By speaking out so often against the unethical actions of other breeders, am I unwittingly aiding the enemy?
The “I Hate Dog Breeders” Facebook group is using my essays for propaganda.
The main thrust of this blog is breeding ethics, how we should treat our dogs and structure breeding schemes: what is effective, good, and moral. This is most often a high level of discussion, above the implementation and details, above laws and politics. I argue against behaviors I think are immoral or unjustified, issues of legality and custom are tangential.
But we don’t live in a philosophy classroom, we live in a world of laws and competing interests struggling for power.
As breeders large and small we do not exist in a vacuum and networking with other breeders and owners is a necessity. The days of Royal Kennels and one-man breeds are gone. No breeder is an island. And thus the dirty business of politics, commerce, and human emotion are at play.
Our ethics can guide how we treat our own dogs and even our fellow man, but individual ethics are not universal. Animal Rights groups espouse a system of ethics that precludes any of us who even own dogs from being ethical agents, let alone those who breed and sell animals. And these groups spend no small amount of their multi-million dollar budgets on writing laws that would chip away at breeder freedoms and produce advertising campaigns to poison public opinion against animal ownership and breeding.
Many of the most popular posts on this blog are not Anti-AR, they are criticisms of other breeders:
- Westminster Rewards Cruelty
- Double Merle Breeders Don’t Want You to See This
- No Happy Ending for Blind Dane
- Something is Rotten in Harlequin Danes
- Who’s Your Double Merle Daddy?
- The Burden of Blindness
- Parasite Breeders
- The Unfortunate Case of the Wild Australian Shepherd
So what to make of the fact that as much or more of the content on this blog are arguments against the actions of breeders versus the Animal Rights lobby? If the enemy is authoritarian Animal Rights fanatics and my allies are other breeders, why do I write so much about the ethical abuses of other breeders and am I offering aid and comfort to the enemy?
If I am going to fight for ethical dog breeding, there has to be something worthwhile to fight for and the breeding abuses I cite have no place in an ethical society of breeders. These are things I refuse to stand for, so I must stand against them. Such practices are a liability for all of us, the likes of which are sufficiently graphic and unsympathetic to the public and to lawmakers that allowing these abuses in our community will damn us all, not just the unethical.
They blame us all for the sins of commercial breeders. They blame us all for the sins of hoarders. They blame us all for puppy mills and shit holes and dog fighters and people who just don’t give a fuck about the dogs they produce. That blame is misplaced and we can only hope that when the law comes for those “breeders,” we won’t be taken out with the trash. And that’s not a safe assumption, these laws are universally broad in reach, deep in effect, and unsympathetic to the hobby breeder.
But what about the blame for the crimes “good” breeders do commit? What about the behavior we sanction, either actively or passively? We have to fight a constant uphill battle against the legal “solutions” to bad breeding from outside our community, we can’t afford to have unethical breeders at our backs too. We have to jump through hoops just to distinguish ourselves and our dogs to the public who doesn’t tune in long enough to tell the difference between a factory bred dog and an artisan bred one. We can not be sabotaged by our own membership.
The internet is the great equalizer and breeding practices that the fancy has long accepted as “the way things are done” are being exposed to a public that has not been acculturated and desensitized. Make no mistake, these are the people who are judging the ethics of our actions and they don’t care about engraved silver cups or acrylic ribbons at all. Such concerns as ear-set or how a dog looks in profile during a stack or a trot are not weighed against the unpalatable practices that have been used to produce them. They don’t approve of the ends or the means. And why should they?
Ethical abuses are like cancer. They start small and localized but if they are not snuffed out, they grow and invade the entire body. They don’t kill right away, they can take years before their effects are lethal. Cells at the margin of the cancer are influenced by the robust success of the cancer cells. They follow suit. The cancer spreads. The immune system–the ethical regulator of the body–can’t tell the good from the bad any more.
When I call out ethical sabotage from within our community of conscientious breeders, I do so because they are cancer. If we don’t correctly admonish them for what they are doing to dogs, we tacitly approve of what they are doing and the success they find attracts others to consider the same behavior. We cannot let the immorality grow.
When the time comes to purge the cancer, will there be enough healthy culture left to survive the treatment? Legislators aren’t surgeons, they will cut us off at the knees to remove an ingrown toenail. Their laws will not distinguish between the good and the bad, it will be more damaging than radiation. More good breeders will be wiped out than bad in an effort to kill the cancer. And every day we avoid treating the disease we increase the chance that the patient will die from the treatment. The end of companion animals as we know it.
We either clean our own house or the government will condemn it, kick us out, and raze it to the ground.
It might not be politically savvy in the short term to be honest and open about problems within the breeder community, as those zealots who are against all dog ownership and breeding can and do use our candor to their advantage. But in the long term, we cannot afford to shelter and protect the unethical among us. We have to be better, we have to be objectively good and do good works. Our dogs actually have to be better than the marginal “breeders” we look down on. And it will not be us who judges our product.
We have to earn the trust and support of the public, and we have to maintain that at all costs. Otherwise we will find ourselves outnumbered and besieged at all sides. And once that happens it’s only a matter of time. They’ll starve us out while we cannibalize each other with blame and recrimination. Throwing the unethical among us to the wolves then will not save us. Too little, too late. It will just confirm to the masses that their witch hunt is working and that there’s more to be done. They won’t stop until it’s all burned down.
Only then will they realize “well where am I supposed to get my next dog from?” “How come no one breeds anymore?” “Why do I need a license to own a dog and why are they incredibly expensive?” “What ever happened to Old Shep?”
And then, all we can ask ourselves will be “why didn’t we do something about it sooner?” And there’s no good answer to that question.
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Anton
Christopher
Lawrence Dillard
Lech
Stephanie
Essere
Tne status of the dog has increased over the past few decades, but at the same time, this bizarre animal rights movement has tracked along with it. It’s like one of those parasitic vampire squid, and it uses the simple fact that people love their dogs to demagogue all sorts of horrible legislation.
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Here’s a good example that just came in my inbox:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/933/517/496/kmart-stop-using-wild-animals-in-commercials/?z00m=20527202
I have signed shark conservation petitions with petition site in the past, so of course I get this one.
It says that because one shark died we should just demand that Kmart stop using wild animals in ads.
Never mind that the animals normally used in advertising aren’t treated poorly at all.
But this one example is designed to demagogue the entire issue.
I’ve actually had people post anti-hunting petitions to my Facebook wall. MY wall.
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Keep saying it, Chris. Not only are bad breeders a threat to the rest of us; some have been known to collude with animal rights activists to attempt to stop the breeding of dogs they do not consider sufficiently “pure”; that is, dogs that have not been inbred to the point of loss of genetic variability. I’ll continue to fight both, and breed good dogs that go to good homes, as long as I can.
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“some have been known to collude with animal rights activists to attempt to stop the breeding of dogs they do not consider sufficiently ‘pure’ “.
That’s diabolical, and I don’t doubt it.
There’s every reason to point out problems, but if that’s ALL one does, then it does end up appearing that that’s all there is. When one writes about GSDs who are exaggerated for “reach and drive” in the conformation ring (either exaggerated hocks or “banana backs”), if one never mentions dogs that are used for seeing eye and their breeding program, or that for working HGH GSDS, or for those used in police/military roles, the impression readers get is that the “conformation” type is ALL there is. If you never mention any dogs bred and registered in AKC or UKC or the “Kennel club” that are used for SAR or agility or any other physically sound activity, the impression is that there aren’t ANY. Yes, there are breeders of double merle collies. And there are those who also breed the kinds of collies listed here: http://www.awca.net/honorsdogs.htm. There are those who DO care. There are breeders who try to select and breed sound dogs that can “do” things.
I have to disagree, Peggy.
Christopher wrote many criticisms about trials, and he endorsed the AKC a few times. On the other hand, he endorsed Alaskan Husky registry. He also sponsored the toller cross as well. In addition, he wrote many articles on genetics which don’t involve dogs.
It is not his job to write fluff about breeders’ activities. Why should he? The blog has a genetics bent to it. Within the microcosm which define dog blogs, Christopher Landauer is the Razib Khan of the dog-world.
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It’s not Chris’s job to do ANY blogging at all. I don’t think he gets paid for this except when we agree to donate frisbee $$.
Chris speaks of the issues of AR more often than he cares to admit, I think, but it’s intwined in blog posts with a broad unethical-breeding topic, so you have to pick those things out. And of course, when people are fanatical about a cause, as in AR, people tend to pick out only what they wish to.
The Alaskan husky registry and toller-cross endorsements were there, but they don’t really stick out the way issues like the merle X merle collies do, or the posts about pit bulls filling shelters; the latter of which, much as Chris might be right, resulted for many, in a slap in the face as if to say “Gee, thanks Chris. I try to help an abandoned animal and you’re saying I”m a ass for it.”
Not that this is what Chris was saying, but you can be sure that’s how some folks felt from reading it.
Anyway, I’m with Peggy. Of course when it comes to some breeds like GSDs, a lot of interest in breeding then for work and vitality stems from military, police work, etc. And you can’t win on the AR front there, because they will be quick to scream about how dogs should not be pawns of human violence.
Like Gilda Radner’s anchorwoman ego said, “It just goes to show you it’s allllllways something.”
Still, I hope Chris tries for a few bits of good news. 🙂
Don’t worry. I’ll get there soon enough. I have an argument that Pit Bulls are like an invasive species in the dog world. This will not go over well with the Pibble Mommies. There’s an external cost to adopting out so many of one breed. And it’s not just on all the other breeds. It’s also on Pit Bulls themselves, not in the cost of the millions put down, but in the few righteous breeders who want to preserve the breed and want to do right by the dogs and want to survive the current mess… they are greatly damaged as well.
I’d ask, when it’s so PC to adopt a shelter Pit Bull… who is going to adopt breeding stock quality dogs and demonstrate their merits? When breed ambassadors make certain pit bulls famous by doing good works and amazing things with them, what happens when there is no breeder there to learn from that dog and to USE their genetics to make better pit bulls in the future? Heck, when those amazing dogs break down from physical imperfections and suffer a series of health crises, there is no breeder learning from this to improve it in the future.
To point, I think Wallace the Pit Bull is one of the most awesome dogs on the planet and his owners are stellar people. But from the vantage point of a breeder, of someone who is thinking long term for the breed, he’s an unfortunate case. I regret that there is not some breeder who is out there learning from Wallace and saying “hey, we’re working on the health problems by doing X, Y, and Z, but we are also maintaining the excellence in temperament and agility and trainability by doing A, B, and C.” So much good will and gravitas for the breed in general, and this is a good thing for combating the negative views, but … heck, do we really need to make the breed MORE popular with people? No! We need to make the good dogs popular with good people who will support a vibrant and healthy gene pool going forward and make them a lot less popular with people who continue to use them for blood sport and as “ghetto ponies” and testicular enhancement.
I will say the same thing about the stellar rescue herding dogs like Aussies and Border Collies that reach the pinnacle of dog sport. They improve the breed image, but there is just so much wasted genetic potential there. Sure, that’s not the only concern with rescuing dogs and what not… there are many fine things that happen because of these dogs… but I just see so many people who are bat shit crazy in the breeding world who continue to push out dogs for ribbons and I don’t see the same sort of breeding for other more robust and diverse qualities.
We squander great genetics, we celebrate crap. Makes me sad.
All a result of the spay/neuter push. I see where it has merits in many circumstances, but yeah, with conformation shows always being the centerpiece of AKC activities instead of agility or herding or odor detection, the ring breeders take carte blanche as though only they are worthy of intact dogs. By the time a Wallace or a fantastic, healthy agility winner is known, odds are he’s already been altered.
But we’ve all discussed that already.
Indeed ethical breeders and writers such as Chris are caught in a Ring of Fire of politics unscrupulous, and unethical breeders or is it just regretfully terribly uneducated individuals?
I note mention of the AWCA of their Award of Merit. Well, seen this group act more like Animal Activist. Check out the Seedley incident just for starters. New York No Kill Shelter? Indeed the enemy within so to speak.
I’ve seen that happen over and over again – somebody comes into the dog world with all good intentions, alters their dog, and the dog ends up being stellar, but whoops too late!
. . . I’ve done it myself, in fact.
Of course not. Everyone remembers the bad days. Very few remember the good days.
The point is: his blog posts are not as negative as Peggy Ritcher makes it out to be. A quick search to the blog archive will reveal that.
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Actually, Christopher should start a new sub menu: How Breeders Make Themselves Look Like Uncaring and/or Willfully Stupid Assholes to the General Public.
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I would share anything in this category far & wide, ha ha ha!
why do you think it is “fluff” Dave? If one thinks that the breeder of “Avalanche” is doing something awful (and I agree), why would it be “fluff” to point out someone doing it “right”? My point in using the working collie list was not “fluff” (and is SAR fluff?) but to provide a starting point for comparison to the Avalanche post (it’s hard to be a top agility or SAR dog if you are blind or physically crippled as the GSD in the photo at the top of the blog). I’ve never known HGH or police /k9 breeding to be termed “fluff”.
As for the NSDTR, as I pointed out on that blog post, there were no stated goals for the NSDTR other than “lower the COI” (but to where?) and be “healthier” (compared to what?) — no one had any plan for what a NSDTR should be other than some medium sized red/white dog — of which there are plenty without calling them a NSDTR. If the dogs aren’t even being selected for SOME ability to toll or retrieve, what’s the point of the label?
Christopher asked a question. IMO, the answer is yes, he does help out the ARs. I quite agree about the problems he points out. I don’t always agree about some of the solutions or what I consider to be the lack of good discussion of solution options presented here. One presumes the blog is for the purpose of discussion, not just everyone clapping at a given performance.
If your breed has a minimal amount of genetic diversity, bringing in any new blood is a virtue all by itself. There really doesn’t need to be further scrutiny on that front. Questions of goals and measures of success are minutia that can be worked out by the breeder. And those same questions can be asked equally of anyone who breeds.
I also hesitate to anoint any activity as necessary and sufficient to declare a dog worthwhile. Police forces were using crippled GSDs for years. And SAR? No uniform standards there. A dog with cancer or hip dysplasia can perform exemplary at that goal. Heck, the most prominent SAR person I know breeds a bitch with hips that are near the bottom of her breed (or any breed) ~.70 DI. Does the fact that this dog chases chickens on a hobby farm and finds lost children make that go away?
There are Border Collie trialists who write very popular books who claim that HD is a BREED BONUS!
So really, I stick to things that I can say, beyond any doubt, that is immoral. It’s much more subjective picking nits over dew claws or taping ears or training methods or feeding raw or doing agility versus flyball versus Schutzhund or what ever. There are good writers who do these things and too often it seems that they write apologia and hagiography instead of criticism.
Christopher wrote: If your breed has a minimal amount of genetic diversity, bringing in any new blood is a virtue all by itself.
==I disagree. It may be VITAL to bring in new blood, but “ANY” is NOT a virtue. One doesn’t want to bring in just as many problems one is trying to solve (hypothetically, for example, genetic epilepsy or PRA etc), so the dog/bitch providing that new blood should be sound and healthy at the least. IMO, since one has a vast choice of WHAT new blood to bring in, one should have some kind of criteria for what the choice is. And for where one goes after doing that. At some point one has to select what dogs one is going forward with. Is the only goal to be healthy red & white medium sized dogs or more than that? if the latter, what are the goals? It makes a difference not only for that first cross but any F1 …F5 generations thereafter.
Christopher: Police forces were using crippled GSDs for years — Are you certain? I haven’t seen evidence of that. And if they did, then they were stupid buyers (like buying a Yugo) because there were sound dogs out there. In the military, the criteria is pretty high. The dogs aren’t cheap to get or to train and washouts are not desireable. Most SAR groups I know of ALSO have pretty high standards because the dogs have to be able to do the wilderness searches, etc and dogs with cancer or HD don’t hold up to that. But if you don’t like my suggestions, no problem — my point remains. It comes out that you don’t like ANY dogs bred by breeders, including your own breed (by the way, what BC breeder wrote a book saying HD was a plus? I’ve read a number of herding books and haven’t ever come across that claim by anyone).
I don’t care about dew claws, flyball/schutzhund etc. — my point was that so far, you’ve gone after clearly obvious issues (double merles, excessive wrinkles, etc) but haven’t noted any pluses in terms of a breeder trying to go for healthy sound animals. For that matter, you might consider discussing how the lay breeder (not everyone is particularly apt at science) can use stuff like this http://www.oarsijournal.com/article/S1063-4584(10)00420-6/abstract
or how to use estimated breeding values (EBV).
Have you read my Inbred Mistakes posts? I wrote those for a reason. The line of thought that you can bring in some big nasty is just wrong. It’s not supported. The risk is so overblown. The only way you get problems from that is (1) Dominant disease, which is EASY to remove and UM, you still have selection and who would select a dog with a dominant disease as their choice? You still seem to deny that anyone exercises the same SELECTION they can within their own breed. And (2) Recessive disease. WELL, if you’re bringing in a dog for heterozyosity (hybrid vigor) the only way you’re going to get problems from genes not in your population already is if you later INBREED on this dog again. Duh. Problem with inbreeding, not outcrossing. AND, I’ll note, that if the genes are recessive and new to the breed, they are EASY to remove by drift alone, let alone selection.
The notion that new blood is somehow contagious and is going to spread like wildfire through a breed is just INANE.
What I see you doing again and again is removing the benefit of the doubt from out crossing. This just isn’t smart policy. For one, please name for me 5 breeds which have been ruined by too much out crossing. Name 5 that have been ruined with “just as many problems” from the out crossed stock. They don’t exist, I doubt you can name one. So why is your skepticism entirely disproportionate to the risk?
Christopher: For one, please name for me 5 breeds which have been ruined by too much out crossing. Name 5 that have been ruined with “just as many problems” from the out crossed stock. They don’t exist, I doubt you can name one. So why is your skepticism entirely disproportionate to the risk?
— not ruined. However the MDRI gene is found in the long coat whippet (silken windhound) and clearly came from the sheltie crosses employed, since it is NOT found in whippets. Here is a case where a cross was made to obtain a characteristic (long coat) where inadvertently a problem characteristic was ALSO introduced. I really have no problem with the creation of silken windhounds. I do, however, think the shelties chosen could have been chosen with more care.
Wasn’t the rejection of the NBT crossbreeding effort with Boxers in large part due to the fact that the NBT gene is a semi lethal? the intent (to achieve a bob tail that didn’t require docking) was acceptable — the problem was that there was a lack of understanding (and later, of acceptance) that the goal wasn’t achievable because of the gene involved.
In researching use of Altdeuchers as a possible cross with other herding dogs, it became quite clear that the goal of eliminating or even reducing epilepsy was not going to work — they had attempted some crossings in Europe via FCI and had had epileptic dogs crop up — of course with epilepsy, the problem is that the gene(s) and even the mode of inheritance isn’t clearly understood (there’s at least 3 different conclusions regarding inheritance as a result of various studies. One a dominant with a “repressor gene” that apparently rather works like the AY gene that can be suppressed by K; a poly genetic with a gene of “major affect” and a recessive. Kinda makes it hard to decide what’s best. It isn’t like merle where you can largely SEE the gene in action).
Merle in some breeds (like the Chihuahuas) was clearly introduced well after the “landrace” and breed was established (probably in the 40s for the Chi). Do you think this was a beneficial introduction of a gene? I don’t.
“– not ruined. However the MDRI gene is found in the long coat whippet (silken windhound) and clearly came from the sheltie crosses employed, since it is NOT found in whippets”
Just a small FYI- Silken Windhounds are NOT the same thing as long-haired Whippets. Some long-haired Whippets were used in the development of Windhounds because the guy who had them claimed they were indeed purebred Whippets, & of course it was later discovered that they were instead Sheltie and/or BC/Whippet crosses. This showed a little naivete’ on the part of the Silken Windhound developers, obviously, but they did not deliberately use Sheltie or BC in their first crosses.
And of course, the MDR-1 issue is an easy one to fix as it is a recessive trait. Simply DNA testing all pups, which the ISWS requires before they can be registered with the organization, ensures that we know who all the carriers are, thus it is easy to avoid breeding a carrier to a carrier.
The weird thing about MDR1 in Silken Windhounds and Long-Haired Whippets is that according to the VetMed site it is MUCH more prevalent in both than it is in Shelties generally (15% for Shelties vs. 65% for Long-Haired Whippets and 30% for Silken Windhounds). You would think that the gene would have been diluted rather than concentrated, unless they were doing tons of what would seem to me to be unnecessary backcrossing, but I don’t know the history of either breed well enough (and I doubt there is any publicly-accessible documentation of the Sheltie crosses). In any case, there IS a test for MDR1, and hopefully it’s being integrated into good breeding practices.
http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/depts-VCPL/breeds.aspx
Pretty good example of founder effects and/or a bottleneck. The new breed was not founded by random mixers of a lot of both parent breeds. Thus, their incidence of disease matters less than the actual dogs used, which is likely very very few.
Longhaired Whippets are incredibly inbred, as I understand it. I seem to recall their founder’s website actually bragging about that, when I perused it years ago.
I would think a whippet/bc cross would be more likely successful than a saluki/bc cross for disc dog. Regarding the saluki being used for crossing, I doubt that it is “NO ONE” allows it, although it is likely true that most wouldn’t. I can’t see someone like Jess objecting. My view was simply that based on what I’ve seen regarding the physical requirements, a saluki wouldn’t be as optimal as a whippet regarding a cross. My point — not “ANY” cross. And yes, the MDRI gene is far more common in the lh whippet/silken windhound than in shelties. yes it is probably “founder’s effect”. It is also, IMO, a case study in “picked the wrong dog for use in outcrossing” — the test for MDRI wasn’t available at the time (in fact, it wasn’t even known that the gene existed) and it was “plain bad luck” to choose a dog (or dogs) that had this gene — Theoretically, selecting away from a dog that showed “ivermect sensitivity” might have avoided it, even though it wasn’t known at the time.
There’s apparently something similar going on with black mastiffs — black can occur both as a recessive (a) or dominant (K) and is apparently very very rare in English mastiffs. There’s a kennel which breeds them and the question has come up as to if these dogs are the result of a cross to either a Newfoundland or a Neo mastiff. Both of those breeds could certainly provide “black” and both would certainly reduce COI, but both also have their own health issues, so picking a sound one might be a bit of a challenge. While black is in itself “benign” (K black is even thought by some to have some plus, hence it’s growing occurrence in wolves) but you get the WHOLE package in a breeding, not just the one gene or a change in COI. IF one is breeding for a particular goal (reduction of uric acid issues, reduce CEA, PRA, etc etc etc) or even something “benign” (long coat, color,), I don’t have an issue — I believe folk ought to be able to breed dogs for what they want as long as it isn’t demonstrably harmful to the dogs (such as double merles) — but sometimes folk err in that– as with the NBT. The fault is NOT with the attempt. It was in not recognizing the facts regarding the NBT gene as a semi lethal, or at least, not addressing them. The fault in the LH whippet wasn’t in it’s creation, it was in picking a carrier of a problem and then failing to address it (yes, hopefully, that is now happening).
One of the issues one has to be careful about in ANY breeding (within or outside of a registry) is that while gene tests do exist, they don’t exist for “everything”. There are issues that there aren’t even good tests for yet. The one plus in purpose breeding (not just purebred, because you do find this in KNPV, guide dogs and others that do crossings) is where one keeps a pedigree and RECORDS regarding the health of the dog and its ancestors. That is often the biggest problem for a breeder — the lack of data regarding health in dogs where a DNA test or “affected” test doesn’t exist.
I don’t think it’s prudent to call it an outcross at all. It doesn’t look like an outcross in theory or in practice or genetically. It is not bringing in new blood to a larger gene pool. Something that would increase both the real and effective founders, increase the effective genomes, increase the number of alleles per locus, etc.
Rather it primarily a bottle-necking of two breeds that are then merged into a new breed. Individual early litters might have been definitional outcross matings. No doubt. But they were not then merged back into the larger populations. And, this is speculation, it is unlikely that enough of either breed were used in the breed creation to have a larger number of founders, etc. for the new breed than either of the constituent breeds.
So it is actually NOT indicative of any issue you’d face with an outcross program, save if you happened to do that program once or twice on an island.
It sounds like it was its creation, not the concept of making a new breed, but in the limited number of founders, that is a problem. It’s not even that there was a founder with an issue like MDR1, it’s that there were so few founders (or, the unlikely scenario that there were many founders which had much higher MDR1 incidence than the source populations).
– Since MDR1 is not the same locus as the hair gene, it can be easily bred out. Keep what they want, get rid of the negative, and the neutral can stay or go according to drift (which pretty much says that they will tend to go over time if not selected for just given the dynamics).
So, point ME. I didn’t say that it’s impossible for a disease to enter, just that everything numerically about the situation favors the outcross. One selected for gene (hair), tens of thousands of indeterminate genes that provide hybrid vigor. One shitty gene that can be removed without sacrificing either of the first two beneficial classes.
– NBT was a desired trait. I contend that it’s basically a disease, but Dr. Cattanach didn’t view it like that. The question would be … what unintentional disease came with it? I’m not aware of any. Boxers are no worse off now after the cross than before it in that regards and even if we now determine OMFG that was a mistake and decide against NBT, the breed is still not worse off. The Cattanach dogs can still be bred to maintain what traits they have and the incidence of NBT reduced over time. Heck, as it stands now, if humans stopped interfering with the breed and guiding it, the number of NBT dogs is too small making genetic drift likely to carry that gene to extinction in the breed long term.
– Altdeuchers. Out crossing isn’t MAGIC. Saying that some outcross didn’t achieve some goal isn’t evidence against my point. For example, given that Border Collies and English Shepherds share ancestry and both have problems with hip dysplasia at about the same frequency, an out cross to that breed would not likely change the incidence of HD more or less than what I could achieve within Border Collies. But along other sets of genes, there would be more promise.
If you could find a breed with NO epilepsy, a blind outcross to that breed would improve Altdeuchers. If the genes responsible for epilepsy are the same and in the same concentrations across all dogs, you’d need to find or create a population that had a different distribution. You can’t dilute 10% alcohol with 10% alcohol.
– Merle. Again, introduced as a bonus that had to be kept and selected over time and it still hasn’t destroyed any breeds, nor is there any evidence of unwanted side effects! I don’t like merle and am one of the few people who treat it as a disease even with one copy. But the decision to add it to breeds where it didn’t exist before was intentional, and likewise removing it is easy (don’t breed to it) and the vast majority of the breed goes along much like it was before, neither benefiting or being harmed by the outcross.
It’s not like the flu. You can’t get it from being NEAR someone who has it. It’s not even like herpes. You can’t spread it like wildfire with a few degrees of sexual separation from the source. An outcross can’t doom a breed any more than Hemophilia has doomed all of mankind.
you asked for an example. I gave you one. my objection, which you seem to ignore, is NOT against crossing. It’s against the assertion that ANY cross is better. And yes, if someone states that ANY cross is better, I feel entitled to question why that was not done previously by the person involved.
IF, on the other hand, we are discussing the issue that outcrosses can be helpful if done well, I agree. I think the P/D cross project was an excellent example. I think the NBT effort was a failure — in both cases someone tried to bring in a gene that they felt would help. In one it did. In the other case, the gene wasn’t as benign as they wanted it to be. Introducing it to boxers would not have been a good thing EVEN if a Corgi/boxer has a very low COI compared to other boxers.
Re the saluki/BC comment. I felt you were flip. But the stats indicate that a Saluki/BC isn’t one of the optimal crosses for improved performance in the disc/flyball world. I mentioned the Border jack and some other crosses ARE indeed known in some performance venues. I would see no reason why a Lab/Golden cross wouldn’t be good retrievers if done with two hunting lines of each breed. So yes, if your goal is a better disc/flyball dog, my thought is that crossing to a saluki may not be your best choice. Whippets might be better (My thought is based on the size issue).
As for an outcross can’t doom a breed? well, I suppose then that founder’s effect and matador breeding doesn’t either, because those are ONE dog and it isn’t catching there, either. Personally, I think that if they’d known about CEA in the dog, it might not have been a good idea to use that particular winning BC so much he is now in all the pedigrees. Didn’t DOOM BCs. But it sure as heck, IMO, was more negative than positive that he was used so much and then his offspring were. I’m only stating that the same care ought to be made in crossing dogs between breeds. There’s evidence in labradoodles that problems common to both Labradors AND poodles are starting to crop up — because too many people thought just ANY Labrador and ANY poodle was going to be “better” in regards to recessives. And that only works for the F1 generation. If one is going to cross, then it ought, IMO, to be for more than just “reduce COI” (to what?)
The lack of Salukis in dog-sport world may have more to do with the fact no one is willing to sell a puppy to a known cross-breeder.
Politics is more at play than actual results.
Dave recently posted..The Sheep and the Wolverine
I’d say it’s (1) they are not common dogs. (2) They are not common dogs at all among the working class or hippies. That’s the main thrust of disc sport. It’s entirely uncommon for people to show up bombed, or to get there by the end of the day during a competition. (3) No breeding ethic means much less chance that performance is going to lead to an increase in popularity of certain dogs.
We see innovation in fly ball. Frisbee is way more laid back.
What stats are these? Perhaps that you don’t see many Salukis? Well I think you just don’t see very many Salukis period. I don’t think they are a very widespread pet breed, an as I’ve said before, there is much more of a got dog -> got disc … attitude in Frisbee versus “I got a dog so I can play disc, I made a buying choice, or I breed dogs for a venue.”
True for F1s, although I’d like to see how much of the size is heritable. But I think as we saw with the Boxer x Corgi cross that you can return to type very quickly. Of course it would be more complex because hips are more complex. But I doubt you’d be working at cross purposes reducing size and maintaining hips, as in general larger and faster growing dogs have worse hips outside of the sight hounds that are devoid of HD.
I think you could pick any of them really and end up where you wanted.
Of course the size issue comes into play more with the freestyle routines where dogs are expected to vault or run under legs, etc.
Also, on a tangent, I think that whippet might be one of the components that separates the Border Collie from the larger Rough Collie. Just a possible theory I saw written somewhere (although, of course, this would need to be documented with DNA). I’ve seen them listed as a progenitor breed.
Peggy highly motivated breeders such aa Chris and others corresponding on this Blog are doing a speculator job passing on new breeding knowledge. We that look up the big new words and genetic terms spending time studying our breeds with new findings see the relationship in all of Chris’ research to positive inputs to the breeder seeking knowledge.
Example regarding autoimmune problems in pure breeds. Suppose he wrote Blogs on this subject:
Thers are major histocompatibility complex (MHC), group of genes that code for proteins found on the surfaces of cells that help the immune system recognize foreign substances. MHC proteins are found in all higher vertebrates. In human beings the complex is also called the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system.
There are two major types of MHC protein molecules—class I and class II. Class I MHC molecules span the membrane of almost every cell in an organism, while class II molecules are restricted to cells of the immune system called macrophages and lymphocytes.
In humans these molecules are encoded by several genes all clustered in the same region on chromosome 6, We now see the same studies focus in canines to chromosome 12.
Each gene has an unusually large number of alleles (alternate forms of a gene that produce alternate forms of the protein). As a result, it is very rare for two individuals to have the same set of MHC molecules, which are collectively called a tissue type.
The MHC also contains a variety of genes that code for other proteins—such as complement proteins, cytokines (chemical messengers), and enzymes—that are called class III MHC molecules.
MHC molecules are important components of the immune system because they allow T lymphocytes to detect cells, such as macrophages, that have injested infectious microorganisms. When a macrophage engulfs a microorganism, it partially digests it and displays peptide fragments of the microbe on its surface, bound to MHC molecules.
We have all heard of the T lymphocyte from Dr. Jean Dodds decades ago. Now we see why genetically this was a ground breaker on her part as the Queen of the Thyroid the basis of the autoimmune system in my personal studies, experience and observations.
The T lymphocyte recognizes the foreign fragment attached to the MHC molecule and binds to it, stimulating an immune response. In uninfected healthy cells, the MHC molecule presents peptides from its own cell (self peptides), to which T cells do not normally react.
MHC molecules were initially defined as antigens that stimulate an organism’s immunologic response to transplanted organs and tissues.
In the 1950s skin graft experiments carried out in mice showed that graft rejection was an immune reaction mounted by the host organism against foreign tissue. The host recognized the MHC molecules on cells of the graft tissue as foreign antigens and attacked them. Thus, the main challenge in a successful transplantation is to find a host and a donor with tissue types as similar as possible.
The term histocompatibility, derived from the Greek wordhisto (meaning “tissue”) and the English word compatibility, was applied to the MHC molecules to describe their function in transplantation reactions and does not reveal their true physiological function.
He writes a very lay breeder Blog sorry.
Blogs are free. You could get one and write it yourself instead of telling Christopher what he should be putting on his blog.
Jess recently posted..Guest Post: Suzanne Phillips: Why dogs develop food allergies
Christopher ASKED a question. If he didn’t want replies, he shouldn’t have asked. If he only wanted those who agreed with him and thought he was perfect, then he should either have only “approved” acolytes or a blog that doesn’t allow for comments at all (both of which are to be found on the internet).
The question is “Aiding the Enemy or Cleaning House?” Not, “What does Peggy think Christopher should write about?”
Jess recently posted..Guest Post: Suzanne Phillips: Why dogs develop food allergies
Actually, the question was “am I unwittingly aiding the enemy?” my answer was yes, he is.
And you think that “There’s every reason to point out problems, but if that’s ALL one does, then it does end up appearing that that’s all there is.”
Even if we disregard the fact that this is CHRISTOPHERS PERSONAL BLOG, and therefore he has ONE duty, and that is to write about things that interest him, your statement is, quite frankly, a reeking pile of garbage. There are loads, tons, of web sites, articles, and blogs on ‘good breeders.’ There are tons of personal breeder web sites and blogs. There are tons of articles on how to find a ‘responsible’ breeder. ‘Responsible’ dog breeding is all the rage. A google search will get you over a million results.
Do you really think that profiling ‘good’ breeders will change the minds of people like the Dogtime woman? People who have a significant portion of their ego tied up in baseless beliefs do not change their minds. Opposing information, especially FACTUAL (as opposed to opinions) opposing information, simply makes them defensive and strengthens their beliefs. Look up ‘backfire’ and you will see what I mean.
I have experienced this personally with people who are vehemently anti-crossbreeding. For every accusation that I counter, they will make up a new one. At the end of the discussion, they’ve made up an entire story about me and my motives, just to reinforce their contention that no cross-breeding should be allowed.
You do this yourself, with your strident insistence that open registries will result in some kind of breeding free for all, despite being presented with plenty of good evidence that this is not so.
I suppose it’s not really your fault, though. It’s just a natural defense mechanism to keep your brain from exploding.
It is a fact that there is very little REAL discussion about ethics in dog breeding. The mainstream fancy is so tribal and it’s collective ego is so invested in a particular worldview that ‘ethics’ has been reduced to a check list. You know what result I’ve seen from Christopher’s articles? Pet people who have been blindly evangelizing about the Church of the Responsible Breeder actually start thinking about what REALLY makes a breeder responsible. Getting people to think about why they hold the beliefs that they do is a real challenge, and Christopher deserves a great deal of credit for accomplishing it.
The problem with the Dog Fancy as an institution, is that they don’t want the general public to think about what they do. The fancy wants to dictate their own personal version of responsible breeding and have the public open wide and swallow it down. No questions! That’s how people think when they’ve been autonomous for so long. Well, we have the internets now, and NO subculture, no matter how small and secretive, can remain utterly insulated from the greater culture within which it exists.
The cat’s out of the bag, sweetheart. Remember that if you choose not to engage, the conversation will go on without you, and you will have no chance to redirect or interject facts.
http://cynoanarchist.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/discussing-dog-breeding-ethics-in-the-public-sphere/
To think that profiling a ‘good’ breeder is enough to change minds is a joke. The fancy SUCKS at propaganda.
This is how you change the minds of the pet owning public, and as Christopher states quite clearly, these are the people who matter:
Start a blog, or personal web site. DO NOT POPULATE IT ONLY WITH IMAGES OF YOUR DOGS WINNING COMPETITIONS. DO NOT write only about whatever esoteric competitive thing you engage in.
DO put lots of pictures of your dogs being dogs. Do write almost exclusively about your life with them, making sure that it is clear that any competitive ventures are incidental to your true love for your dogs. Do write about things that make you proud, but do not hesitate to disclose your disasters. Do write a lot of stories about your dogs. Do use language that the general public can understand. Do write about things of special interest to you, like genetics, or diet. It’s important that you make it clear that you’re not stupid.
Most importantly, DO READ PET MESSAGE BOARDS ON A REGULAR BASIS TO TROLL FOR TOPICS. You will easily find a treasure trove of ignorant comments and misconceptions from both pet owners and breeders that you can exploit and turn into a ‘teaching moment.’
What you are doing is humanizing yourself, making yourself a REAL person, NOT A LABEL. That is something a short profile of a ‘good’ breeder cannot do, and check lists sure as hell can’t do it. After all, we have short profiles of ‘good’ breeders ON TV every year, at Westminster.
If you write well, and help your readers to make a connection with you, and you write for long enough (I blogged for five years), you might get confirmation from a handful of people who will tell you that you have changed their minds, helped them to reconsider a previously held conviction, or just made them think about their beliefs a little bit.
And that is FAR MORE than all the ‘what is a responsible breeder’ lists, brag websites, and wagon circling nonsense will have done.
Jess recently posted..Guest Post: Suzanne Phillips: Why dogs develop food allergies
I don’t think anything here can change Leslie of Dogtime. It’s the broader public that needs to be the target.
And I think the “ethical” breeder arguments are in the hundreds, yes, but Chris can put a practical, unique touch on it not comprised of the usual statements which get swallowed.
That’s all.
BS. the question wasn’t about “other blogs” so that is a complete non sequitur. Second, HE ASKED A QUESTION. My opinion regarding that question is mine, not yours.
As for Westminster, I didn’t use this as an example of “good breeders”. I used the working collie listings. I’m sorry you don’t seem to be able to distinguish a difference.
As for crossing (or being anti crossing) that’s also irrelevant. It wasn’t the topic. I personally find the Dalmatian/Pointer cross effort to eliminate the genetic problem in Dalmatians to be an EXCELLENT example of good breeders doing the right thing — even in the face of a lot of opposition by others. I find it regrettable that Christopher has never gone over in depth about that effort although he has in fact mentioned it. OTOH, I don’t find crossing just to cross to be a good solution. Pointers were picked for the cross with Dalmatians for several reasons, not just because they weren’t Dalmatians.
As has happened before, this is degenerating into ad hominem attacks on anyone who disagrees. so I won’t post further, which should make you happy. On the other hand, you’ve merely confirmed my opinion that in your opinion one is only supposed to clap and admire the post, not have any meaningful discussion. BCs have a COI that isn’t perfect. I believe Christopher bred within, not outside BCs for his litter. Obviously, he thought that was the right thing to do rather than breed a BC to say, a Saluki.
Breeding a BC to a Saluki or other breed with outstanding hips is high on my list. Think of the Frisbee and fly ball dogs that would make.
Collie/Sighthound crosses are a common choice for a Lurcher, no? Sounds like a good Agility/Flyball combination, imo.
Let’s not confuse “right thing to do” with “doing it differently would be WRONG and thus unethical or immoral or stupid or evil or anything else negative.” Sorry but I have never made anything approaching the later statement.
Don’t be a fucking moron, Peggy. The fact that you think that there is a ‘perfect’ COI tells me, and everyone else here, exactly how much you UNDERSTAND about what Christopher is talking about. You have been told repeatedly that there is IS NO FORMULA FOR THE ‘PERFECT’ BREEDING SYSTEM.
You. Don’t. Get. It. Not because you’re stupid, but because you don’t want to. No one here is telling you what you want to hear. You remind me a great deal of the religious people who are religious ‘just in case’ hell might be real.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Jess recently posted..Monkeys? I Don’t Think So
Jess — the fact that you resort to name calling and ad hominem attacks pretty much says that it is you who have the closed mind. I don’t expect that there is a “perfect” COI. But I also expect that if one is going to go on about “this one is wrong”, then there ought to be a number (or range) that is considered “acceptable” — a target. We have targets for “ideal weight” — they’ve changed over time, but they exist, and one can have a meaningful discussion on if the criteria is/isn’t useful.
I’m not ASKING for a “FORMULA FOR THE ‘PERFECT’ BREEDING SYSTEM.” I’m asking CHRISTOPHER what his COI target is. YES, I do think that there ought to be “one” ideal target for dogs (breed or not). NO, I don’t necessarily think such a target could be achieved, any more than a target for reduction in epilepsy or “curing cancer” is necessarily going to succeed –but there ARE targets in those fields.
It’s quite clear that you believe you have the TRUTH. That doesn’t make you right. Your resort to name calling, etc simply says you don’t have a better argument to put forward.
It’s interesting that a recent study indicates a severe inbreeding in humans (actually, proto humans as they weren’t yet H. Sapeiens) as evidenced in fossils. Equally clearly H. sapiens is one of the more successful species on the planet. Are we still too high in COI? compared to WHAT?
I’m only asking for what is considered “normal” (and based on what). I’ve found this discussed on scientific sites, so it isn’t as if my query is, as you assert, unreasonable or unthinking. It’s just that Christopher has never said if he agrees with any of those COI numbers or has one he supports that is different (nor why).
And once again, Peggy proves she is a fucking moron. When was the bottleneck in humans, Peggy? What about Cheetahs? Their bottleneck was TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO. They evolved since that bottleneck under the constraints of natural and balancing selection. So did humans. If the bottleneck was too severe and there could not be any recovery from it, we would not have Cheetahs, and I would not be sitting here insulting you in front of a keyboard.
The fact that DOGS are not bred under anything resembling natural selection and balancing selection has been explained to you over and over again, Peggy. It is intellectually dishonest to make the comparison between inbreeding within the closed registry system and bottlenecks under natural and balancing selection that occurred tens of thousands of years ago. The fact that you cannot seem to understand this means either you are not paying attention, or you have PROVEN YOURSELF TO BE WILLFULLY STUPID.
We are not going to have Pandas a hundred years from now. Bet on it. They will not survive the bottleneck. How many other species do you think we’ve lost before we started counting them, due to bottlenecks, Peggy? I’ve stated this before, the Cheetah and the San Nicolas Island foxes are interesting because they are exceptional. Not because they are the norm.
Jeffrey Braggs excellent piece on population genetics for breeders has been linked to here many times. Evidently you didn’t bother to read it, or you would know that a COI to aim for is less than the breed average, and less than the COIs of the parents. You need to watch the COI trends for the past decades in your breed.
http://www.seppalakennels.com/articles/population-genetics-in-practice.htm
You might also avail yourself of this article, because exploitative breeding is the exact opposite of natural selection and balancing selection:
http://www.seppalakennels.com/articles/exploitative-breeding.htm
I have given you plenty of opportunities to prove that you are actually reading and comprehending what I write. You fail, Peggy, miserably, every time. Therefore, you have proven yourself to be a moron. You bring these same circular arguments to the board every single time.
I’m done with banging my head against the brick wall that substitutes for rational thinking in Peggyworld.
Jess recently posted..Monkeys? I Don’t Think So
Not sure if Jess was responding to me, but sure, blogs are free. I was just responding to Dave who said “It’s not Chris’s JOB..:
Blogs aren’t free, blogs aren’t jobs ( mostly), same thing. 🙂
Anyone can write a blog, but not every blogger writes so well and has so much potential. Chris has a loyal viewership for a reason. So what harm in a comment here and there? Chris supports freedom of speech.
Even if I had my own blog, I might still suggest the same things. That’s just me though. 🙂
BTW, I’ve wanted to do a blog but recently I’ve been typing one-fingered due to some mystery problem. Cardiologist and vascular specialist cannot figure it out. May need to see neurologist or even rheumatologist.
Whoops. I think I caught myself sounding obnoxious with this part of a line: “.. has so much potential.”
I was thinking about possibilities for positive examples; nothing more meant by that. Chris’ blog has already had tremendous impact. My apologies.
As someone who had a personal blog for a long time, NOTHING is more obnoxious than people telling you what you should write. NOTHING.
Jess recently posted..Guest Post: Suzanne Phillips: Why dogs develop food allergies
I regret to inform you Peggy but when you reference the AWCA Merit list one with knowledge of history, fact and actual events one immediately notes second collie on the list. Did you know this dog represented as a working service dog without an OFA and CERF eye check? Do you have any idea what problems his offspring produced? I have no problem accepting him being used to promote service function but he was certainly not breeding quality in my opinion and experience.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: the subtitle of this blog might as well be “Things that Piss Me Off.” This shouldn’t be a big secret, from the very first post I laid out the objective of the blog and even the name speaks to the combative focus. I really don’t do puff pieces on good breeders and I don’t do them on myself either. You’ll notice how very little self promotion I do here.
Suffice it to say that people I consider good breeders are those who do NOT do the things I write about. Even when I highlight people who I think are doing good and bold things, like the Toller cross, it’s because I am pissed off that others are shitting on their work and black balling them.
And like this post says, I do not play politics. This has put me at odds with people like Jemima who is apparently unable to forgive me for speaking my mind about Dr. Bruce Cattanach. She’d rather play politics and give him a pass because he’s helpful to her and a nice guy. I call it like I see it, and if that makes me enemies, so bet it. I’d say everything I’ve typed to Cattanach’s face and I’d invite him over for dinner. I don’t hold a grudge, but I’m not going to kiss anyone’s ass if they can’t answer my questions. It works for me, I don’t have to spend brain cells remembering lies I told to cover for their or my hypocrisy.
I’d say the same thing about McCaig. I don’t hold any animus, but I don’t hold punches either. If you put yourself out as an expert who is going to fight battles for dogs then you should expect to get serious consideration from me.
So until someone wants to hire me to write for them, I’m not going to play Martha Stewart and seek out good breeders to give my “And that’s a good thing!” blessing. I just don’t see the point. And shit, when I do post on more upbeat and mundane things, no one comments and no one shares.
I hear you Chris but it’s only politics if it’s bullshit. If you can find honest examples of breeding going on that you can support, and write about it, and it’s in your heart, great.
If you just don’t want to, then yes, this blog is just a venting board.
If you CAN’T find anything to write about, then, well…..what does that say?
Ex: I think the Old Time Farm Shepherd movement deserves more coverage.
Frankly, the things that piss you off are more interesting than the happy, upbeat stories. The blog itself is refreshing, readable, and broad – a line that’s difficult for dog blogs to walk.
I subscribe to a number of magazines, club bulletins and newsgroups, and I’m a member of several dog-related clubs, so I’m well supplied with stories about good people and good dogs. But this blog provides a little kick in the butt that reminds us to look a little closer, dig a little deeper, and always keep an eye out for the man behind the curtain.
I don’t particularly care for conformation, and would normally dismiss oddities like bulldogs with a shrug. However, this blog points out problems with poor breeding practices in a specific, detail-oriented, science-backed way. Problems with conformation breeding have far-reaching effects which impact more than one or a few specific breeds. It’s not about breeds, it’s about the entire fancy dog industry.
But the blog avoids degenerating into the “all breeders are evil” camp. There are plenty of groups, websites, and fanatic individuals pushing this line. Sure, they may get some ammo from you, but they consider anything and everything to be abuse. Grooming is cruelty, dog shows are cruelty, performance training is cruelty, therapy visits are cruelty. And god forbid you allow an animal to procreate! Not only are you cruel to both parent dogs, but you are killing (x) shelter dogs in the process.
I understand that when there is a paradigm shift, people have a tendency to throw themselves WAAAAAY down to the other end of the spectrum. But I refuse to let this make me dishonest. I will never support animal rights nuts who have flipped over the edge of the spectrum & declared that allowing any dog to keep its gonads is tantamount to abuse on par with Michael Vick’s mass dog murder. Nor will I give succor to the proponents of “commonly accepted” breeding practices just because “that’s what they’ve always done”. Middle ground, people, middle ground. And the truth is, I do NOT wish to be lumped in with the “common practice” breeders in their bizarre little ivory towers as they inbreed themselves into oblivion. They need to come back to reality & realize they have made their beds. Now they need to change the sheets.
Part of the problem on our side of the fence is that few of us can agree on what constitutes proper ethics in breeding. Most purebred fanciers nearly suffer an apoplexy at the mere mention of crossbreeding, or someone casually breeding a litter out of their household pet. Others get worked up about not keeping dogs strictly as house pets and pampered companions. How do we distinguish between the hunter whose hounds sleep in the barn, from the breeder who keeps his breeding stock in cramped quarters for most of their life??
The big kennels of yesteryear would be decried by today’s public scrutiny as they mercilessly experimented, culled and profited from their business venture.
This post is excellent; it summarizes many of my feelings about the effect of the current public spotlight on what dog ownership and breeding practices. I’m not sure exactly what the best course of action might be to improve dog breeding while avoiding a mass extinction of purpose-bred dogs. There are always street dogs to be rescued from third-world countries to fill the pet market. The middle ground should be wide enough to encompass freedom of breeding practices while exposing the most blatant abuses as Chris has so masterfully done. It’s a fine line to walk most of the time but as Chris noted, if we don’t define and correct the more obvious problems it will be done for us, and not likely in a reasonable manner.
Geneva Coats recently posted..Responsible You
Yes! And of course this is the subject of a future post. The fact that as a community we devalue our words by applying them to people who don’t deserve them. “Puppy mill” for example.
We also participate in character assassination for petty offenses and not major ones. We throw each other to the AR wolves because we are jealous or because we don’t approve of some nonsense that the public doesn’t care about. OMFG, she trims her puppies’ nails with a guillotine cutter and not a dremel!!!
We do this on training methods and feeding choices and yet we fail to appreciate that these things have little to no effect on genetics and the future of the breed. Yes, there are cases where training tools will shape a breed, I’ve seen it argued, but even then you have to admit that it’s a much softer effect than the rampant inbreeding or breeding for color or other nonsense.
This is a huge problem. We are ALL too willing to get indignant over bullshit but we fail to act the same on ethical issues which the public will clearly make the judgment on. For example, the public has spoken about mutts. They LOVE THEM. They love hybrids too. Doodles galore. And yet we will rip each other apart for making lurchers or cross breeding as if it was a crime against humanity most foul.
I’ll get there. I promise. And I too don’t have easy answers. I just ask hard questions.
“I’ll get there. I promise. And I too don’t have easy answers. I just ask hard questions.”
Cool Chris, and hey, you do more than most. 🙂
Chris indeed it is the hard questions as each of us approach that next breeding. The contradictions and discrepancies as we search through bloodlines and kennels are like being a detective in a poorly written mystery fictional book. What happen to imagination and creative thinking in Dog Breeding? The great breeders were once described as having two important talents: 1. Constructional Engineering skills. 2. Artist …
If man can imagine such as in Science Fiction ….someday it can become a reality. So I add a good breeder has to have the ability to be a Creative Thinker. It is difficult to get rid of deep-rooted prejudice. It will take sacrifice of those old riddles of nature and old breeding theory education passed down from so called mentors in my opinion.
The riddles of nature continue to be solved, but are proven to be superficial in light of average breeding programs. How long are we to be subjected to …”Oh this breed or this cross does not have …….. So they do not check before breeding.
Another topic for another post is separating degrees of excellence (good, better, best) from outright ethics (good, evil).
As breeders, we confuse these too much and throw other breeders under the bus for issues that are more equated to excellence than ethics. These “what makes a reputable breeder” lists are rife with such judgmental nonsense.
You need to ask the question “can the breeder do X an still be ethical.” Can the breeder intentionally inflict blindness on to their offspring and still be ethical? I say no. Can a breeder not take back their dogs and still be ethical? I say yes. Can a breeder not show dogs to a championship and not be ethical? Yes. Can a breeder fail to meet the mental and physical needs of all of their stock and still be ethical? No.
Et Cetera. Soon we can boil down a list of things that are really about hard core ethics versus breeder grand standing and posturing and one-upsmanship.
Excellent article, Christopher.
Jess recently posted..Guest Post: Suzanne Phillips: Why dogs develop food allergies
All right. Here’s a case study. I just had an accidental litter of Shelties from my 11 year old male (who has been used once before) and my 4 year old bitch. This was an inbreeding, but because both parents were outcrosses, the COI on the litter on 10 generations is about 8%. There are 3 dogs from this particular line still intact, and I have two of them.
The male has lovely structure, has excellent hips, normal thyroid, and CERFs clear every time he is done. His parents are both still alive and healthy. He is a Flyball and Agility champion, and is still showing in a more limited way in both at almost 12 years old. He’s been slightly oversized his whole career, and has pricked ears (both of which keep him out of the show ring). The bitch is my up-and-coming Agility dog. She is in-size, is thyroid normal and CERFs clear, BUT has not had her hips done (I was planning to spay her after the heat that she got pregnant on) and has Corneal Dystrophy. None of the rest of her litter has Corneal Dystrophy, and she is on medication that dissolves the lipid deposits in her eyes (she is completely clear of deposits). Nonetheless, she does have it, and that was why I had decided not to breed her.
So once I discovered she was pregnant, should I, ethically, have gotten her an abortion? I did what I did–had the litter, fully disclosed to the puppy buyers, and sold the puppies (I would have kept one but our house is full). I asked that the puppy buyers have the puppies CERFed to check for Corneal Dystrophy and keep me updated. The puppy buyers are OVER THE MOON about the puppies so far–they have their father’s friendly temperament (he’s the friendliest Sheltie I have ever seen–a politician through and through) and their mother’s drive and attitude, and nice little bodies for whatever their owners want them to do. The breeder who bred both my dogs is ALSO really excited that these guys are in the world, as her line would have died out without them (personal difficulties prevent her from breeding at this point and the dogs she owns are altered).
So–is this an either/or situation? Was I irresponsible? I would gladly take any puppy back if necessary–my main reason for not keeping one is that I wanted them to go to homes with fewer dogs who would train them to what I hope is their potential, and keep them intact at least until we see what that potential is and what their health tests indicate. I got those homes, and am excited to see how they turn out. But I have gotten some blowback (not much) from other Sheltie people.
So is keeping some of these genes available worth the possibility of also perpetuating Corneal Dystrophy? (I should also note the that breeding was natural–obviously, since accidental–and the whelping was completely natural and almost unaided–I just nabbed a few of the placentas since I didn’t want her to eat ALL of them). The bitch surprised me by being a really good mother, if a little bit of a bully.
Well first, being an accident, we can’t really comment on the motivation in the same way we could with people who are having intentional litters. I mean, if you accidentally had a brother mate with a sister, I could say “inbreeding sucks and it sucks that it happened” but you know that, we KNOW that the issue is having the accident and if there is criticism it would be along the lines of “why did you have brother near sister why she was in heat” and not “why did you intentionally breed so closely.” That’s not really as interesting to me as talking about INTENTIONAL and CONTINUED breeding choices.
Not that this would stop other breeders from playing moral high ground here. OMFG YOU HAD AN OOOOOPS LITTER !!! EEEEEVIL. Whatever. The problem with dogs is not the occasional oops litter, it’s the continued, directed, repeated mistakes that people do AGAIN and AGAIN and deny that they are mistakes.
That point at which the dogs are born and neutered, they are a non-issue as far as future breed health goes. So again, rather irrelevant. Any that are intact and bred in the future can be judged on their own, extant, merits at that time.
I see I didn’t make the relationship clear. He’s her half-uncle–his mother is her grandmother–but the sire’s side of the pedigree on both sides are unrelated. I do take measures to keep them separate when she’s in heat. Obviously he got around me this time. Which is a point–if you have two intact dogs, and you don’t have a kennel situation or send one of them away during a heat, you’re gonna have an oops eventually. I wasn’t too worried about the oops because the last time we tested his sperm motility (with the idea of using him again), it was only about 30%. Obviously he has better sperm on a natural breeding than on a hand job.
My point was to not make my comments personal to your specific situation, so the actual degree of relatedness is not really important. I don’t think it changes much since it wasn’t planned. Adding to that, there’s a world of difference between an unplanned litter at a breeder’s house who has stock that is being vetted for breeding with other stock that is vetted for breeding versus random dog litters at Joe Blow’s house. Joe Blow might step up to the plate, but odds are against it. More likely the dogs end up in a box at a Walmart parking lot or dumped in a shelter or “Free to a Good Home” where “good home” means anyone who will reach out their hand and take one.
I wasn’t going to respond, but changed my mind.
Jess: Do you really think that profiling ‘good’ breeders will change the minds of people like the Dogtime woman?
==nope. I do think it might help those who are looking for good breeders. I do think it might help those who are trying to “do the right thing” to get some support or even some advice and guidance in their attempts. I never believe that zealots will change their minds. That applies to BOTH sides. I don’t write to convert zealots.
Jess: “You do this yourself, with your strident insistence that open registries will result in some kind of breeding free for all,”
== actually, I’ve repeatedly stated I consider appendix registries a valid and useful approach. It is you that seems to think that only your method will work or is valid, and it is you who consistently ends up engaging in Ad Hominem attacks rather than responding to the issues. I don’t support an “anything goes” registry, but I did (and would again if they were reinstated) support the registry of merit / hardship registries that were extant with some of the BC registries and with ASCA. I strongly support the new FCI rules on outcrossing and would like to see AKC adopt them.
Christopher mentioned he might consider a saluki/BC cross for use in Frisbee/flyball. 1. It’s not what he did with his most recent litter, so apparently again, for whatever reason, he opted for a purebred litter. 2. In a brief check on those dogs that do well in either Frisbee or “disc dogs”, I don’t see such crosses being utilized. So he might want to rethink why that might be. There ARE crosses – border jacks and Aussie/bc crosses – but the problem with these is what I call the “mule effect”. It’s not that the crosses are sterile (as mules are) but that while a mule is vastly superior to either parent in certain roles, it requires “purebreds” on both sides to produce it. You see the same thing with sheep. Lots of commercial (in fact, probably most of them) flocks are “crosses” but the purebreds are maintained because once you get past a 4way cross in sheep (see Univ of Oklahoma study on the issue as well as several write ups on the kinds of crosses one might use) you are at a dead end. Breeding the 4 ways isn’t as good as the F1 x F1 crosses — so you keep 4 purebred groups in order to produce the 4 way cross. It’s why I do NOT support crossing animals with no goal in mind. You can cross a Suffolk to a Barbadoe to get rid of “spider” genetics, but it doesn’t result in a good meat lamb nor a good fleece. You get the same result of eliminating spider crossing with Dorset and you don’t lose the meat value nor the fleece. If you don’t care about fleece, a Dorper might do well. But you don’t just stick in any old ram (as long as it isn’t the same breed as your ewes) and call it good. I only ask that dog breeding have as much care regarding it as one exerts in livestock.
I don’t have a problem with “Alaskan Husky” (although the evidence is that there are two distinct types – the distance dogs and the sprinters, so maybe they should have different labels). I don’t have a problem with KNPV dogs. I don’t have a problem with doodles (although I note the original Lab/poodle x for service dog use was presented as much more of a success than it really was) – there are even a few in the F4 + generations with these – but they are finding consistency a bit of a challenge. The problem with creating new types is that there is, necessarily, a lot of attrition in doing it – dogs that don’t make the criteria for going on. Not all of the dogs in the Dal/Pointer project were useable for folding into the Dalmatians. If one doesn’t REALISTICALLY consider these issues, a false impression is created regarding the difficulty, however laudable the project might be.
As a comparison, there’s an issue in Herford cattle. White faced animals tend to have more problems with eye cancer and some folk are attempting to fix that (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0036346) — but it isn’t just “breed anything that has a dark face” either.
I don’t think Christopher bred the last litter because he prefer pure-bred Border Collie. He did a repeat-breeding of his last combination so he could get a female puppy. Unfortunately, the litter was a singleton.
One of the problem with this assumption is the era of dog-breeding. A hundred years ago, most pure-bred dogs came from giant kennels which culled dogs mercilessly. When one has a huge operation, with the mean to do it, then one would see more progress in his or her breeding program. Unfortunately, since the majority of breeders only have a few bitches, they stick with what they know best since producing good crosses is expensive and labour-intensive.
There is a similar discussions about wolf-crosses in West Siberian Laikas. Many Russians feel these crosses are ruining the breed. The treeing behaviour is recessive to being tight-lipped, the modern wild wolves are asocial and numerous other issues which plague crosses.
Yes, Laikas have documented wolf-ancestors, but they were culled heavily. Even in recent time, government kennels who were producing the crosses had strict guidelines about how dogs should interact with humans and how they should hunt. Many litters were put down in the process of producing the crosses. After the Soviet Union fell, there are no shortage of bad crosses produced by small-time breeders.
That’s why crosses are so damn hard to produce for most dog-breeders. Most small-scale breeders don’t have the money, time or energy to take on such huge undertakings.
Dave recently posted..The Sheep and the Wolverine
Nowadays, if someone suggests birthing puppies in a rain-barrel or drowning puppies, people are quick to call them evil.
However, most of our ancestors with herding and hunting dogs did just that recently as two or three decades ago.
Alaskan Husky breeders are still practicing what was once a socially-acceptable norm of a generation ago.
Dave recently posted..The Sheep and the Wolverine
If you’re venturing to call me a hypocrite of some sort, I’ll take that as an insult. I take enough moral outrage for breeding distantly within my breed, so far, I’m not going to be called a hypocrite because I haven’t yet outcrossed to an entirely different breed. I’ve stated multiple times that this is a possibility. Perhaps you’re ignorant of BC registries, but no registry has an appendix registry and few if any — I have yet to find one — breeders are actually bringing in new blood that I might choose to breed to.
If I want to have a “Border Collie” versus giving up playing in the purebred dog world entirely, I’d have to outcross and then re-establish working type to the point where some future dog could win a herding trial and then I’d have to present it with hip documentation and documentation of both its parents, and then it’d have to get unanimous approval of an entire board of people who already think I’m Satan, and it’s vague but I think the mere presence of an AKC pedigree anywhere in the past would invalidate it outright. So forgive me if I have yet to out cross to another breed.
If you’d care to write me a check for $400,000 to purchase a farm and some breeding stock, I’d be happy to implement my out crossing program without delay.
(1) There’s no culture for breeding dogs specifically for disc sport like there is Fly Ball. Given the hippie origins, there is actually plenty of “Rescue OR ELSE!!” culture.
(2) The most famous disc dog is Davy Whippet. The most popular champion disc dog is a Border Collie or Aussie. The current World Record Distance holder is a Whippet. A Border-Whippet would be an amazing Frisbee dog.
Despite being brilliant disc dogs, the Border Collies and Aussies are rife with structural break downs. CL tears and hip/joint issues. Bringing breeding sense to this problem could help solve the issues and create a fantastic, competitive canine athlete. Just because there aren’t a ton of them now is no different than the fact that foot ball players once wore pig skin helmets.
It’s simply early in the innovation of the sport.
Dave wrote: I don’t think Christopher bred the last litter because he prefer pure-bred Border Collie. He did a repeat-breeding of his last combination so he could get a female puppy
== ok, but why select a purebred BC for that previous litter? After all, there were millions of dogs to choose from. why pick another BC unless there was, in Christopher’s evaluation, some benefit(s) to be had by using another dog of the same breed? That’s my point — if you are going to imply that ANY purebred (registered or not) breeding is COI “bad”, then to lead by example, one ought not to do it. IF, OTOH, there were (as I presume there were) some good valid reasons to believe that at least SOME purebred breeding is “good” and to be preferred to a saluki/BC cross or whatever in that first and the current litter, then I feel Christopher ought to discuss that. He could have chosen a kelpie or a dingo or …. Obviously, he felt that a BC (and a particular BC) was the optimal choice for his purposes. I’m ok with that, but not with implying that no other breeder of a purebred litter can make an equally valid choice.
Dave also pointed out the culling in animal breeding. Yep. It’s a lot easier to deal with a Herford bull calf that doesn’t have “color” around the eyes than a puppy that has a deformed leg. And yes, it is a lot easier to have 100 head of sheep and breed them annually than even keeping 100 dogs. In Aphis/USDA proposed regs, anyone (like Jess) who has a website could be considered to be “advertising” on the internet and thus a “commercial breeder” if they have even one bitch. Lots of areas have major limits on how many animals one can have, how often one can breed, where and to whom one can sell…. in order to address some bad, all are restricted. It does make it hard to do selections — which is, by the way, why I’m NOT in favor of “just cross” — if one is going to cross, one ought to do it very carefully regarding the pros and cons, because finding homes for the results may not be as easy as one might think. In SOME parts of the US, doing such a cross is actually prohibited by regulations (keeping a mixed or even unregistered dog intact is actually prohibited in some places). I do support more openness in registration — I support the FCI rules as I said, but I do think that any such cross must be done with careful consideration. If you don’t get what you thought or only 1 in the litter of 5 has the “right stuff”, you have to figure out what to do with the other 4 that is within the existing laws and regulations and which is fair and humane to those 4 (I am not one of those who think death is inherently worse than life under any conditions. I believe that in many many cases, keeping an animal alive is far far more cruel). Dave pointed out that “bucketing” is currently considered evil. Yes. For that matter, using a gun for a horse with a broken leg is often portrayed as “evil” — somehow it is more “humane” to have the animal suffer for hours (sometimes days) so a vet can use captive bolt euthanasia. AR philosophy can rather lack logic.
Peggy: stats indicate that a Saluki/BC isn’t one of the optimal crosses for improved performance in the disc/flyball world.
Christopher: What stats are these?
==a check via google on what dogs are “placing” in flyball or disc dog. Since both allow for mixes, one would presume that if a saluki X was a good option, someone might have tried that. Pretty much what I found was purebred BCs and herding combos like BC/aussie/ACD.
Christopher;Perhaps that you don’t see many Salukis?
== I would not presume to say I’ve made any study of them in particular nor gone out of my way to find them. However, I’ve seen them as I knew a couple of people who bred them and I also knew a couple of people who were into coursing (both field and lure). I’ve also seen the conformation versions.
Well I think you just don’t see very many Salukis period. I don’t think they are a very widespread pet breed,
==they are actually more common than say, briards, Beaucerons and greyhounds.
an as I’ve said before, there is much more of a got dog -> got disc … attitude in Frisbee versus “I got a dog so I can play disc, I made a buying choice, or I breed dogs for a venue.”
== see http://www.ufoworldcup.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisbee_Dog_World_Championship — I’d say that Frisbee is becoming every bit as competitive as any other “dog sport” (you see the same in agility and herding in venues other than ISDS. Both have become far more competitive than they were 20 years ago)
Chris: although I’d like to see how much of the size is heritable.
==http://www.sciencemag.org/content/316/5821/112.abstract –A Single IGF1 Allele Is a Major Determinant of Small Size in Dogs — so yep, seems to be.
But I think as we saw with the Boxer x Corgi cross that you can return to type very quickly.
==sure. that would be your F3. But then that would be a BC with a “bit of saluki” or a “saluki with a bit of BC” depending on which direction you went. Which would raise the questions of 1. what about F1, F2 dogs? (pets, selection criteria, etc) and 2. how much have you reduced the COI in F3 dogs vice picking anything else? and 3. are you selecting for anything other than reduced COI? but you only get that “BC with a bit of saluki” if you backcross into BCs, not if you continuously cross the resulting litters “out” (ie, F1 = BCxsaluki, F2 = F1x poodle, F3 = F2 x mastiff). So yes, a planned “outcross” followed by “going back” to the landrace “type” or registry as that applies. You see this in KNPV dogs. There is a careful selection for a certain “type” and mostly the dogs used are within that type, even if not all of the “same registered breed”. That’s because there is a type size, shape, behavior that is better for a K9 dog (big enough to take down a man, athletic enough, etc). It’s why they don’t use, say, bloodhounds or JRTS, on a regular basis.
Of course it would be more complex because hips are more complex.
==yes. Seems to have a strong relationship to growth rates if the GSD x greyhound studies are anything to go by.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1066029 Metabolism of estradiol in greyhounds and German shepherd dogs. An investigation with special reference to hip dysplasia
Don’t know if they’ve ever done a similar study on BCs or salukis but I’d think the principal would hold.
Christopher: Also, on a tangent, I think that whippet might be one of the components that separates the Border Collie from the larger Rough Collie.
==actually, the historical info I’ve run into seems to be that the BC size range was pretty large (as it was with Belgians before a conformation standard) and that larger size was selected FOR with the rough & smooth collie. The use of borzoi may or may not be mythical, as I’ve certainly seen BCs that were Sheltie size and those that were every bit as big as rough / smooth collies. (I do a lot of herding. I do run into a pretty good cross selection of herding dogs).
None of the cladistics studies I’ve come across show a particular relationship between the BC and whippets. There is one that shows a relationship between Belgians and Irish Wolfhounds, but it was Belgian TO IW, not IW to Belgian (not so strange when you recall that the Bouvier is related to the Belgian and that 27″ Belgians were well known and shown in conformation up thru the 1970s).
I can’t speak to disc dogs, but there are plenty of people breeding sighthound mixes to participate in Flyball. You aren’t likely to see what those mixes are because they’re listed as mixes. JRT crosses, at least in the more competitive areas, are out of favor for the most part. It’s border/staffy, border/staffy/whippet, borderstack (that does have JRT in it) mini Aussie/staffy, and other permutations of the above (now that I think about it, Dutch Shepherds). Whippets are hands down the fastest Flyball dogs I have personally seen. It’s likely that someone, somewhere, has been trying out Saluki x somethingorother, but the ones I have seen tend to be rather large and lack the flexibility to turn fast off the box.
That’s a little bit of a mixed-up post. What I meant to say is that there is a definite tendency to do the border staffy x whippet, or the border stack x whippet. I’ve seen JRT/whippets also, but a lot of the Flyball types at least in this area seem to have abandoned JRTs for Staffies.
Given the whippet seems to carry for double muscle (and that heterozygotes are faster than those without the gene), whippets being preferred for disc/flyball would make sense for X dogs. Also, I suspect that like horses, there is a genetic for “fast muscle vice long muscle” — there’s a study comparing Arab vice thoroughbreds — the former have a “sprinter” type genetics and the latter have the “long distance” genes. And yes, my thought was that a whippet has a more suitable size/flexibility compared to a Saluki. It’s my view that if someone were breeding for “good dogs in this venue” you have to be selective with the partners. Sometimes those asserting “purity” get blinders regarding improvements and sometimes those asserting “crossing” get blinders regarding the fact that you don’t just get “one” characteristic from the X partner — you will get a random selection (more or less) of half the genetic package that dog has in any F1. And it’s much harder to maintain a consistent “type” (landrace or purebred) than it is to create a F1 single cross. The problem with F1s is that if these are the end result, you have to maintain both purebred groups as your source. The P/D dogs were bred back to Dals and selected for “looks like a Dal + sound uric acid genes” — and about the F3, were pretty much Dals with a “bit of pointer”. Ditto for the corgi/boxer NBT effort (although the white boxers show that selection of appropriate participants wasn’t as easy as it might have been).
there’s a study comparing Arab vice thoroughbreds — the former have a “sprinter” type genetics and the latter have the “long distance” genes.”
You mean the opposite, right? Arabians are the endurance racing champions while Thoroughbreds race on tracks of around a mile or so.
You mean the opposite, right? Arabians are the endurance racing champions while Thoroughbreds race on tracks of around a mile or so.
==nope. see Identification of the myostatin locus (MSTN) as having a major effect on optimum racing distance in the Thoroughbred horse in the USA–Animal Genetics Volume 41, Issue Supplement s2, pages 154–158, December 2010 M. M. Binns, D. A. Boehler,
D. H. Lambert Article first published online: 10 NOV 2010
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2052.2010.02126.x
and this one http://www.cazv.cz/userfiles/File/CJAS%2051_523-528.pdf Genetic correlations between racing performance at different racing distances in Thoroughbreds and Arab horses, M. Sobczyńska
Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding, Polish Academy of Sciences, Jastrzebiec, Poland Czech J. Anim. Sci., 51, 2006 (12): 523–528 — “A distance of 1 600 m was the most representative
distance for Thoroughbreds and Arab horses…
= I’m not “into” horses per se, but you see a parallel in spring/long distance sled dogs. That the genetic study found these differed is no surprise. And in coursing, there’s a difference between a ‘sprint” race vice a “long distance” course. It depends on what one means by “distance” — in herding one sees this in dogs that are used all day in moving stock (tending) vice dogs that are used for short burst work (like outruns) In herding, the differentiation is not nearly so clear as many situations require a dog to do both, but you DO see it, just not as clear cut as say, the racing sled dogs. the racing sled dogs are different again vice a coursing whippet — and there’s reasons for that beyond the environment. You see the same in humans in the Olympics. Your 100 yard dash, 500 meter and marathon folk are only rarely the same individual and these are always considered anomalies.
That is interesting considering Arabians are the go-to breed for 100+ mile endurance races. Unless they are talking track sprints, in which case yes, Throughbreds race longer than Quarter Horses. I’m not involved in horses like I used to be so have never heard of Arabians being used in sprint races, only in super long endurance races like the fictionalized account in the movie Hidalgo.
yes. I have a neighbor who raises endurance Arabs. It is counterintuitive regarding the information. But yes, my guess is that they are talking about track sprints vs the max distances in race tracks. The Quarter horse is another that apparently has the “fast” gene but not the “distance track” one, yet of course, they are much used in ranch work where a lot of endurance is needed. It’s still an area of research, so my guess would be that a lot more is involved, but this is even more true in dogs. In horses, enough money is involved to encourage such research. In dogs, there’s seldom enough money to get this sort of study done (try finding out what the genetics are in wide running vice close running in a herding dog. Or grip location.).
Coming late to this discussion: I’ve been doing flyball for well over a decade and I’ve never seen a Saluki in the lanes. I’m going to take a guess that most of the serious sighthounds who are extremely fast are not generally bred for any kind of retrieve. That does not mean they cannot be taught a retrieve, but it’s much tougher going than with a dog with some selective breeding for retrieving ability behind it. OTOH, there are Whippets that retrieve, and have been for a long time. With that, their size, and their general health, they are a natural choice for the flyball crossing programs… and also natural for disc. (And it is worth mentioning that (last I heard) the world record holder for big air dock jumps is a Whippet as well — another sport where retrieving drive helps a lot.)
Unless someone is breeding Salukis for retrieve, I doubt that the possible speed bonus will be as appealing. Quite a few Borderwhippets already wash out of flyball training because of problems with dog chasing — obviously a serious issue in a sport with a ring full of running dogs. It has taken a couple of rounds of effort (one nearly a decade ago, and a recent resurgence) to get the selective criteria in line. The Whippet parents are being very carefully selected! Many more Whippets are now being bred with retrieving in mind so this recent resurgence has been more successful. I assume these dogs would also tend to excel at dock and disc as the same qualities are valued.
The fastest split time in flyball that I have heard of is owned by a Whippet running somewhere in the 3.3 second range, which I personally find almost unbelievable. There is a particularly spectacular litter of Borderwhippets hitting the lanes now at about age two; every single littermate has debuted at a time in the 3.5-3.6 range and they are just getting faster. One is in our region and he is rather mind-blowing. This is faster than most pure Whippets ever run, by the way.
Just some additional data for those (Christopher) with interest in cross-breeding for disc or other sports.