I don’t see Cattanach as an example of where we might go in the future, he’s not a step toward health and diversity he’s a step away from it. Just because he employed an outcross doesn’t mean he’s behind the movement. Just look at why he used outcrossing: to thwart an AR backed tail docking ban in order to preserve a short tail that’s listed in the breed standard.
He did it to NOT change the breed and he whitewashed the side effects of bobtail to do so, and he continues to pretend that the jury is still out on this by claiming that breeder surveys are superior to scientific studies.
‘Breeders didn’t report health problems or smaller breed sizes.’
Gosh, really? I can’t imagine why breeders would ever be dishonest about health issues in their litters but impartial scientists would collude to manufacture smaller litter sizes and fake deformed puppies.
When the PDE shit hit the fan, this is what I said on the Pet Law list (or pretty close to it):
1. All breed clubs should start intensive, ongoing health surveys, preferably online, with special effort to reach pet owners, not just breeders and show people. (An open database ala the Finish KC would be ideal but probably out of the question for the US.) A complete pedigree analysis for dogs born in the last decade should be done as well, to identify breeding trends and establish an average COI.
2. Breed-wide genetic surveys, including the MHC. Including the pet population, not just show dogs.
3. AKC should hire several conservation geneticists to work with the breed clubs on interpreting the information gathered by health surveys and DNA testing.
4. Working with conservation geneticists, the breed clubs would come up with a breed survival plan for breeders to follow, to preserve diversity and rare bloodlines, while reducing disease incidence.
Points one and two are important because without this information, an educated decision cannot be reached regarding the future of the breed. Period. You cannot even set realistic goals for breeders in regards to reducing the average COI in the breed without this information. You have seen how the Toller people insist that they have plenty of diversity, but when the founder population is looked at, you get nine dogs, six of which were full siblings, which argues against that. Makes my point.
Points three and four are important because if breeders are going to treat dog breeds like separate species, well then, who better to help them with that than experts on conserving rare species?
All four points together are a public relations BOON, because even if, ultimately, nothing gets done, it certainly looks like they’re doing something, doesn’t it? So when the next legislative session rolls around, and the OughtaBeALaw-ers are banging their drums, the AKC and the breed clubs can say, “Hey, we’re doing this, this, and this, we’ve got it under control, maybe you should let us make the decisions.”
Because if you look at it in an honest manner, the reforms the UK KC has instituted, including banning the registration of the progeny of first degree inbreeding and re-opening the B register, HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH WANTING BREEDERS TO PRODUCE HEALTHIER DOGS. After PDE their reputation, and by extension, the reputation of kennel club breeders, went into the toilet with the general public. Breeding practices were placed under scrutiny by Joe Pet Owner, practices that cannot be justified by science, and there are a hell of a lot more Joe Pet Owners out there than there are Susie Show Breeders, and they are very, very vocal.
It’s all Pee Arrr, sweetie. The AR groups are very, very good at propaganda. This concept seems to have completely by-passed the registries and pure-blood brigade, as evidenced by the UK KC’s rather frantic game of catch-up.
Breeders who could be actively reviewing the literature, engaging the public, and leading the way in the honest pursuit of healthier dogs, are instead making all breeders look bad by their excuse-making in support of a biologically insupportable concept, that of ‘pure breeding.’
The sides of that toilet bowl are slippery. Every comment like this:
“If there are indeed problems now or clearly looming, yes, go ahead or at least experiment and see what difficulties there are.”
and this:
“What would you have the breed do? Why do you think that your breed is any better? The DNA shows that they are all much the same regardless of what the pedigrees say.”
pushes breeders back down the sides of the toilet as they try to climb out. Keep going with that rhetoric, and we’ll have laws telling us exactly how to breed our dogs, slamming the lid closed forever.
I WILL NOT LET THESE PEOPLE DRAG ME DOWN WITH THEM.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
I got called an alarmist turncoat for my comment on Pet Law, btw.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
That comment by Wade (“The DNA shows they are all much the same”) is a favorite. If they’re all the same, Claire, why do you care so much about Pedigree that you won’t out-cross? You start asking these PhDs very simple questions and they start making fools of themselves. If not Tollers, who? If not now, when? If not Hemolytic Anemia, Addison’s Disease, Hypothyroidism, Pemphigus, Immune-Mediated Polyarthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Congenital Deafness, Epilepsy, Pulmonary Stenosis, Steroid responsive Meningitis-arteritis, Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate, Mega-esophagus, Collie Eye Anomaly, Skeletal Dysplasia & Chondrodysplasia, and Herniated discs, and a population that is as close as an incestuous nuclear family even at its most diverse, for what reason would one allow an out-cross?
What a terrible image of Dr. Cattanach you are giving in your posts … Sad. I have a very different opinion of him as I have been following his works for many many years. He is a dedicated dog person and has done much for boxers as well as for other breeds.
Dr. Cattanach has reletlessly promoted good breeding practices, he has taken the time and trouble to put up a great website with many must-read articles available to everyone, not to talk about the many articles he has written in canine magazines and lots of informative and enlightening posts sent to canine email lists. Also, he has always been extremely helpful whenever I (or others I know) have asked him any question related to breeding or genetics.
I am sorry you do not appreciate all of this.
Nobody has to be in full agreement with Dr. Cattanach’s opinions (or anybody else’s), but your harsh criticism of him is completely unwarranted.
A question: are you a dog breeder, Chris? If so, you should know that birth defects are not that rare, among them puppies born without an anus. I myself have produced one such puppy, and you know what? He was produced by two ‘normal’, long tailed boxers of ‘regular’ breeding. On the other hand, my bobtail boxer litters have all been healthy and free of defects.
Did you know that already in 1978 (!) Dr. Cattanach wrote an article in which he explained how inbreeding was not necessary to get good dogs and thus discouraged inbreeding?
Do you have anything to say about the specifics, the actual observations I’m making in this post? I’m not making an ad hominem attack on Dr. Cattanach, I’m quoting his writings specifically and attacking them for their weaknesses. Dr. Cattanach could be a saint, but his published words are what they are, so I don’t see how anything you’ve said is relevant.
This post is not meant to tarnish his reputation, it’s meant to correct the flaws in his arguments.
Jess
Posted November 29, 2011 at 4:31 PM
That doesn’t matter. None of the paper mill registries matter, because none of the FCI countries or the KCs that have reciprocity deals with FCI will recognize the registration from a paper mill.
Don’t dismiss the idea of an outcross-permissive, or open registry just because the puppy mills have dominated the alternatives, so far.
There is a real need for a registry that tracks every single puppy throughout its life in order to document the problems in the lines as well as the successes.
Such a registry could also track outcrosses and all the descendents that ensue on the way back to the breed standard.
Such a registry could also be used to recreate a more landrace types of dog out of any numbers of breeds. Such as Jess’s work. I see Jess’s dogs as a resource for all of the breeds she has used. I suppose she has complete records, but perhaps belonging to an open registry would make her stud books more accessible.
I think the concept of breed standards needs to be completely reworked too. Standards should emphasis soundness and temperament and general type without getting too picky about details, like ear set,ear size and ear leather as separate components. Breed standards should also emphasize the least extreme members of the breed that show proper breed type.
The semi-lethal dominants such as the ones under discussion in this post and its comments, including those not mentioned, such as the hairless gene, need to be looked at closely as to whether they are a worthy addition to the breed and certainly not be the basis of a breed. Even if a limited amount of the semi-dominant gene is ultimately allowed, the dog should be NOT be bred to another with the same dominant.
It has been undocumentedly said in a number of places that the homozygous bald pups do not survive to birth, but why are they an exception to the rule?
If I didn’t personally know of so many akc breeders that lie about out-crosses, lie about the history of their breeds and the personal history of their own lines, lie about who certain pups’ parents were, the date they were born, and every other possible lie that a dog breeder can tell, I might be less skeptical about using the AKC as a registry for any reason.
The puppy mill registries operate with as much dishonesty but a little less hypocrisy.
Kate Williams recently posted..Here goes the sound of burning bridges……..
Kat,
Jess is referring to a very different world from ours.
In many European countries, about 90% of the dogs are registered as pure-breed under a national kennel club. That is an astounding percentile compared to North America. For this reason, it is why some of the more liberal kennel clubs are seen as progressive.
So, in essence, Jess is correct.
In Europe, if it is not registered in the FCI, you are shit out of luck.
You missed my point. I am not dismissing the idea of an open registry. However, the idea of using one of the paper mills, or starting your own registry, is useless at this point in time, due to the way the registries operate. International recognition would be nearly impossible without dealing with AKC (if you are in the US.)
When you are talking about worldwide registration, you must play in the FCI pool. Germany is an FCI country. If I want one of my puppies to be registered in Germany, I must register with AKC, because AKC has the reciprocity deal with FCI. FCI does not recognize UKC, for example, or the hunting dog registries. (Canada and the US are not FCI member countries; they have deals with FCI that allows them to use their own standards and recognizes their registration.) The UK KC also has a reciprocity deal.
Let me use Salukis as an example. Desert bred Salukis have been able to be registered with SPDBS for a long time. This was a genetic dead end, however, because FCI did not recognize SPDBS. Such dogs could not be incorporated into the worldwide gene pool UNLESS the registry for that specific country also had a process for recognizing desert stock (Germany is actually one such country.) SPDBS was recognized by the Saluki Club of America as a domestic registry in 2000-something, so now Salukis registered with SPDBS can (after three generations) be registered with the AKC. I own two so-called Gen 3 dogs (three complete generations behind them) that are AKC registered. Their offspring will accepted by any registry that recognizes AKC registration. The Continental KC would certainly register any desert bred Saluki, but such a dog and it’s offspring would never be registerable internationally.
There are other registries that are technically open, though rules apply. The UKs B register, and the special cases that the Finnish club has been registering, and registers for various COO breeds that are recognized by the official KC for that country are examples. So there are *some* open registries, but acceptance of such practices is very much dependent on culture and politics (my Saluki friends in Finland, for example, keep their imports secret until they’ve been accepted by the KC, due to breed politics interfering with the registration process.)
Without the cooperation of the ‘big’ FCI recognized registries, any outcrosses, at this time, are a dead end. The breeder is just pissing into the wind. They won’t be able to be benefit the world wide gene pool. The breed clubs and the big registries must lead in this regard, and most of them are NOT ready to do it, due to mythology and politics. The Dal club is a good example; I am sure they still would not have recognized the LUA Dals if they hadn’t gotten so much bad publicity.
I have not one, but two breeds that have ‘open’ registries that accept country of origin dogs. And both of those breeds have their attendant politics regarding such dogs, which ones get recognized, repeated calls for moratoriums on COO registrations until there is a reliable DNA test that can detect whether dogs are pure, accusations of cross-breeding, fraud and favoritism. The UK is going have interesting times once people start using their B registry, I can guarantee it.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
I did not understand how sewed up tight the FCI is. It is really a mess and too bad.
I have operated outside the AKC for so long, I am not even interested in joining, even if I bought an AKC dog, which I would never do again, after the Basenjis and understood what “pure breeding” meant.
I saw how the Crested got into the AKC in the first place- and how the xolos are trying to get in or are in, or out, or something, but WHY? They do not need the AKC. In fact, they don’t have enough foundation animals and a closed registry will destroy them, not that most owners even understand what they are breeding for.
I thought we were closer to a tipping point of understanding the problems of pure breeding than is actually happening, I guess. In my former life as a dog person, there were NO people like you guys, expressing opinions like yours, out loud- and now you are here. Things are changing.
Registries, yes. Kennel clubs deciding who is “in” or “out” are ultimately arrogating responsibility they do not need and this royal attitude has created a mess. A horror.
Though I may agree with some of you, you may not agree with me and my care -less attitude about KC’s where ever in the world they may be. I still live in Arizona and we all know how out of the 20th century we Zonies are- let alone the 21st!
I still admire how the CC breed was concocted from some hairless genes, and some long-haired genes a really stupid story of its origins which was a huge lie, and a breed club was formed where she, Debora Wood, with Ida Garret’s mentoring- was the “registry” until she could work the politics to get the breed recognized.
She’s my role model. Though, the more I study her breed, the more messy it becomes…it is a huge mistake of a breed….
Kate Williams recently posted..Here goes the sound of burning bridges……..
One can be highly educated in biology and genetics and everything else.
These same people will examine the population genetics of endangered species and tell us to maintain genetic diversity. Use more sire– even outcross to related subspecies.
But as soon as we start talking dogs, things are different. Dogs aren’t endangered. The whole population of domestic dogs is one of the most genetically diverse of all domestic animals. However, within closed registry breeds we have big, big problems.
What Cattanach says is true about the politics of it. One outcross will not save the breed.
But his bobtail boxer program was docked in the FCI countries. The German Boxer Club now disqualifies all natural bobtails for health reasons, and on the streets of Munich, the local dog breed that later became famous worldwide is a long-tailed breed.
There is no good reason to dock a boxer.
They look fine with tails, and having had a boxer x with a tail, I can say that they easily have the most expressive tails of all dogs.
My views on docking is that it should be legal, but it should only occur if it can be justified, as it is with spaniels and German short-haired pointers.
retrieverman recently posted..Cammie and Rhodie
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No, not for health reasons, for *political* reasons, which is a very different matter.
No, no, no – I know this subject very well and they disqualified them for *political* reasons.
It was a case of the ignorant and blind coming up with the right answer by being ignorant and blind.
This natural bobtail is a disastrous gene.
This post isn’t an attack on Cattanach’s entire career. He does good things.
But this is not one of them.
Retrieverman recently posted..Tejón
Except the breed club in Germany never disqualified the outcross because of health reasons. They didn’t approve of the project ever since it was seeded. The problem lies in the fact they didn’t like how a British had the nerve to tell the Germans what to do with their own dogs; just like how Canadians didn’t like how a German had the nerve to go ahead with the outcross without approval of the Toller Club of Canada.
The health debate didn’t even enter the picture until about 2009 when Scandinavian countries opened up the dialogue about potential problems with the genes. And it is still only there, there are confidential vet reports being written and filed about the associated issues with the NBT gene.
Cattanach’s Boxer-Corgi program wasn’t approved of for the same reason the Toller outcross project wasn’t approved of. That’s all to it. Nothing more, nothing less.
It doesn’t matter why the German Boxer Club didn’t approve of it.
It was an outcross for a frivolous reason.
It was one of those rare cases where the blind and willfully ignorant actually made the right decision, using their blindness and ignorance.
It was just too cute by half.
retrieverman recently posted..Cammie and Rhodie
If one imagines the genetic pool of any original registry at the instant it was closed as a pond, then as the years go by you could literally see the water level drop as genetic material is lost by dogs/bitches not being bred….
or….
as registered dogs/bitches breed but their offspring is not registered.
Yes, we do lose some genetic diversity due to popular sire effects and so on. But we also “misplace” a considerable amount of genetic diversity due to deliberate or accidental out breeding. The genes, the traits, the attributes are still there – they are simply OUTSIDE of the registries.
If you presented a hunter with a retriever that looked like an ideal purebred X and had the correct temperament and traits for a successful working retriever, the hunter would likely not care at all if the animal was not a registered purebred. If you presented the same hunter with a registered championship purebred retriever which was identical to the previous animal – with the only difference in the price, the hunter would take the cheaper animal.
IRL – people want a healthy, functional animal. They don’t want bad temperaments, congenital conditions requiring expensive treatments or a cruel inherited disease.
Out crossing should be seen not as a necessary evil, but an opportunity to regain, reacquire or even rescue genes lost from the registry.
If the incidence of positive traits is decreasing, the incidence of negative traits is increasing…or both – then the breed is moribund. Ironically, my solution would be to do exactly what was done when the original registry was formed. Using the breed standards, create a new registry of animals that closely match those standards REGARDLESS of their pedigree or lack of one.
That would dispense with the tiresome controversy over outcrossing. However it would create a titanic struggle over what would be allowable under the new breed standards. That could create some serious entertainment.
In the case of registered Tollers, the gene pool was barely a puddle to start with. The founding population was little more than one nuclear family and a few more dogs thrown in.
And the founding population wasn’t even bred round-robin or anything, so within one generation about half the already limited genetic information was lost.
You really can’t start much smaller than this. That’s why the average COI is the same as a father x daughter.
Cattanach might be critical of getting breed wide support now, but the truth is, we should all be critical about people who make new breeds with so few foundation animals in the first place. THAT’s the biggest political, functional, and genetic failure in Tollers.
It’s also a mistake we can fix by bringing in new blood.
Goodness, Christopher, when you go in you go in you go for the kill… Again, Bruce Cattanach is a man that has devoted his life to the health of Boxers and has campaigned tirelessly for breeders to do the right thing, often at considerable personal cost.
Yes, Bruce sometimes defaults to thinking like a show breeder of 40 years but he will always listen to an alternate view – and I should say with a courtesy that is entirely missing in your post above.
Bruce has also been gracious in tolerating (and quite often teaching) a controversial relative newbie like me.
I don’t jump lightly to anyone’s defence but Bruce Cattanach is much more than the snapshot view of him you have presented above.
Jemima
Unfortunately, Jemima, in my circle, breeders have totally twisted and distorted his knowledge; and he has yet to correct them or even refuse to take responsibility for the factoids being spouted by his naive followers.
He may be patient and and tolerant, but I have yet to see him correct the misinformation being spread around about his many projects. Honestly speaking, I would like to see some self-accountability for the mess left behind.
I’m sorry to hear this Dave and I don’t know the facts of this so can’t defend or condemn on this point. Has Bruce been asked to step in? He did recently (on request) when it was apparent that Rhodesian Ridgebck breeders were ignoring the science. He wrote to the dog papers in an effort to spell out the real facts regarding ridgeless/dermoid sinus. He did the same again on Ridgebacks shortly after PDE – eliciting a statement from the Swedish researchers which was then sent to every Rhodesian Ridgeback Club in the world in an attempt to counter the misinformation and misunderstanding.
I am not trying to argue that Bruce is without flaw; just putting the case for a more nuanced view because Christopher is not aware of all the good – and very often brave – work this man has done in tackling health problems in Boxers (and other breeds). Bruce is an older guy, retired now, and he would never in a million years write about Christopher in the way he has written about him.
He would be particularly shocked by the caption on the Toller pic at the top and, personally, I think it is too mean.
I also think the decent thing to do would have been for Christopher to have written to Bruce before publishing the piece to have given him an opportunity to respond (I routinely do this before taking scientists to task on my blog), and not least because Christopher has made some big assumptions in his posts on Bruce – such as, for instance, Bruce refusing to accept new findings. That is not the man I know.
How about you do that now, Christopher?
Jemima
I will e-mail you the mess that a few people are trying to clean up when I get up for work tomorrow.
It will be sent from info [at] prickeared [dot] com if it ends up in the spam filters.
Dave recently posted..Keep Your Cats Inside
I don’t have anything against Cattanach personally. This isn’t an argument about someone’s personality. With Terrierman, it actually is– it’s actually standing up to a bully, who was asking for his comeuppance a long time ago. I don’t think it serves the movement very well to defend someone who write concern trolling screeds about pit bulls or who thinks that the only terrier that ever was a terrier is one that can go down a groundhog hole. Ireland would have no native terriers by his logic, and the United States wouldn’t either. The smallest rat terriers and feists aren’t earth dogs.
I don’t think Cattanach is helping his own arguments by coming out against the toller outcross. I think it’s important that we stand up for open registries.
What if someone justified opening up a registry just to add the merle gene?
Currently, there are people in the US who are breeding merle miniature pinschers, calling them harlequin pinschers, after a failed German breed that consisted only of harlequin and merle dogs. They introduced merle from rat terriers.
I’m sure many people would be against opening the registry just to recreate the failed harlequin pinscher.
But that’s essentially what he’s doing here.
It’s a cosmetic trait that has real health concerns.
Retrieverman recently posted..Bobcat kills mule deer
The mess left behind???
What mess???
I’m sure Dr. Cattanach is a nice man who pays his taxes, loves kittens, kisses babies and in moments of true evilness tears those tags off of mattresses. But I don’t endeavor to judge him as a man or weigh his life of accomplishments against his actions against his words. To me it is only about what he has chosen to publish for public consumption, in particular his series of articles describing his bobtail project and his comment on your blog regarding the Aussie x Toller cross. I think he is factually and analytically wrong on several counts and I’ve documented why I feel that way and what evidence I have accumulated to arrive at those positions.
I never claimed he wants to have unhealthy Boxers. But I did document that he inserted a gene that is deleterious. This is a fact and there’s no nice way to spin this. His desires and the reality are at odds here and it’s unfortunate that he has never admitted the extant reality that bobtail is not care-free and without risks. Leaving a tail alone is superior to manual docking is superior to the bobtail gene.
One of us wants you to believe a lie and the other wants you to believe the truth. I’m not attacking Cattanach as a man, I’m attacking his dangerous and documented specious arguments. He is giving false testimony, I’m being circumspect. He is obstinate in continuing to deny the truth, I’m collecting and publishing the data that he still pretends doesn’t exist or tries to diminish. There’s no nice way to do this and I’ve kept it as focused on the WORDS as possible.
Do you have a problem with anything I’ve written being inaccurate? Let’s run through some questions:
Did Cattanach outcross for health? No
Did Cattanach insert a deleterious gene? Yes
Did he do this ostensibly to evade a ban on docking? Yes
Is the bobtail gene “without any detectable ill-effects”? No
Does Cattanach still claim this? Yes
Are litter sizes reduced? Yes
Does Cattanach still claim this does not happen? Yes
Does Cattanach claim that 25% of puppies will be ‘undesirable’ long tails? Yes
Is it true that breeders can actually realize up to ~33% long tailed dogs? Yes
Is there “nothing nasty” about the gene? No, there are nasty outcomes
Is anal atresia nasty? Yes, really nasty
Does the bobtail gene enhance the chance of other puppies surviving? No
Does Cattanach claim this? Yes
Does lethal bobtail simply replace natural loss? No
Does Cattanach claim this? Yes
Did Cattanach complete any study of NBT x NBT? No
Did Cattanach complete any study of litter size? No
Did Cattanach argue from ignorance and shift the burden of proof for single bobtail? Yes
Are homozygous puppies born? Yes
Does Cattanach still claim they are not? Yes
Is this irresponsible? You bet
Are breeders using his positions to continue to breed NBT x NBT? Yes
Is he supporting them in doing so? Yes
Is this irresponsible? You be the judge
Let me repeat my call to Dr. Cattanach, he’s welcome to come on any of these posts and clarify his position, defend it, or change it.
Are my criticisms valid? Damn straight. Can you find me a single other person out there who has looked at this and published so much as a single one of the errors I have found? Good luck.
There’s no NICE way to tell someone that they are wrong and it’s not my job to judge the sum of Cattanach’s life. Everything I have criticized I have quoted verbatim.
Everything else is really inconsequential and irrelevant. I am not doing this to smear Cattanach I’m doing this to destroy his false and dangerous arguments. And these are arguments he has had the desire to publish online and make on your forum. He even invites criticism specifically. All of your observations are nice and they might be 100% true, but they are appeals to logical fallacies. Not a one of those observations means that he is right and I am wrong.
I’m sure there were very nice people who cared very much about their Wobbly German Shepherds, and their Crippled Cavaliers. Does that invalidate your documentary? Are you out of line to challenge them when they claim those dogs are “correct” and even healthy? I’m sure those people kiss babies, hug trees, and mentor people too.
But no one had the guts to call them out on the scale you did until you. I’ve seen no one call out Cattanach and now that he’s being just as ignorant and incorrect about Tollers as he is on Bobtails. My criticisms of Dr. Cattanach’s published arguments are no more a complete picture of the man than your documentary was a complete picture of dog breeding. And that doesn’t invalidate or diminish anything I’ve said.
The facts are on my side. Ethics are on my side. What would you have me do? Agree with his lies because he’s a nice guy? He’s wrong, I’m right. People NEED to know that what he’s saying is dangerous and incorrect. Is it just me, or isn’t that the entire point of your blog and your documentary? To overturn and re-examine the closely held beliefs of the old guard in the fancy and show how they are actually hurting, NOT helping our dogs.
I think your friendship is blinding you from the truth. In fact, it sounds a lot like how the younger generation of breeders are drawn into and indoctrinated in the traditional culture and methods of the fancy. Appeals to authority, appeals to common practice, appeals to unsubstantiated beliefs, appeals to popularity, appeal to ignorance. Those GSD breeders were also gracious, tolerant, and willing to mentor; but look at what they did to the dogs.
Who is right about Bobtail? Me or Dr. Cattanach?
Who is right about Tollers? Me or Dr. Cattanach?
Who are you defending? Who are you writing letters of critique to?
I think you have it backwards.
Thought people would have figured out by now that you’re the shock jock of the dog blogging set 😉
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
He totally is! LOL
I could well see the Doberman folk opting to cross to say, a Belgian to obtain a natural prick ear in order to avoid the cropping issue. While it isn’t for “health”, if one is serious about the prick ear, this would be a natural method of obtaining it. Or one of the native German breeds (Altdeucher) with a natural prick ear that probably had some genetic input into the creation of the Doberman in the first place. Regarding tail docking, I have mixed thoughts. I certainly see it’s value in doing it with sheep, particularly with some breeds in some environments. I would think that it “should” be possible to find a gene that causes “bob tail” without harm (Bears don’t have long tails and Bobcats obviously have short ones, so it IS possible in nature.) I don’t quite understand why one would WANT to do this in a dog breed, but then I don’t own a breed that is traditionally docked. I keep thinking that someday someone is going to figure out the zebra pattern and apply it to horses and the “tiedye” pattern of African painted dogs and replace merle with that. One wonders why spotted horses were an “original” when the current research indicates it has some problems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_complex — so here is a “natural” and ancient gene that has drawbacks. Should Appaloosa folk stop breeding for it?
Peggy Richter.
Merle can exist in street dog populations, as can hairlessness (which it does in parts of Mexico), just as the leopard complex coloration could exist in ancient wild horses. In all of these cases it’s a dominant gene (incomplete dominant in the leopard complex), so it just takes one individual in the population to pass it along.
But I can guarantee you that most of those that exist in the wild or that have ever existed in the wild are heterozygous merle steet dogs and heterozyous leopard complex horses.(Homozygous hairless dogs are never born.)
There would be no issues with introducing a natural prick ear into dobermanns through an outcross. In fact, there already are a few natural prick ears within the dobermann breed as it now is. Prick-ears are generally a recessive trait– although Cattanach did find that one of his F1 boxer-corgis was prick-eared.
Retrieverman recently posted..Australian shepherd/flat-coated retriever crosses as guide dogs
Bobcats– and all lynx species–and bears have a different genetic basis behind their bobtails.
Humans and all apes are tailless, and that it comes from a different genetic basis too.
There are different kinds of taillessness in dogs. Bulldogs had a different genetic basis for their short tails, and although they do have spinal problems and inverted tails, they don’t have the issues that natural bobtails with the T-box mutation have. There are some unbelievable horror stories about dogs that are heterozygous for this bobtail.
Retrieverman recently posted..Australian shepherd/flat-coated retriever crosses as guide dogs
Are there any known health issues with the prick ear gene? Does it breed true? I’m all for out-crossing for a variety of reasons.
Out-crossing for health certainly isn’t the only valid reason to out-cross and I’m not advocating some standard or rule or law that says if there’s any minor negative to an out-cross that it is unethical and also must be banned. I’m simply pointing out that the situation is not as clear as Dr. Cattanach is making it seem. There ARE new facts, we have new evidence, it needs to be considered.
All genes are natural and many are ancient. This is sort of a tangent really as plenty of genes we’d probably want to eradicate are also natural and ancient, it’s not really a good selling point. Practically, if a deleterious gene already exists saturated in a population it will take a great deal of effort and political will to breed it out and not cripple the gene pool in the process. Depending on how serious the side-effects are, I imagine many breeders and enthusiasts will place concerns of uniqueness and tradition and aesthetics over health. These sorts of arguments already exist in Merle.
In fact, I’d venture to say that as new deleterious mutations pop up, there will be a rush to enshrine them in a new breed. I can see this happening now with Panda German Shepherds.
Actually it is my impression that the natural prick ear IS about “health”. I believe (but did not google scholar.google.con for a quick set of links) and that chronic ear infections are more common in breeds with drop ears than in breeds with the wild canid type prick ear. In the days prior to antibiotics it may well be that illness and death of adult dogs with drop ears and ear infections resulted in the adoption of ear cropping in puppies to avoid problems in adult dogs. That cropping was not cosmetic initially. I have seen old photos of Salukis from native Arab tribes with cropped ears. However the initial ear crops were pretty short so no supporting brace was needed in the growing pups to get an ear that stood up. You can still see this in the short cropped ears seen in fighting pit bulls.
Bonnie Dalzell recently posted..Interactive Genetics Tools Websites
Other people can speak better to this than I can, but Salukis were and are cropped for a variety of reasons, including preventing damage to the ear by game animals, tradition, and identification. Crops range from taking the whole ear so only a tiny nub is left, to cutting off just the tips.
Interestingly, there is no tradition of cropping that I can find in dogs from Afghanistan Eastwards.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
The original style crops of Dobes and Danes were also much shorter.
With Salukis, if they are cropped for identification purposes, sometimes they only do one ear. It’s rather goofy-looking.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
I never have understood why they crop the ears so long nowadays–to me the shorter crop looks much better! Is there a reason for doing such a long crop on Danes for example? Or did someone just decide it looked better?
The long crop on Danes is part of a conspiracy by the First Aid Industry and Johnson & Johnson to sell more Zonas tape.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
The extreme-long style is called a ‘show crop’ for a reason. =)
It’s also harder to maintain and care for. So I guess it arose the same way extreme coats evolved in show lines; for flash and to show off sculpting skills.
I also think that regarding the toller / Aussie cross, that there are some valid points to be made. Uncontrolled crossings with “anyone” opting to do their “own thing” would probably NOT be to the benefit of the Toller. A controlled program (like the LUA Dalmations) with those involved making careful selections would, I think, be better. One would not, for example, want to introduce the MDRI gene into tollers. Using the Kooikerhondje or Kooiker Hound in some crosses might improve the gene pool without loss of working characteristics (I like to think keeping working characteristics should be important to any breed club although I regularly find that they aren’t). I can’t agree with Cattanach on having a KC control things — the Lua Dalmations took decades before the breed club accepted them in AKC. But I’m not keen on “anything goes” either.
The Toller x Aussie litter was sanctioned by the German Kennel Club, IIRC. That means it was not a case of “anyone” opting to do their “own thing.”
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
No, unfortunately it was someone doing their own thing – not (which one would ideally have) an outcross project like the one I blogged recently re the German Pinschers. This is not to blame breeder Alexander Dauber – he did try to garner support.
In fact, the German KC sanctioned a Toller/Retriever X. But then demanded expensive DNA profiling (considered unnecessary by independent geneticists and which would have cost Dauber a small fortune – think he said €20,000). That was when he decided to go it alone and with a different breed. He intends to do a retriever x next thought, I think.
I also found Bruce too dismissive of the Toller x – but the point about it ideally needing to be a group, rather than an individual, effort was well=made, as Peggy says.
Jemima
Then the likelihood of the progeny of these dogs getting registered is next to nil, and frankly, the naysayers should STFU since it won’t affect them or their dogs, or their dog’s progeny.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
Well, there is always a chance that they will found something like the German Continental Kennel Club.
Retrieverman recently posted..Australian shepherd/flat-coated retriever crosses as guide dogs
That doesn’t matter. None of the paper mill registries matter, because none of the FCI countries or the KCs that have reciprocity deals with FCI will recognize the registration from a paper mill.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
We should just breed dogs like beef cattle.
On my grandpa’s farm, he keeps mostly what we call black Angus, which are the black color variant of the Aberdeen-Angus breed. However, there are tons of baldies running about. A baldy is a black Angus that has some amount of Hereford in it. Herefords used to be the dominant beef breed in the US, but they have fallen from favor. Now, they exist almost entirely to produce baldies. Baldies are larger and healthier than pure black Angus.
i have a draft of a post from the main Hereford registry in the US. They have a very good understanding of population genetics.
Then, someone will say, but we’re talking dogs, not cows.
But we expect so much more from dogs than cattle. These cows generally only live until they reach market weight, but we want our dogs to live 10 or more years. And we want them to do things, and we want to love them.
The cow’s job is to get in my belly and be tasty on the way down.
We want a lot more out of dogs.
If we want more, we need to pay attention to the livestock people.
Retrieverman recently posted..Chat room
One of the reasons Herefords fell out of favor with the beef cattle industry was that there was a movement to select for bulls producing “the perfect carcass calf”. These were a bit shorter on leg than the normal Hereford but had as much body mass. So less wasted weight in lower legs after slaughter. So a limited number of Hereford bulls contributed in a relatively short time to the Hereford gene pool. A couple of generations down dwarf calves started popping out and it was discovered that those “Perfect Carcass Calf” sires were heterozygous for a dwarfing gene that gave slightly shorted limbs in the heterozygotes but gave you a calf not worth rearing to slaughter are when homozygous. Being an economically driven industry the cattle breeders started to outcross Herefords to Charlais, Angus, etc to rescue the breed. I suspect that the “Baldy” Angus are showing some degree of hybrid vigor which makes them valuable if you are breeding animals for slaughter. After all the meat packing plants are not hung up on pedigrees.
The downside of the Baldy color pattern is that the unpigmented areas are more prone to skin cancer but this is not a problem for an animal that becomes steaks by 30 months of age or younger.
Several people in this thread have mentioned the idea of using dogs that may be the product of outcrossing as it was done when breeds were established. At that time the standard was not just a cosmetic description of the dogs but also described the function of the dogs.
Breeding any animal by selecting in each generation for performance and health and temperament and looking at the pedigree as a tool to avoid high levels of inbreeding is the best way to breed for vigorous healthy dogs (or any other domestic animal). If your gene pool is too small the only way to reduce inbreeding is to do multiple outcrosses to breeds that still contain the traits you need in your dogs and then select back from many of these outcrossed lines to reestablish the look one wants.
For example in the Toller example. Crosses to smooth coated pointer breeds are going to result in short pointer coats in the F1 but breeding F1’s back to Tollers or to F1’s from different parents will give a proportion of the pups with the appropriate longer Toller coat. Since this longer coat is recessive the short coat can be eliminated in the F2 generation.
On the other hand the solid color coverage of the Toller will be present in the F1’s but spotted animals will reappear in later generations if the spotted genes are carried into the Toller breed (all the F1’s will carry the spotted gene).
Wether to really aggressively go about eliminating the spotted gene while retaining the new diversity will be a conflict between some aesthetic value and practicality in retaining diversity.
The one caution is that the “extreme white spotting” condition is associated with defects in hearing and eyes upon occasion so it should not be encouraged.
My personal opinion is that the founding population for a new dog breed should be at least 40 different individuals with relatively low levels of interrelatedness. Of course round robin breeding strategies will be needed and initially the breed will need to have an expanding population so that diversity is not lost by genetic drift in a small static population.
I think the statistics are that for all the genes of a given individual to have a good chance of being sampled – that individual needs to have at least 6 offspring that are themselves successful parents. However I do not currently have a reference for this so it should be thought of as a speculation.
Thus establishing a new breed is going to require supporting relatively large numbers of individuals through the age where they are selected for breeding an are bred. In dogs this means that if one is breeding for function and performance as well as for some cosmetic features you are keeping the dogs through an extensive maturing and training period. Probably most of the dogs would need to be fostered out to homes where they could be trained for their purpose and not bred until they were 3 years old or so.
Big project! What you will want to develop in parallel to the breeding project is a family fun athletic sport for the dogs to participate in.
Bonnie Dalzell recently posted..Interactive Genetics Tools Websites
It’s not just leg length. The hereford has a larger head in proportion to the body size, and much of the carcass weight goes to head weight, which is useless for fine cuts of meat.
It’s also not a finely marbled cow.
Of the two, you’d rather be handling the Hereford– much nicer and more intelligent animals.
Those big heads have big brains!
Retrieverman recently posted..Errant serval mistaken for ocelot in Arizona
http://hereford.org/node/492
You can read all about herefords, heterosis, and crossing them with “black Angus.”
In North America, the Aberdeen-Angus is split into two breeds. The black breed is called the black Angus, and it’s the one that is most sought after in the meat industry.
Retrieverman recently posted..Errant serval mistaken for ocelot in Arizona
Retrieverman said: Bobcats– and all lynx species–and bears have a different genetic basis behind their bobtails.
==yes. My thought is that given the increasing technology in gene splicing is that one could use something similar for a “sound” bobtail in dogs. The bear is more closely related to dogs than the cats. There are also raccoon dogs.
There are some unbelievable horror stories about dogs that are heterozygous for this bobtail.
==which one would think Dr. Cattanach would have been aware of. And I don’t support his effort to create a NBT in boxers. I don’t see much reason to have bobtails (or skew, etc tails) in dogs although I admit, I do see a reason for docking in sheep.
Christopher posted: Are there any known health issues with the prick ear gene? Does it breed true?
==none that I’ve ever heard of. It is the “default” in wolves. Yes, pretty much it breeds true. (Mother Nature is always throwing a wrench into any absolute regarding genetics).
All genes are natural and many are ancient.
==well, yes. My thought was that given that spotting in horses is now shown to be in the original wild population and apparently common enough that they are portrayed in cave paintings, “why” did it persist in wild populations? Is there some plus to it like the genes for sickle cell can provide protection against malaria? (If I were guessing, it would be that a spotted horse is a bit like a zebra in being harder to “pick out” from a herd than a solid colored animal. That’s the theory on why zebras have stripes). But if one is going to keep spotted horses, there ARE negatives that can occur. Just because they occur is not, IMO, necessarily a reason to cease breeding spotted horses. It “might” be a reason to have rules about how one does it. Merle is another – there’s no known plus to merle other than humans like the color. A lot of heterozygotes have health issues that are directly caused by the M gene. Yet I’d be sorry to see Merle banned as a color.
In fact, I’d venture to say that as new deleterious mutations pop up, there will be a rush to enshrine them in a new breed. I can see this happening now with Panda German Shepherds.
== “panda” appears to merely be tricolor by another name. Tricolor collies seem to be sound enough health wise. Agreed it isn’t something that is traditionally desired in German Shepherds. The issue of the hairless gene is a better example as like bobtail, it seems that it’s pretty close to a total lethal in the homozygous state. Or as said elsewhere, recreating merle pinchers.
Peggy Richter
The Panda pattern in GSDs is a new mutation. It is also a dominant gene.
http://www.pandashepherds.com/genetic_panda_info
Genes do not fall into just two categories: advantageous or disadvantageous. There are plenty of neutral mutations, or mutations that are not quite deleterious enough to cause such animals to be removed from the gene pool before passing the gene on. If a gene is not completely ‘bad’, meaning animals with it inevitably die, there’s no reason it wouldn’t persist in a wild population (spotted horses,) especially in a large population.
In fact, due to genetic drift, there’s no reason a ‘sometimes bad but not always’ gene couldn’t come to dominate a small population.
Even merle would persist in a feral dog population, due to its dominant nature and the fact that it doesn’t always cause problems.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Zora
I know that the breeders of panda GSDs say that it’s a mutation and a dominant and they refer to a Dr Mark Neff, PHD, of UC Davis as their verification. However, I can not find any article in Google Scholar search that discusses this gene. I cannot find a Dr. Neff on the UC Davis vet school faculty http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/Faculty.cfm. I would think that a novel gene mutation would be the subject of an article in something like PLOS or possibly even PNAS or Genetics. No such thing. I’d think the mutation and the checking of the DNA of the dog in question would be the subject of something in AKC gazette regarding verification of purebred status. Or even articles on line regarding it. I could be wrong.
Boxer “flash” markings are dominant. http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogspots.html
There seems to yet be no certainty as to the other modes of inheritance regarding white patterning on tricolor dogs.
In any case, a color that is NOT a health issue isn’t really a problem for a breed like NBT, hairlessness or Merle is. If Panda is as advertised, let them create “panda shepherds”. Why not?
I think that over time, Merle would actually vanish in a feral dog population under Darwinian selection as more Merle dogs would fail to thrive than non Merles and any single gene Merle would have a 50% chance of having non merle offspring unless mated to another Merle (in which case several of the litter would be severely handicapped.). the non merles are, over time, more fit. I don’t see it in any wild canids, even though there’s evidence (K gene, etc) of crossing with domestic dogs both in ancient and modern times. It may occur in feral/ semi feral dogs simply because of reintroduction from the domestic population.
Peggy Richter.
Actually Panda color in shepherds is on my list of potential lethal semi-dominant genes. That means that like Bobtail, it won’t breed true and up to 25% of potential puppies will die prenatally. Heck, some might be born. Don’t know if there are other health conditions related to the lethality and what problems might arise.
But I don’t think Panda coloring is “traditional Tri” coloring at all. And I don’t think it’s problem free.
I think panda can be assumed to be a homozygous lethal. I had some communication with Neff a while back and he confirmed that no homozygotes had been identified in several panda x panda breedings. Like the bobtail though, that’s no guarantee that they won’t ever survive to birth.
The extent of white on the head caused by heterozyous panda could also give rise to some concern, though no indication of hearing impairment had been observed when I asked about this.
Here’s the statement I found from Mark Neff upon his documentation of the novel mutation in Panda shepherds:
In general I’d be very suspect of such claims as finding a novel mutation is worlds away from what needs to be done to declare “not ever cause any health problems.”
I actually think such statements are blatantly irresponsible. Given that no homozygous Pandas have been documented, we know that a double dose is lethal. The mechanisms that make a mutation lethal are not apt to be harmless in a single dose.
Just as I explained in my “Recessives are Broken” post, we are likely dealing with an issue of protein insufficiency here. That we get a marked phenotype with only one copy means that the mutation is powerful. If the basic building block that is crippled or altered here to lead to the color change has some other use in the body (highly likely, almost everything does double duty in the body) we are likely to see some level of impairment or protein storage or insufficiency in that system as well.
Finding a novelty in a mutation is totally independent from being able to say if it causes a disease path or not. It’s sort of like being able to tell if the family at 123 Pennsylvania Avenue is diabetic or not. You have to find out where they are before you can question them, but their address doesn’t prove your case.
I’ll go out on a limb here and say that they will find side effects of the Panda gene. How can it kill you with two doses and do nothing harmful with only one?
I’ll also say that there will be homozygous puppies born, just as with bobtail. If one copy is highly survivable to birth, then there will be cases when two copies fail to kill the pup before birth.
All the other lethal semi-dominant genes: bobtail, merle, hairless, fit this pattern. None are entirely safe. None breed true.
Christopher said: Panda color in shepherds is on my list of potential lethal semi-dominant genes
==If it is some new gene and is a semi lethal then one should object. It is, after all, easy to get tricolor or “flash” in GSDs without a lethal gene being involved. If it is some novel mutation, there is always the chance that it is like K, however, which is a dominant and which is,theoretically, beneficial. Hard to say. I’m merely not taking the breeder’s account at face value without additional verification. If the account is accurate, I am mystified why a novel gene investicated by a university like Davis isn’t written up in PLOS or some other peer reviewed science journal. It would, after all, be worthy of such a write up.
Peggy Richter
Here’s the claim on the Breeder’s website:
yes. I find it very strange, as I said previously, that Dr Neff is NOT listed on the UC Davis vet school faculty list and that this “very cool” mutation is NOT documented in any scientific journal — particularly as apparently there are now “generations” involved. It makes me rather suspitious that something funny is going on. It may well be that as Christopher suspects, it is a mutation and a semi lethal one. It may be that as I suspect, it isn’t a mutation at all but a plain and simple introduction of a known gene to get a previously unknown color into GSDS. The one is bad because it’s bad for the health of the dogs. The other is undesireable due to lack of honesty. I am reminded of the “long hair mutation” in silken windhounds (longhair whippets) which was originally claimed to be “within the breed” and subsequently pretty conclusively shown to be due to use of a Sheltie or two (MDRI gene). There were long protestations that there were “no outside dogs used” then too. I don’t know the truth. I am just surprised that the documentation one way or the other does not appear to be present.
Peggy Richter
Why don’t you just contact Dr. Neff and ask him? He’s at the Van Andel Institute now:
http://www.vai.org/Research/Labs/NeurogeneticsCanineBehavior.aspx
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An interesting element of this mutation is that there is, as you say, a perfectly mundane means to get this color pattern. But, of course, getting it into GSDs would require the dreaded out-cross to another breed.
If this is a true, new, novel, de novo mutation, it will be interesting to keep an eye on how breeders will most likely attempt to establish a new breed and fetishize the color.
The breeder website that talks about Pandas also appears to breed for “rare” colors and the “christmas litter” was a little suspect as well. I don’t have high hopes for a rational treatment of this possibly new mutation.
You expect rationality from dog breeders?
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http://www.pandashepherds.com/photo_gallery
Look at the EARS on those dogs! I hope they don’t actually breed FOR those bunny ears.
I come from a breed where ear-set doesn’t really matter, so even those “bunny ears” aren’t offensive to my eye.
I’m more curious about how the coat color genetics are going to work out. On that page there’s a GSD at the top right that looks positively Border Collie even with the “naughty spots” on the nose and hands.
I wonder if that is caused by this gene or just revealed and such markings are simply “hidden” or masked or not particularly noticeable in the usual wolf sable coloring of GSDs.
The spots in the white areas are ticking. The ticking gene would be completely masked in a breed without white markings, as it will only show up in white areas, like those caused by particolor or irish-marking.
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Jess invited me to contact Dr. Neff directly. Thank you for providing his current address. I have in fact sent an inquiry, and invited him to respond to this blog.
I asked if there were any journal write up on the gene, if there had been a determination of where the gene locus was (ie, A, E, MCRI, etc) and if it was a semi lethal like merle or like the Boxer “flash” gene (I referenced Schmutz’ website) – the homozygote is the “wrong” color (in Boxers, solid white instead of “flash”).
Chris,
Everytime I’ve written about boxer health, I get these sorts of attacks.
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/why-do-white-boxers-still-exist/
I had to close comments on that post because people weren’t reading. They were calling me a Nazi. Someone even dragged me into an abortion argument!
In that post, I do quote some Cattanach’s work on deafness in boxers.
Around 30 percent of all US white boxers will be deaf in one ear or the other.
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LOL
Paddy declared a fatwa on you!
He misrepresents just about everything you’ve written.
You called Cattanach and idiot. That’s what he said.
LOL.
Um. Wait. This is what Paddy said about Cattanach on my blog.
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/one-of-the-best-examples-of-outcrossing-to-solve-a-problem-but-only-a-cosmetic-one/
PBurns
Great Post.
But it just shows what limited thinking is going on in the world of dogs. These genetic experts created a dog that is naturally bobbed tail, which if mated with another bobed tail boxer produces a dead dog (i.e. a dog that is such a monster it does not survive in the womb and is reabsorbed). Is that it? Woooee. Some success!
How about if we don’t go down that road, and allow tail-bobing at under age 5 days, same as we allow circumcision?
In a world full of ear piercings, nipple piercings, hair plugs, nose jobs, boob jobs, hair dye, circumcision, and dental implants, we are supposed to be concerned about tail docking which takes 5 second and does not harm and is no medical risk?
But we are supposed to salute MANDATORY sterilization of female dogs and large adult male dogs — both of which require some serious surgery?
How about instead of fancy genetics we salute simple and clear thinking and freedom of choice? Does everything have to be legislated, and does everything have to be done within the confines of a closed registry? Why not let freedom ring on all counts? If a dog LOOKS like a boxer, it’s a boxer. It’s not like the dog actually has a job in the modern world, right? Then it’s just a visual thing, and why not let the judge decided if it gets a ribbon, and let the owner decide if it gets a tail dock? From what I can see, that’s a win-win all the way around.
P
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So I’m basically the one who informed Paddy about the outcross to a corgi.
And yet I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about!
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I guess when you “live close to your moral code” you can take out fatwas.
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Bark barkbarkbark!LOL As though you must have a dog in the fight in order to be able to comment on the fight!
I very clearly see where your pointed call outs resound to the called outs’ fans as ad hominem attacks. They weren’t. They were justifiable comments (that destroy many years of work and show it to be irrelevant in light of what has been learned since.)
I don’t think you need a big investment in the current dog establishment to see what is wrong with it- the closed registries. Or to see that creating so much homozygosity and using semi-lethal genes to produce breeds is destroying great swaths of pedigreed canine biodiversity.
I am glad you two get the heat of attention, but you do deserve the fame. You think well enough. You write well enough, you are dog people whether your dog hunts or herds, or not. You do understand the issues and you have a great platform out here in the blogosphere. I am loving seeing these things being said by guys who can take the heat.
I can hardly wait for your next big target!
I think Cattanach himself understands what you are saying. He had an idea. It was great or so he thought. He carried it out and recruited all the help, fans, that he needed. And it worked, but it turned out to be a bad idea. Now he can still build on the knowledge gained from this experiment. HOW he carried it out was great, it was just that it was a bad idea and therefore a painful, expensive lesson,except for the knowledge gained from carrying it out.
Your expose of the real amount of missing genes in the toller was good work too. I can’t tell you how glad I am there are two of you out there teaming up. So put me in the fan category of this work the two of you are doing.
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I’m actually not angry with Cattanach. I just disagree with this particular project.
I never said that Cattanach was an idiot. Chris didn’t either.
We did let Terrierman have it after his little passive-aggressive attacks.
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I know you aren’t angry with Cattanach and you did not attack him personally- your anger is for the fatwadude. Cattanach is a good guy with the best motives, but he learned that his idea was a dud. That happens, sometimes, and when it does, it is OK to point it out.
It is good that people are so fired up. There is a progression to acceptance and this is the first stage.
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Okay, Christopher, what’s this “We already know that Tollers don’t live long” comment about?
This is simply not true. I have been involved with Tollers for several decades. Many, many Tollers (dare I say most?) live past 13. Many Tollers live to 15 or 16, and I have heard of some living to 17 or 18.
I personally owned 5 Tollers, all related They lived to 13, 12 (he died of heart disease caused by an abscessed broken tooth; he was extremely healthy before that), 15, 14 and 12. The sire of my first Toller litter died in his sleep at 15, perfectly healthy: no arthritis, deafness, eye problems, etc. And from all the other Toller owners I know across Canada, these ages are typical.
Don’t go saying things that simply are not true about this breed.
Actually, where is the statistics to verify your claim they are healthy?
Data is not the plural of anecdotes. If we look in countries where health information is recorded in a national database (ie. KoiraNet), the anecdotes do not reflect the reality of the situation.
I’ve noticed that some people have strange definitions of ‘true.’
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Finnish Kennel Club data from 216 Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers showed that the average age of death was 7 years 11 months.
The UK KC health survey found the average age of death of UK Tollers was 8 years.
A single breed survey of 141 Tollers showed the average lifespan was 6.4 years.
Furthermore, if they really are healthy, then insurance companies would not consider them as a liability. For example, with this company, “novascotiannoutaja” is a Class 4.
http://www.tapiola.fi/www/Yksityisasiakkaat/Vakuutukset/Elaimet/Koira/maksuluokat.htm
While being a Class 1-2 is something of merit, 4-6 are not.
You are just showing us that your science literacy is very poor. 5 is an incredibly low n. You can’t make a single generalization about 5 dogs, other than those 5 dogs lived to those ages.
If I applied the same logic, then from my golden retrievers then I would claim they lived to be 13.75 on average.
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Great discussion, I don’t have much of anything significant to add except:
A) There is a breed with a hairless gene that is not a “lethal dominant” but is instead a simple recessive, & came from a mutation found in a litter of Rat Terriers. This line of hairless Rat Terriers was developed into the American Hairless Terrier & they are still actively outcrossed to Rat Terriers. Hopefully they will continue to do so for a long time to come, forever as far as I’m concerned. Ideally I’d like to see outcrosses to other terriers as well, but I’m a proponent of outcrossing in general for nearly all breeds for all the reasons already discussed here. Anyway, an outcross to AHTs to bring this gene into the populations of other hairless dogs might be an interesting experiment.
B) Dr. Mark Neff is no longer at UC Davis. He’s now with the Van Andel Institute. An interesting coincidence, he’s currently working on a project regarding the AHT’s hairless gene.
C) I decided to start breeding my chosen breed (Central Asian Shepherd Dogs) in large part because they’re still primarily used for work in their countries of origin, COO dogs are plentiful & reasonably easy to acquire, & because the UKC has a program in place to allow us to use COO dogs from non-FCI countries in our breeding programs. And best of all, our breed club specifically does NOT want closed stud books & will continue to oppose full AKC recognition unless & until we are allowed to keep an open stud book.
I don’t give two figs about my dogs’ “pedigree purity”. If it looks like a Central Asian, acts like a Central Asian, works like a Central Asian, & is a healthy & hardy animal, it’s a Central Asian. Pedigrees are only useful inasfar as they help me have some idea what any given cross will produce.
Also, we chop ears & tails. I tend to prefer natural tails, but the ears come off since my dogs are only sold to working homes where they *will* scuffle with predators.
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