If "the best" breeders are willing to tell unsupportable lies in front of the world, what do you think they are willing to tell ignorant puppy buyers in private?
The recent Crufts dust-up is a perfect example of the Health Testing charade that I discussed previously in my Limits of “Health” Testing post. There has been so much misinformation and deception being put out by the breeders/owners/exhibitors of the dogs that failed and their sympathizers that nearly everyone involved has felt the need to issue an official statement.
Let me distill the public battle of words for you in a simulated conversation:
Crufts Judge: “This Clumber Spaniel is Best of Breed at Crufts 2012.”
Crufts Vet: “This Clumber Spaniel has failed the health check.”
KC: “This Clumber Spaniel can not compete in the Gun Dog Group.”
Exhibitor: “She is super healthy dog. Her eye has conjunctivitis because it had to run for so long in the ring that was hot. There was no ectropion.”
DogWorldTV: “This dog has had every health check, it seems to me. Almost every health check.”
Exhibitor: “Totally healthy bitch because she is born in Denmark. Eye check, hips, elbows, PDP, everything else is clear with her. Maybe the problem is that I’m not English or that this breed is Clumber Spaniel. This is shame, shame! Don’t come to Crufts.”
Breeder: “Passed IPO + hunting test, HD: A/A, Elbow: o/o, Patella: free, Eye: clear, PDP1: clear, DCM: —”
Crufts Vet: “This dog has ectropion of both eyes, especially pronounced in the right eye. Conjuctivitis and an ear infection secondary to the ectropion are present.”
Exhibitor: “I’ve had this dog re-tested and it has passed.”
Ophtalomologist (sic): “No conjunctivitis, no pathological or degenerative changes.”
Fancy: “Other dogs have passed their eye checks and been failed at Crufts.”
British Veterinary Association: “The BVA/KC/ISDS eye scheme does not certify adnexal problems such as entropion, ectropion, distichiasis. Gonioscopy is not standard, but may be tested for separately. Entropion and Ectropion are very common in some breeds. Poor eyelid conformation is a source of pain and chronic low grade misery for affected dogs.”
So we have a perfect example of the owner of the dog making huge claims about how healthy this dog is because the breeder did all of 5 tests which looked at 3 joints (hips, elbows, knee cap), a limited survey of the eye, and one DNA exam for Exercised Induced Collapse.
The owner then gets caught at Crufts with a dog that has ectropion. Instead of admitting that the dog has this condition, as do many Clumber Spaniels, they lie and say that it does not have ectropion and that they have an exam result to prove it. But they are lying through omission.
Both the breeder eye test and the “ophtalomologist” test [this is how it’s spelled on the form they released!] in no way speak against the Crufts Vet’s finding of ectropion, but the owner has both lied about the existence of ectropion and claimed that both of these tests are proof against the dog having this disorder.
At the highest level of the sport under the greatest scrutiny you can imagine, a top flight breeder will still LIE through her teeth about what those health tests mean to deceive the public. Ectropion is not a joke, but neither is it a deeply held shameful secret. It’s widespread in several breeds and it’s easily diagnosed just from looking at most dogs with it. If the best of the best don’t have the stones to say “it’s epidemic in the breed and we’re willing to work on it, so what if we don’t win a ribbon for a few years while we try” then what can we expect them to say about the diseases which aren’t so superficial, aren’t so easy to diagnose by the public without benefit of breeder disclosure, and aren’t known to be so present in so many lines.
What about all the other diseases and conditions that have no test? That’s the vast majority of them. Will we still believe that the dogs these people breed are healthy when we have no data one way or another? Will we still accept their dangerous breeding practices, the ones that increase disease expression, when they claim to have healthy dogs because they have some results for a half dozen tests or less?
If they are willing to pretend that a simple eye exam clears their dogs of conditions which they know their dog does have but which the test does not actually cover, what other diseases will they knowingly cover up with such claims.
Don’t fall for the lies. There is not a single breed that has enough tests to even begin to make a blanket statement about health. Testing schemes are very limited and often fail to identify the most prevalent and costly issues in breeds. There is not a single breeder who can give you a guarantee in good faith knowing that their dogs will never develop genetic disorders.
There is no amount of experience, knowledge, or years breeding that can eliminate this uncertainty.
There is no battery of tests that can tell you your dog is healthy and will remain so.
For the vast majority of diseases that will affect our dogs, we don’t even know what we don’t know.
We are in a state of ignorance and we do ourselves no service by pretending that money back guarantees and puppy contracts are worth any more than the paper they’re written on. Claiming our dogs are healthy because we’ve put them through 2 or 3 DNA tests, one or two x-rays, and had a doctor shine a light in their eyes once or twice is madness.
No one can make these assurances to you and you’ve seen just how they will use your own desire for an easy answer to a tough question against you. They will ease your mind, tell you it’s all going to be ok, that you’re never going to have to bury a dog young, that they’ve done everything that needs to be done, but it’s all a big lie.
To claim universal health when we have a wholly inadequate toolbox to assess that is arrogance and stupidity. But what do you expect from the fancy? They think you can assess just about everything of import in a dog by watching it trot around a ring.
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I have a long time friend who is a veterinary opthalmologist and a top researcher in the field. His description of the health registry process is “they have discovered the scam where ‘you send us money and a piece of paper and we send you back a piece of paper’ “.
This is not to say that various health exams are not of some service to a breeder provided the breeder is educated enough in animal husbandry to know what a health exam is actually telling you about your breeding stock. Of course the piece of paper is not a guarantee that no problems will arise in the future.
What astonishes me about the ectropion, entropion discussion is that a long time breeder of dogs with this condition cannot recognize it with a simple physical exam – looking at the dog’s eyes. My friend has even shown me how to spot some major retinal lesions INSIDE a dog’s eye without specialized equipment. Seeing that a dog’s eyelids pocket outwards to form a diamond shaped eye opening or that the lids curve inwards so that the eyelashes scrape the eye ball generally only requires normal vision on the part of the person looking at the dog’s eyes.
These two conditions are directly, causally linked to excessively loose skin on the dog’s heads. Undoubtedly part of the problem with the breeders is that the loose skin and diamond shaped eye opening expression and exposed red conjunctiva are all part of the aesthetic of the breed. I have read in old books about the red conjunctiva of Bloodhounds supposedly scare the human prey being tracked (remember in the southern part of the US Bloodhounds were used to terrify slaves and prisoners into not trying to escape). I have seen something similar posted about Neapolitan Mastiffs as guard dogs.
A lot of dog problems are created by strange aesthetic choices by the humans who admire the particular breeds of dogs. Especially when there is a lack of understanding of the consequences of the aesthetic choice.
The merle color is an especially obvious attribute of this sort. Yes I find it attractive, but now that I know what causes it genetically and the price an animal may have to pay in terms of quality of life if it gets two doses of the merle gene, I am so grateful that we do not have it in my principle breed and I will just have to make do with silver brindles and chinchillas if I want silvery colored dogs. That is a case where education teaches you to control the aesthetically triggered emotional response.
But it is going to be a long uphill fight to convince the masses. Look at the number of women who deform their feet wearing high heeled shoes.
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How anyone can claim a dog with such obvious ectropion as the Clumber pictured above has passed an eye exam is beyond me. I can see it from across a ring. Maybe he doesn’t have PRA, but he certainly does not have healthy eyelid conformation. Such loose eyelids will constantly predispose a hunting dog to injury & infection, but I suppose that doesn’t matter for a show dog that does nothing but get groomed & trot around a ring. He is a Clumber Spaniel in name only as far as I am concerned, but I am of the opinion that it’s a dog’s function, not its appearance, that determines what kind of dog it is. Interesting how such things are seen as normal simply because they are common. Like the open fontanels in Chihuahuas or hip dysplasia in GSDs, common does not equal normal & it CERTAINLY does not equal desirable, as one Chihuahua breeder recently told me! Yes, you heard right. I was told the open fontanel in an adult Chihuahua is a GOOD thing because it shows the dog is pure. Have you ever heard such bullshit in your life?
The eye exam process I use INCLUDES entropion & ectropion (why wouldn’t it? As you say, it’s obvious upon cursory examination whether a dog has either condition, so it’s not like the ophthalmologist has to actually work very hard to determine it), as well as glaucoma, PRA, cataracts, & other eye conditions. Because many of these conditions are progressive, one single CERF exam is NOT sufficient. I CERF my breeding stock at 2 years of age, then again without 12 months of any planned breeding, & again at 7 years of age & then every two years after the age of 10, so I can track any & all changes in the health of the eyes.
The CERF exams are nowhere near the extent of the health testing I do, nor is health testing the *only* tool I use to determine fitness for breeding (the dog must also be sound, free of exaggeration, athletic & agile, with great stamina & power, & possess a stable, working temperament, & the dog must prove herself/himself as a working livestock guardian and/or personal protection dog). ALL health test results are recorded in a public database, pass or fail, & I offer rebates to any puppy buyers who health test the non-breeding pups they purchase from me (health testing is required for those who purchase breeding stock, among other requirements) as well as fill out surveys regarding age, height, weight, diet, exercise, fitness level, etc., so I can keep detailed records about EVERY dog I produce & know EXACTLY what, if any, health or temperament concerns exist.
I do not pretend to produce dogs that will live to be 20 years old & never have so much as a sniffle, but I do strive to do everything in my power to produce healthy, robust, functional animals with normal lifespans, & health testing is merely one of the tools I use to do so.
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that is a normal clumber eye.
And we’re supposed to be happy that dysfunctional is “normal.” That just means you’ve acquiesced to genetic torture via painful deformity. Pretty sad. Just because something is “normal” or “accepted” or even “in the standard” doesn’t make it ethical.
Well said. Several breeds are currently bred for painful conditions. What good is a dog show when dogs with painful inherited diseases are the winners and dogs without the mutations are killed or castrated and banned from dog shows.
Think of the Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs, those with the problem are shown, those without it are usually killed. Backwards. The dog shows have it backwards. The idea should be to have dogs as healthy and tame as possible.
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