Sheep dog trials probably have no significant selective effect for or against hip dysplasia in Border Collies.
Border Collies are the go-to example of a breed that has been honed and improved through a performance and working standard. They are generally healthy and well behaved dogs that are multi-talented and excel at just about any dog endeavor save protection. But the mantra of perfection through trial performance has its limits. Don’t tell that to the trail elitists though. One prominent Border Collie trialist and author (Do Border Collies Dream of Sheep?) thinks that Hip Dysplasia must be advantageous to Border Collies because the supposedly comprehensive selection tool of trial success hasn’t cleansed the breed of Hip Dysplasia in the same manner that selection for fast racers has done so in the sight hound breeds.
Take a moment to read C. Denis Wall, PhD’s argument titled My Thoughts on Developing a Wider View of Hip Dysplasia in the Border Collie and return for my thoughts.
There’s probably a psychological compensating behavior defined by a person making the mental conversion of an intractable problem from a detriment into a supposed advantage. “It’s not a bug; it’s an undocumented feature!” This self-delusion protects the person from having to confront harsh and unwelcome truths which would otherwise damage their self image or world view. I believe that this self-deceiving behavior is consistent with what psychologists call “motivated reasoning.” This happens when we believe what reaffirms our biases and suits our purposes rather than what is supported by facts, is verifiable, and objective.
While we generally accept negative outcomes that are unambiguous, when there’s uncertainty or ignorance involved motivated reasoning occurs when we support interpretations that benefit us the most or reaffirm our extant biases. This is a form of “self-serving attributional bias” where success is internalized and failure is externalized by taking personal credit for positive outcomes and blaming others for negative outcomes. When an individual has invested a great deal of time or effort, or perhaps sacrificed and even suffered for goal but then learns something new that calls the value of that goal into question, cognitive dissonance will fuel motivated reasoning about the value of that goal: re-evaluating its value more positively than is merited by objective, dispassionate standards.
I believe this is what is happening with C. Denise Wall, PhD’s essay: she doesn’t want to admit that the all-mighty sheep trial selection tool is insufficient to solve hip-dysplasia in Border Collies and instead of being objective she creates a fantasy where a disease must be beneficial because otherwise she’d have to negatively re-evaluate the sheep trial as a necessary, sufficient, and optimal selection tool. Her essay gets interesting when she identifies a piece of new information that calls sheep trials into question:
Then what about Border Collies and PennHIP?
Interestingly, when using strong selection pressure only for their specialized performance, Greyhounds, Salukis and other sight hounds coincidentally develop nearly perfect, very tight hips over generations. Breeding selection based on efficient sled-dog performance is another type of work-only selection that results in good hips. Even when Labrador Retrievers (a breed with a fairly high predisposition for HD), are used as sled dogs, and selected and bred based entirely on their efficiency as workers, they will coincidentally breed good, tight hips over time. Therefore, in these types of performance areas, selection for efficient function alone is strongly associated with incidental selection for good, tight hips.
So why, after all the years of strict selection for herding work, do Border Collies still have hip dysplasia? Why have they not naturally gravitated toward the perfect hip status over all these generations like the racing Greyhound?
These are absolutely the correct and rational questions to ask when presented with the observation that performance selection for running has successfully lowered HD incidence in several breeds but Border Collies show no unique immunity to the disease despite having a clear selection bias based on a performance trait. The problem comes with C. Denise Wall, PhD’s proposed answer to these questions. What do you think a rational person with no investment in sheep trials would propose as the first likely hypothesis for this observation? I contend that you’d call into question the value of the sheep trial as a selection metric for HD. Instead, C. Denise Wall, PhD calls into question the deleterious nature of Hip Dysplasia!
Perhaps, in our breed, one of the risk factors for HD, laxity, is something that has been inadvertently selected for in their performance.
Border Collies are neither better nor worse than the vast majority of other breeds in terms of their incidence of hip dysplasia or their likelihood of developing degenerative joint disease based upon their hip laxity. Their PennHIP distribution curve looks like most other breeds, and although PennHIP has not released laxity vs. Degenerative Joint Disease (DJD) charts for every breed, when I’ve inquired with them they state that most breeds seem to follow the Labrador Retriever curve.
DJD vs. DI. Probability of Degenerative Joint Disease versus Distraction Index
It’s notable that German Shepherds are more likely to develop DJD across all laxity measurements versus all other breeds. Rottweiler’s are moderately more likely to develop DJD at most indexes but slightly less likely to develop DJD at the extreme laxity measures than most other breeds. The Golden Retrievers and Laborador Retrievers appear to conform to the typical risk for DJD versus DI of most breeds.
So the simple and direct hypothesis would be something like “just as selective breeding for field trial performance has not rid the retrieving breeds of hip dysplasia or changed their HD/DJD profile compared to most other breeds, so too has selection via sheep trials failed to change the hip profiles of Border Collies; therefore we contend that success at field trials and sheep trials is not sufficiently harmed by hip dysplasia and breeders selecting stock for success in those events have not altered their choices sufficiently to distinguish their breeds from the average.” Instead, C. Denise Wall, PhD invents a completely unfounded theory that laxity means “flexibility” and is thus a good thing that gives Border Collies a distinct advantage in lateral movement. Utter nonsense, but here’s her pitch:
On the list of breeds that maintain or convert to good hip status when breeding selection is based solely on performance, are breeds that run or pull straight ahead, or mostly so. Border Collies, on the other hand, do a great deal of quick flanking and lateral movement, quick starts and stops, pivots on the hind legs, and traveling in a crouched position in their work. It seems likely that there needs to be some “give” somewhere for efficient performance, and that give has been selected for. In the same way slight cow hocks allow for efficient performance and have been selected for through the many generations of working stock, so perhaps has some laxity in the hips.
The sight hound breeds are hardly limited to simple straight line motion. Any sight hound bred for hunting and coursing can dodge, turn, and juke just fine. Mushing dogs are also tasked with significant lateral movement at speed (lest we are to believe that sledding paths are all straight lines with no curves, well groomed, and level. You might make a note for how track greyhounds are conditioned to run given that formal sport betting racetracks are level and near-straight-line ovals; but this is a matter of their training and conditioning more than significant physical differentiation from the other sight hounds which also share the predisposition against DJD and Hip Dysplasia.
If you take a moment to think about the implications of her hypothesis, C. Denise Wall, PhD’s claim requires you to believe that the Laxity-Advantage in Border Collies would be perfectly balanced with the Hip Dysplasia-Disadvantage because Border Collies are no better or worse than average compared to other breeds.
The Laxity-Advantage would be highly selected for in Border Collies just like their “eye” was highly selected for and thus it must be universal or near-universal in the breed. But Border Collies are just average. If her laxity-as-advantage theory were true, wouldn’t we expect BCs to be plagued by bad hips just like they are ‘plagued’ by “the eye?” What are the odds that we have this pro-laxity selection factor occurring in exact proportion to some anti-HD selection with sheep trial performance and that those two forces which must be strong because sheep trials are a strong selection factor, but miraculously they BALANCE making Border Collies nothing-special-either-way in terms of HD and DJD despite having intense and effective selection tools at work?
If you were double-blind testing a new cancer drug against a placebo and your results showed that the pills you tested had no effect at all on the rate of cancer, would you conclude that (1) You tested the Placebo, (2) Your drug was ineffective but also harmless and thus behaved like the Placebo would, or (3) Your drug both cured cancer in the same rate as it caused the cancer to worsen creating a cosmic wash? This is essentially what Wall wants you to believe laxity’s effect is on the Border Collie and it’s preposterous.
It is an extraordinary claim that lacks extraordinary evidence.
Border Collies get Hip Dyspasia and need surgery and rehabilitation just like most other breeds. Trying to put a happy face on it by calling a defect an advantage is crazy-stupid.
We should also be suspect of this argument on its face because Wall is arguing to maintain the status-quo when presented with information that should disrupt the status-quo. The realization that Border Collie selection culture has not improved laxity and HD has created cognitive dissonance in Wall and instead of decreasing her assessment of the value of that selection culture (sheep trials don’t select for good hips and we do want good hips), she is attempting to reduce the value of the dissonant information (laxity isn’t so bad!).
I ran Wall’s essay by a respected Veterinarian who writes extensively on inherited canine disease and hip dysplasia asking if there was any body of evidence that hip joint laxity conferred an advantage as Wall states. The response was crickets chirping, “she misses the point” regarding PennHIP, and “btw, what’s her PhD in?” Wall’s PhD is in BioChemistry and her BS is in Medical Technology so she should be capable of backing up her extraordinary claim with scientific evidence. The papers she cites at the bottom of her article, however, provide no clarity on the hypothesis that hip laxity is required and/or beneficial for lateral movement and adroit flexibility or agility. The only people making a similar claim are Lundhund fabulists who claim that their breed’s inbred soft tissue issues make them amazing spelunkers and spiderman-like climbers. More motivated reasoning if you ask me.
Wall’s argument gets worse. She goes from denial into attacking hip-testing regimes in general.
If we decided to PennHIP every breeding Border Collie, and not accept anything over a 0.30 DI for breeding, aside from the other hazards of such a short sighted plan, we might unwittingly be left with a breed of dogs lacking the flexibility needed for their work, or ones with stifle and hock injuries from stress on those joints, since the now perfectly tight hips are no longer helping absorb the stress.
This is what is listed on a PennHIP report regarding breeding recommendations using their results:
PennHIP does not make specific breeding recommendations. Selection of the sire and dam for mating is the decision of the breeder.
NOTE: As a minimum breeding criterion, we propose that breeding stock be selected from the population of animals having hip laxity in the tighter half of the breed (to the left of the median mark on the graph). Higher selection pressure equates to more rapid expected genetic change per generation.
By implementing selection based on passive hip laxity, we expect the breed average DI over the years to move toward tighter hip configuration, meaning lower hip dysplasia susceptibility. The PennHIP database permits scientific adjustment of criteria to reflect these shifts; the average laxity and range of laxity for a particular breed will change over time.
They elaborate on appropriate selection of stock using their results on their website:
Selection Pressure in Breeding
The principal objective of selective breeding is to maximize the pairing of good genes by breeding dogs not affected with (and preferably, not susceptible to) CHD.
For the most rapid genetic change, the breeder can decide to mate only the tightest-hipped dogs within the breed (those with the lowest DI) and then continue to inbreed for tight hips from there. This approach, however, will create increased inbreeding. Founding a breeding program on only a few dogs, and inbreeding on these dogs, would reduce the overall genetic diversity in the gene pool and could contribute to the loss of some desirable traits or lead to the expression of some undesirable traits. This reality affects some breeds more than others. For example less than 5% of Golden Retrievers have hip laxity in the ‘tight-hipped’ range, meaning a DI below 0.30. If one were to require that breeding candidates conform to this standard, 95% of the Golden Retrievers would be excluded from breeding, resulting in a serious reduction in genetic diversity. This breeding strategy would neither be practical nor acceptable to breeders and is not recommended by PennHIP.
So Wall is presenting a straw-man argument–that someone of authority is asking Border Collie breeders to “not accept anything over a 0.30 DI for breeding”–when this is not the case. I haven’t found a single example of PennHIP recommending breeding decisions based on DI, rather they have consistently made recommendations based upon breed-specific distributions. The PennHIP report suggests that anything over median will result in improvement over time and they suggest for more rapid results per generation breeders can consider breeding dogs in the tightest 40% of the breed. Wall’s next paragraph continues the straw-man that someone, mainly PennHIP, is calling for a one-size-fits-all breeding regime:
The problem with using a one factor, “one-size-fits-all” procedure with a disease caused by a combination of factors such as HD, is that all breeds do not have the same percentage contribution of these factors. All breeds of dogs are built somewhat differently, are of different sizes, activity levels, and selected using different standards as the primary criteria. Some of these standards involve performance criteria as a major selection criteria and some don’t. In dogs bred to look a certain way, the selection against such factors as favorable pelvic muscle mass may change the percentage contribution of that particular HD factor in that breed. It’s not surprising then, that adherence to a certain screening and selection technique would be more or less effective in decreasing the incidence of the disease in one breed versus another.
This is sort of rambling nonsense. Dogs are not all the exact same. So what? This observation doesn’t then make dogs so dramatically different that you get to still put Border Collies on a pedestal and ignore endemic problems in the breed or deny that they have pedestrian qualities and faults. Wall is also implying that PennHIP is somehow extreme and thus suspect as a wise tool to use from a population structure stance. I don’t think PennHIP’s suggestions sound radical and inconsiderate of breed health:
To avoid these potential problems accompanying ‘extreme’ selection, PennHIP suggests a more ‘moderate’ approach which goes hand in hand with the PennHIP testing. Particularly in breeds with few or no members having tight (OA-unsusceptible) hips this moderate approach is preferable. In such breeds it is recommended that breeders choose breeding stock from the tightest 40% of the breed (meaning the 60th percentile or better), thereby maintaining an acceptable level of genetic diversity while still applying meaningful selection pressure. By breeding only dogs with hips above the breed average (60th percentile or better) the overall breed average will move toward better (tighter) hips from one generation to the next. Clearly the more selection pressure applied (stricter selection criteria), the more rapid the genetic change.
The PennHIP database ranks each dog relative to other members of the breed making it possible for the breeder to identify dogs whose DI will apply meaningful selection pressure. By applying at least moderate selection pressure, eventually the average of the population will shift with each generation toward tighter hips, increasingly tightening the minimum standard for breeding. By following these time-tested principles of quantitative genetics, ultimately fewer dogs will be at risk for developing OA. Understandably, more rapid genetic change could be achieved by imposing greater selection pressure or by using estimates of breeding value (EBV) from incorporation of the pedigree. These strategies are recommended for the aggressive breeder wishing to achieve the most rapid hip improvement.
So to me, Wall’s argument sounds like she’s attacking the test because she didn’t like the results it showed for her breed. Internalizing success, externalizing failure. Textbook self-serving attributional bias.
Wall’s next argument suffers from mixing data and drawing conclusions that really aren’t supported: she tries to make the claim that Border Collies are more tolerant of laxity than other breeds.
In reality, for our breed, the degree of tightness the researchers at PennHIP have determined in their test breeds will almost certainly ensure no HD, is a value very few Border Collies have. Many, if not most, researchers in HD admit that some breeds are more tolerant of passive laxity than others. In other words, these tolerant breeds tend to have a lower incidence of HD than might be expected from their passive laxity scores. Border Collies appear to be a fairly laxity-tolerant breed.
The first statement is a repeat of the extreme strawman from before; no one is suggestion that we cripple the Border Collie breed by excluding all dogs over a .30 distraction index. Her next statement, that Border Collies are special flowers in terms of their laxity tolerance, is unsupported bunk. Her evidence is mixing OFA stats with PennHIP stats and I just find this exercise suspect given the data she’s trying to use. OFA scores are simply not predicative of much of anything, it’s easy to game that test and PennHIP studies suggest that a full “80% of dogs evaluated as “normal” by the OFA were found to have hip laxity by PennHIP testing that predisposed them to developing hip osteoarthritis in the future.” If we just look at incidence of HD according to OFA, as flawed as it is, Border Collies are not remarkable. They are firmly in the middle of the pack of all breeds and within shepherd breeds of similar structure.
If you want to compare HD rates across breeds you need a scientific study that does not suffer from extreme selection bias the way that OFA statistics do. If you want to make the claim that Border Collies are laxity tolerant you need evidence that compares laxity versus DJD across many breeds and she does not present that for Border Collies.
Although OFA HD statistics are undoubtedly skewed low by pre-submission screening, it’s likely these skewed values are constant across the board for these breeds, making the comparisons between them here valid on a relative scale. The figures in the table indicate the Border Collie is more tolerant as a breed to passive laxity than the German Shepherd.
The first basis of her claim is that Border Collies seem to be more tolerant of laxity than German Shepherds. I’ll let you in on a little secret: all breeds are more tolerant of hip laxity than German Shepherds. The reasons for this should be obvious as the modern fad in German Shepherds is for a crippled roach-back with poor musculature and structure all over their back ends. German Shepherds are outliers as you can clearly see in the above DJD vs. DI. Border Collies are not special flowers by being better than German Shepherds regarding laxity tolerance: all other breeds can claim this advantage. Her table is also not evidence of the claim that BCs are more laxity tolerant than GSDs, only the chart that I’ve included above documents this.
Comparing the Australian Shepherd with the Border Collie, the mean PennHIP DI is very similar, 0.49 vs. 0.50, respectively, yet the reported incidence of HD in the Australian Shepherd is about half that of the Border Collie. Australian Shepherds, as a breed, appear even more tolerant than Border Collies to similar passive laxity scores. It’s also of interest to note the highest mean DI (0.56 of the Shetland Sheepdog) has the lowest incidence of HD, and the lowest mean DI (0.43 of the German shepherd) has the highest incidence of HD of these four breeds. These data suggest that average breed passive laxity scores do not directly correlate with the breed incidence of HD as determined by OFA. It appears the passive laxity score that would almost certainly doom a German Shepherd to HD may not doom a Border Collie with the same DI score, depending on the strength of other factors that may be present in that individual. From these figures, one could also speculate that herding breeds similar to the Border Collie, such as the Shetland Sheepdog and the Australian Shepherd, have further mitigated the effects of lax hips through selection for HD protective factors present in these breeds.
Here’s a masterful attempt at presenting a non-argument as an argument. Non-evidence as evidence. The finding of a non-correlation as significant. “These data suggest that average breed passive laxity scores do not directly correlate with the breed incidence of HD as determined by OFA. ” Well no shit, Sherlock! OFA can’t even claim that their own evaluations correlate with incidence of Hip Dysplasia, so trying to compare what breeds look like in the OFA database versus what their laxity scores look like in PennHIP is a bogus comparison on its face.
Whatever point she’s trying to construct using Shetland Sheepdogs and Australian Shepherds, as breeds similar to the Border Collie, loses weight when you start looking at all the herding breeds, especially ones that are built more like Border Collies. English Shepherds are in the top 30 breeds for incidence of Hip Dysplasia, and I don’t think anyone can claim that Shelties are more similar to Border Collies than English Shepherds are. Cardigan Welsh Corgis and Pembroke Welsh Corgis both have higher rates than Border Collies, as do Pyrenean Shepherds and Old English Sheepdogs. Over all dogs, Australian Kelpies are better than Border Collies, but over dogs born 2006-2010 they are significantly worse. Same with Dutch Shepherds. Bearded Collies, Australian Shepherds, Belgian Malinois, North American Shepherds, Shetland Sheepdogs, Tervurens, Belgian Sheepdogs, and Collies all rank better than Border Collies.
So all the talk of “HD protective factors” is just that, talk. Border Collies, which can claim extensive selective pressure from trial success–arguably more pressure than most or all other shepherd breeds have face, are still nothing special in the middle of shepherd breeds and in the middle of all breeds does not provide any evidence at all for the efficacy of sheep trials to confer protection from hip dysplasia.
So what’s going on with our breed?
The good news is that although it appears Border Collies may, as a breed, have somewhat lax hips, predisposing them to HD, many also have the protective factors such as increased pelvic muscle mass and good hip formation and fit. Increased pelvic muscle mass and good hip formation are factors not taken into account during PennHIP laxity measurements and not always measured accurately in the standard OFA view.
The denial is so thick. She doesn’t like that Border Collies have nothing-special hips according to PennHIP, so she doesn’t like that test. I’m not sure why she likes OFA then, because Border Collies are nothing-special over there too! Regardless of the test, Border Collies aren’t going to be special flowers because they just aren’t special in this regard. You can test-shop all you want, but nothing is going to change the fact that Border Collies have average hips and that makes them predisposed to an undesirable rate of hip dysplasia. There are no more “special mitigating factors” that increase a Border Collie’s protection from Hip Dysplasia vs. the average than there are special complicating factors that increase their incidence of HD. They are average. Not special. If they had more mitigating factors than other dogs, they wouldn’t be average, they’d be exceptional.
And they aren’t. The only thing exceptional here is the degree of self-deception that Border Collie trial apologists are willing to commit to delude themselves that they don’t need to change anything at all about their breeding schemes.
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Are you kidding me? Is good for a herding dog?????
I have seen a similar situation in the horse breeding world.
Let’s face it. Shows are not good indicators or tests for long term soundness — even performance based showing. It simply does not replicate the sort of day in day out, lifetime physical (and mental) performance required of a working dog (who may not have the flash and style of a show dog, but may be superior in long term mental and physical soundness). Show world (this includes trials or any other type of dog sport) and work world will select for very different things (or just take a look at some of the Olympic dressage and jumping horses — almost all of them some form of European warmblood, breeds developed for their nation’s respective militaries — and ask yourself: could those horses hold up long to hauling artillery and troops into and out of Paris or Moscow as well as their predecessors?).
I can find links to compare the two.
Yet, you will hear arguments from the breeders of these horses that due to the sport performance based evaluation of breeding stock these horses have been brought to the pinnacle of physical and mental soundness. I would argue that they have not — they are more beautiful, they are much more technically brilliant in their specialty sport(s), but they have lost quite a bit of long term physical and mental soundness.– they aren’t as tough anymore, and to a certain extent not as forgiving of average riders/situations either.
I tried to post this on a BC site and it was removed because the author protested and “has made so many contributions to Border Collies”. You can be sure if there is any debate on the status quo those with an interest in the status quo will do their best to suppress it.
I doubt Ms. Wall intends to say that laxity is positive (that’s not how I interpreted her article), however, she doesn’t exactly use sound reasoning either. It may well be that BC breeders unknowingly select for an average in laxity via Penn Hip, but there are some glaring errors in her assertions. First, that OFA radiographs are the “gold standard” in diagnosing HD. That can only be true if they provide a meaningful sample of each mating. If only a few dogs out of each litter are examined and rated, then the sample is skewed towards just a few individuals which doesn’t provide meaningful data to select for improvement because the unexamined may tell a different story. There are also certain vets fanciers go to because their methods produce better ratings with OFA for a number of reasons. So even the examined and rated dogs are skewed toward the positive.
That Ms. Wall then denigrates Penn Hip is also disingenuous as Penn Hip also includes an OFA radiograph to reveal various skeletal issues regarding hip conformation. So how can OFA be the “gold standard” when Penn Hip provides more information in addition to the OFA view? If only laxity were the only trait we were looking at.
In focusing on the breed average she ignores what would also be an obvious question: What is the starting point for the breed overall? For many years the BC enthusiasts insisted that performance was the sole criteria and that if the dog worked that all was well, and in doing so they ignored any diagnosis or measurement of hip conformation or laxity. It may well be that the narrow base of the breed (read Wiston Cap, et al) were dysplastic or had very lax hips and since the breed as it is now was based largely on that narrow genetic base, lax hips were the genotype they were selecting for, knowingly or not. In order to improve hip conformation there MUST be a purposeful selective pressure for tighter hips. We don’t know if there was any such effort in coursing or sled dogs. It may be that they unknowingly selected for tighter hips that came along with speed and endurance. To make any assertion beyond that is pure speculation.
Any knowledgeable geneticist would want more statistical data to make a statement of probability. Since BC’s were and still are bred to a performance standard and the sample used to denigrate Penn Hip is only a few hundred dogs while thousands of dogs go unexamined or measured, then what we are really dealing with is general selection for hip conformation. How can the result of general selection be any better than average? Statistically it cannot. To make any statement otherwise is irresponsible at best.
So C. Denise Wall, PhD HERSELF actually protested against the posting of a link to this article? Or was it just her sheeple friends who threw a fit? I’m amazed that if she’s already read this she has no response. When people take-down articles I’ve written, I link to them and will write a response. Especially when what I’m writing is important, and I’d say that writing a theory like laxity is beneficial to Border Collies and thus we should “rethink” that whole hip testing thing in a manner that makes it ok to not test or ignore poor results… is a pretty important argument and she should defend it against my critiques.
It’s disappointing that a doctoral committee would allow a student to commit time and effort to something so weakly grounded in science.
I actually have a strong opinion about this whole matter backed up by the research I did for my not completed PhD at U Penn in Anatomy. My subject was high speed locomotion in dogs and I also provided a kennel full of Borzoi to Gail Smith that served as the normal controls for the first part of the PennHip research project.
First off, in my experience smaller lighter dogs are not nearly as incapacitated by hip laxity as are larger heavier dogs. Hip laxity is associated with degenrative hip dysplasia disease (which is basically joint remodeling) but well developed pelvic muscle mass can do a great deal to minimize the damage to the joint. Dr Smith told me that for any given degree of the innate laxity measured by PennHip, the actual joint damage seen in Rottweilers was much less than that seen in German Shepherds. Rotties have the massive “jodhpur thighs” seen in fast sighthounds where modern US German Shepherds have those thin “little old men’ type thighs.
Secondly connective tissue laxity is highly heritable. There is a whole book written by Victor McKusick or Johns Hopkins Dept of Genetics on Heritable diseases of connective tissue. The data is from humans but we pretty much have the same collagen genes in all placental mammals. Most connective tissue defects are dominant genes of varied expression. In many cases these genes are additive so being homozygous is much more affected than being heterozygous. In some cases the homyzyous condition is lethal while the herteozygous condition is affected.
Some of my Borzoi had zero laxity under PennHip. The tight hipped dogs also had very tight loin skin compared to the lax hipped German shepherds I had. I am sure this is because the same collagen molecules were in the skin as in the tendons and ligaments.
When we did a HD German Shepherd x Borzoi cross the first generation came out with worse hips than the German Shepherd. So bad that there were no hip sockets. The next generation cross back to Borzois (a relatively unrelated Borzoi) gave us two types of hips. Tight like a Borzoi or lax like the Shepzoi mother.
Looks like a simple dominant gene to me. I suspect that the primary defect is a simple dominant connective tissue defect gene and in lineages where the normal wolf type connective tissue gene is absent generations of selecting for reduction in effect of the defective gene by selecting for modifying factors gives tighter but still defective connective tissue. When we crossed to the Borzoi we dumped most of those polygenetic modifiers so that in the F1 that got the shepherd connective tissue gene, there was full expression of the defect. In the F2 some pups got the defective gene and were as bad off as the Shepzoi parent while other pups had only Borzoi type connective tissue and so had tight connective tissue.
However as I said the smaller and lighter the dog the less actual arthritis and displacing of the hip and remodeling of the socket occurs. Especially if the dog also grows relatively slowly. So smaller dogs will show up with laxity under Penn Hip but may not be injured by clinical hip dysplasia.
From reading I have done it seems to me that Border Collies have a fairly wide range of body weights with many of them being down in the 35 lb size range. Most of the lax dogs with clinical HD are in the 60+ lb size range.
That is probably why there has not been really strong selection against clinical HD in the smaller traditional Border Collie strains. The dogs worked in Scotland and US as actual sheep dogs.
Once the dog show bug hits dog breeds tend to become larger. (except for toy breeds which tend to become smaller. As you start to have dogs in the larger sizes then clinical hip dysplasia becomes more likely to happen. Also these dogs are not being asked to do the long run outs and long working days seen in actual working Border Collies. I have read accounts of working dogs being sent over a mile away to round up sheep. This is very different from the herding tests I have seen.
As to selection in sighthounds. Even in fairly limited distance running,winning sighthounds travel at speeds above 35 mph (and up to 40mph). In contrast racing sled dogs travel at 24 mph or so. The physical stresses go geometrically with increases in velocity, not arithmetically. So twice as fast is 4 times as stressful. This extreme stress on the locomotory system of sighthounds selects strongly for mechanical perfection.
Similarly even short race, professionally raced racing sled dogs travel around 30 miles in a typical race. So they may not be stressing the locomotory system instantaneously, but they are selecting for mechanically durable locomotory systems.
I also filmed and studied professionally raced racing sled dogs as part of my project. The people who were breeding them at that time were maintaining kennels of over 100 dogs and maybe only 1 or 2 pups from a litter would make it onto a competitive team. This meant that there was very intense selection pressure for performance with little attention paid to personal feeling of attachment to the dogs.
It is amazing what one can do with selection in a breeding program if you can be objective about the capabilities of the dogs and if you can afford to have enough dogs so that you can select the very best yet avoid inbreeding.
It took me 3 generations to start producing athletic Borzois that were almost as fast as racing greyhounds and yet capable of doing things like leaping in the air when the lure turned and changing direction 180 degrees.
One consequence of this is that our athletic top lure coursing and racing Borzois have returned to the size range of the dogs that were being bred by the Russians in the 1890’s. 65 to 85 lb dogs, not 100 lb dogs.
And they all have massive “thunder thighs” and of course excellent hips.
The few Borzoi I have seen with clinical hip dysplasia have been abnormal in build, had lax connective tissue or had been severely injured.
Chris, if you are interested I can email you a set of photos to post on the blog of a severely dysplastic dog pelvis which I use as part of my talk on locomotion in dogs which shows, much better than x-rays, the degree of remodeling and deformity that is present in clinical hip dysplasia.
Interesting results. I wonder if borzoi crossbreeding is the reason that collies tend to have better hips than the related breeds – the aussie, english shepherd, border collie, etc? Relatively few breeders do OFA, much less Penn-hip, it’s not a working breed, yet dysplastic collies are uncommon (2.8% according to OFA, but based on fewer than 3000 evaluations).
Officially, whether or not borzoi were actually used in the development of the modern collie is an open question that will probably never have a definitive answer. But if there was crossbreeding, maybe we got better hips along with taller stature and pointier muzzles.
I discovered years ago that the few numbers of Collie evaluation for hips were based on primary those individuals who desired to do Obedience, Agility, and Herding. Very few did hip evaluations on Collies in conformation it was only those purchasing puppies who wish to do performance activities.
In my experience PennHip is the best radiographic method for evaluation of connectived tissue laxity. However the correlation I saw between PennHip scores and a physical measurement of connective tissue laxity obtained by pulling up a fold of loin skin midloin and measuring the size of the skin fold was very good and a much cheaper test. Also worked in predicting hip status in our F2 Shepzoizoi litter at birth. Unfortunately the sample size was only 2 dogs and I did not have the resources to go further with the Shepzoi crosses.
I did apply the loin skin test to a number of Dr Smith’s PennHip clients from a number of breeds. I also was able to try it on some wolves at Wolf Park in Indiana, and a sedated Cape Hunting dog. All the wild canids had very tight loin skin. Less than 5 centimenters. Similarly the Borzois with tight hips were under 5 centimeters. German Shepherds with lax hips had loin skin folds measuring 15 centimeters.
Going through a litter of pups and doign the loin skin test should give a breeder an advantage for breeding away from clinical hip dysplasia. In addition you need to select for dogs with heavy thigh musculature.
Oh wow, this is a really awesome comment thread. <3 I would love to have a chance to look at your study and the radiographs! Did you ever think about publishing the study, or did the school own it and bury it?
Jessica Cargill recently posted..“Anti-RESCUE”
That’s great information! Thanks! I too would love to see the radiographs.
I can vouch for PennHip being the only real game in town — have been burnt buying pups from OFA’d good/excellent dogs. I don’t know who did the certs, but those pups wound up past age 2 with problems.
I’m going to go try the skin test out on my dogs…and fortunately I’ve got my daughter’s ex-racer Greyhound for a control…he was a pretty good winner on the track and retired late for a racer, and was pretty sound, he has an old shoulder injury, other than that he’s pretty tight…and my mom’s Sheltie (he’s my estate settlement!!) for a control in the other direction — he’s got not so great hips, but they don’t seem to bother him unduly.
It is not that UPenn burried my study, it is that I became to absorbed in breeding fast dogs and becoming one of the top competitors in my breed for lure coursing, racing Borzoi to finish the dissertation. I tried to stay in graduate school all my life (Tom Lehrer – a scientist/mathematition distracted by satire, wrote a routine addressing this topic) and they caught me at it. But my data was sound and my research greatly aided me in my dog breeding program. Also the 3 hour daily commute round trip to Philly from Baltimore did not help.
Then I got hung up writing the computer program to do motion analysis, not being a trained programmer….
Let me know how your test of loin skin laxity comes out.
Keep in mind that some few greyhounds have a different connective tissue defect that leads to very fragile skin without impacting their tendons and ligaments. In these dogs the skin can tear easily but they usually have a number of really nasty keloid scars from repeated episodes of torn skin.
In carnivores the loin skin will be tighter than the skin at the neck, so use the loin skin. Practice pulling it up and measuring it with a small ruler. You want to pull to get maximum streatch without causing discomfort or hurting the dog. Sort of like the firm skin pull you do to evaluate dehydration.
Ah, no worries — I knew about the Greyhound skin tearing issue, but it appears as though my daughter’s hound has hide made of bull leather (he really is a tough old boy, runs through the brush with the BCs without a blink).
I will.
I have not fully research the varies breeds but was diagnosed in conjunction with Dermatomyostis in a Collie what is still called a syndrome under study as far as I know. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/ehlers-danlos-syndrome
In my Afghans, the ones with looser skin are slower and move with more of that gallumphing motion that some Afghans have. The faster and more boingy dogs have tighter skin and are typically broader across the loin, with more muscle than the slow ones, even during the summer when they are out of shape.
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Your work sounds fantastic. BUT…
Things that sound promising but aren’t properly documented and aren’t transparent enough for critical review drive me crazy.
Is there anything that could induce you to publish your findings in more detail, with references, to permit critical review? Eg, would you be willing to hand over your partial results to someone else and let them do a write up?
or use them as a basis for a proposal to do further research?
Ok, I did an impromptu skin laxity measurement (and I hope I did it correctly and got the right measurements — my dogs think I’m nuts I’m sure).
— Greyhound — 3 cm, had a hard time even getting a fold of skin; this makes sense: he raced for a long time (retired at 8) and was fairly successful (won +25K on the track, even the last two years he was in track parlance “in the firing line”, hence why they kept him at it so long), and the only unsoundness he has now, at 10, is from his shoulders; and he still is “made of muscle” after a life of leisure (which he completely enjoys)
Sheltie — surprisingly tight at 5 cm; he’s an older dog (13) and Mom overindulged him with treats a few years before she died, so his stiffness may be from age and being so out of shape the last few years; since he’s come to live here (and gone on a huge diet and gotten some excercise) he’s remarkably spry. I was expecting to get more skin fold from him, but nope, he was nearly as tight over the loin as the Greyhound.
Our female Border — surprisingly lax at 8 cm; this was a surprise, because I would have considered her one of the soundest/toughest dogs out there (she just never gets sore or hurt, ever, and it isn’t from lack of trying; she’s always up for feats of aerial acrobatics and herding; she’s suffered a fair share of knocks) — but…she is a very much “coyote collie” (no, really, she looks like a little black coyote, or fox, or coyote/fox hybrid — she looks like a feral somethingorother), and is all bone, hair, stringy muscle, and gristle on a very small by today’s BC standards body makeup (which makes her not the prettiest dog you’ve ever seen, but she isn’t carrying any extra body mass, so that may attribute to her overall soundness; plus she has no extreme angulations to her bone structure and a really straight, solid topline; that probably helps as well). I would remark that she doesn’t have a lot of the style needed to be a trialing dog — she has good eye and can think tactically, but she runs a bit up headed and up bodied, so she’s not stylish in her herding, there may be something to that.
Needless to say this did make us question breeding her again (we’d have to go to an outside dog anyway) — she may show up fine on hip x-rays, but she’s still a young dog and who knows what sort of degeneration could take place.
We obviously couldn’t measure her mate, Jack, but judging from his life (he was a senior dog who had done farm work plus frisbee, agility, and packpacking) I’m guessing he wasn’t as lax as she — he was still going strong at 9 1/2 with no unsoundness, although we had noticed he was beginning to slow down a bit and he didn’t handle all day, marathon work/play sessions like he did at 4 (hey, don’t we all). Now, one of the things that we always liked about him was that he was very well muscled over his back, hips, and shoulders — he carried much more muscle mass than most (he was a “coyote collie” too, and his mother was a wiry, stringy little thing as well).
The pups (who were the hardest ones of all to get an accurate measurement on) bore out my thinking about Jack: one was fairly tight skinned at 5 cm; three were the same laxity as their mother: 8 (fortunately only one had the bigger frame like their dad, and fortunately none of the pups that were sold are going to be bred); and two were mid-range at 6 cm. We kept the the tight pup and one of the mid range ones; I suppose to make this little “study” complete I”d have to come back in 4-5 years and relate whether or not we decided to breed them, what we bred to, and what the pups were like!
I’d have to factor in a margin of error rate of +- 2 cm — like I said, the dogs complied fairly well, but some wiggling took place.
Following on Jennifer’s comments. I tried this on my two mature Labradors and a litter of nine 5 week puppies. All I can conclude is that better specification is required to get meaningful measurements of skin tightness. I find that I get different skin fold measurements depending on whether the dog is standing, sitting, or lying, and on what position it was in when sitting or lying. I can’t get measurements as high as 5 cm for any of my dogs, in any position.
I am particularly interested vis a vis a girl whose pedigree suggests excellent hips but who had an accident at 6 mo (fell down some steps, ended out showing 6/6 lameness and needing a lot of painkillers and confinement for some weeks) and who, at ~4 yrs shows unilateral HD on the side that was hit in the accident. I would love to have a better grasp on what is environmental and what genetic.
The work you began has potential to help a lot of breeders trying to do the right thing.
You had different results with sitting, standing, etc. too?
LOL! Ok, now I don’t feel as bad! (wondered if I was going daft for a while).
I took just the standing measurements to put up — as some sat, some lay down, but all of them eventually stood for one test, seemed the most accurate data.
And yeah, I wonder about environmental factors: my female BC, with the most laxity, is the youngest adult dog in the house, and while she appears to be just fine soundness wise, she has done actual farm work (and taken some pretty hard kicks and stomps in the process)…the only way I could possibly get a good read on what her future would be like is to, well, go forward into the future and see and then compare it to other similar dogs with similar pedigrees and work histories.
That’s where it would be nice to see a comprehensive study — it’s worth looking into I think.
You cannot question the high priests, even when they say things that are batshit.
retrieverman recently posted..Konrad Lorenz was a Nazi scientist
So Denise Wall, Piled Higher and Deeper, emails me out of nowhere, re: the comment above.
I tell her to comment here, because I didn’t write this post, but I did explain the comment above. I don’t think the ABCA is much better than the AKC, though it pretends to be so it can throw fecal matter at the moribund amalgamation of closed registry breeds.
But she refuses.
All she does is make insults about the author of this blog, which I think is hysterical.
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Dang, now I’m feeling left out. She wouldn’t respond to me when I posted her non-sense to a sheepdog FB page either. I suspect she just wrote to the page owner and cried about being criticized. You would think a PhD would be used to having her publications reviewed, especially if the paper takes on something as accepted as Penn Hip. I got the impression she was used to just being accepted as an expert. As it is I don’t think her article could survive the review of a very basic remedial junior college genetics class. She probably means well, but for crying out loud, if you are a PhD shouldn’t you do your homework?
You post things on the internet. At some point someone will disagree with you and may be be a touch snarky or stroppy.
Them’s the breaks. I’ve not lost a single hour of sleep over critics of my own work.
retrieverman recently posted..Ducks mating
I wonder if in an offhand way Dr. Wall may be correct.
Sport breeding, which is what trialing is, can run the risk of selecting for extremes of specialized movement, which can mess up the overall normative physiology of an animal just as assuredly as the fads of the conformation show ring (perhaps not as quickly or to such a great degree, but there nonetheless and more insipid due to the “well, they must be healthy, we must be breeding them sound, because they ‘work'” attitude).
Could some of the extreme crouch/stalk that is so prized in trialing be contributing to greater prevalence of hip dysplasia in much the same way as the extreme stacking of GSDs contributed to their issues? [I am in no way saying that the two breeds are exactly alike in their prevalence or severity, nor that how each came to have the problem is exactly the same…but I think we have to look at that angle in order to perhaps inform us better going forward.]
I would make anecdotal note (so, not scientific of course) that very few of the actual working farm BCs get their hips tested (heck, many of them are not even registered) — and yet I think information garnered from their hip laxity ratios might be at the very least interesting to compare. In fact, I’d love to see comparisons between significant population samples of confromation show BCs, trailing BCs, working BCs, and other sport/work BCs
(I left out pet BCs, as most of them are neutered and come from a breeder engaged in one of the above…but maybe even they should be included — as I have also noticed, anecdotal of course, that with the GSDs it’s the “backyard breeders” who seem to get on average the sounder dogs compared to their more glamorous showing and even some working kennel brothers!).
Thinking as a scientist, you don’t simply rule out a hypothesis, so yes, she may be correct.
The problem is that her argument is horrid. If she were correct, would we not expect to see Border Collies at an extreme on hips? They are otherwise an extreme breed in most respects where they have been selected harshly for traits. They are highly intelligent, way above the mean. They are highly athletic. Way above the mean. So why are their hips just f’ing average? Right there next to dogs that are similar in source but have not been highly selected. Heck, regular Collies which have been harshly selected for being stupid ring ornaments, and which are generally larger (not a good thing for hips) appear to have better hips by the data she is using (OFA).
The extreme stacking in GSDs DID ABSOLUTELY LEAD TO THEIR BEING EXTREME ON HIPS. See? So why are Border Collies just average… which is the state that we would expect if there had not been selection for or against hip laxity.
Oh, no disagreement that her argument is terrible! It would be laughable if it wasn’t so destructive imo.
But perhaps there is something to the extreme movement/style so desired by the trialers that is causing the issue (in what would otherwise be a dog with no problems). That’s why I brought up the horses — I have seen certain types of movement which became fashionable which also seemed to lend itself to some form of mechanical unsoundness (a lot of the time it was subclinical, but after watching the horses’ in question throughout their performance careers, they did have to have much more tlc than some of the more unfaddish, plainer movers).
Trialing, like show performance horses, may not select for extreme looks like show conformation dogs (and horses) and therefore because there is some performance involved (thus the need for at least a modicum of soundness) you aren’t going to get the way out things you can see in conformation only….still, there will be fashion and fad, and they often involve extremes which in the end are not long term/overall benefical (moderation in all things, as the saying goes, is perhaps not a bad thing to introduce back into the mix from time to time after all — but as with conformation showing, sport/performance showing can have the same issue — perhaps less dramatic, but maybe more pernicious because we fool ourselves into thinking sport performance always = the most healthy thing in all ways). Then, we will make of course, excuses for it, when we really shouldn’t (just like the conformation show ring does).
I’d love to see the data you suggested. Sadly, it just hasn’t been collected and there is not a strong ethic of hip testing at all in Border Collies. In fact, I’ll cover this in a future post, there is something of a backlash against hip testing. Trial Success is enough. No need to disqualify winning trial dogs with things like DNA and Hip testing. CEA is not really a big problem in the breed and that is really the only DNA test you’re going to find with most of them.
I suspect the OFA figures are not representative samples, though it’s hard to figure their bias.
A strange thing shows up in the Finnish KC’s database. BC hips seem to be improving rapidly (66% A’s in dogs born in 2011 and 2012 as opposed to 57% in dogs born in 2008). Meanwhile, Rough Collies went from 66% A’s for dogs born in 2008 to 59% and 46%, respectively, for dogs born in 2011 and 2012.
Who knows why. Sample sizes are large enough (N = 60 to >200 hip scores recorded for each breed, depending on cohort year) that outliers aren’t likely to cause havoc. Hard to interpret data when you don’t understand the sampling bias and how/if it may be changing over time or over sub-populations.
That’s what I wonder too.
If a larger and more representative population was tested, would the numbers get better or worse?
That would be important to know (and hopefully, the numbers would get better; that way we’d know there was a simple fix…although the show people would not like it, at least the one’s with popular breeding dogs; oh well).
In all honesty, I have to admit that testing is a real pain in the tuckus here. You have to take a drive, because nobody in the area does even good OFA x-rays, let alone PennHip (which I would prefer, but the logistics are horrible), then your dog will be tested for CEA and a hearing test, because it’s a collie (which is ok; I’m more concerned about deafness but good to know my dogs’ eyes are all right), but anything else you would have to special request (which becomes another pain). Pretty soon, you’ve priced your dogs out of the market (because nobody else is doing it — except for the AKC conformation show breeders in this area, and even some of them don’t do full screenings on their dogs). Believe me…why do you think we don’t breed more than a litter every 4 years? We have to spread out the bills and recoup our losses — because you have to price to the market, and the market for dogs other than AKC conformation dogs is pretty low around here. It’s either that or produce more quantity, and we don’t really want to do that (we’re not breeder-breeders, just people who like our dogs and want to make sure we have one around).
You just don’t find tested herding dogs around in my area (Heelers and Aussies are the big thing, and none to very few of them are tested, heck, if they’ve had their shots and been wormed you’re doing good)– in fact, most of the gun dogs around here are not tested if they are from working gun dog breeders — they’ve been OFA’s on hips, maybe elbows, and that’s it.
Come to think of it, most of the lap dogs aren’t either — we have a very sizeable Amish community…you have to price to the market, and they always seem to be able to undercut you (except for some, who actually breed some nice dogs and do test them, and complain about the same things: hard to get testing done, priced out of the market, etc.)
A long time ago I spent 12 consecutive summers on the West coast of Scotland. I saw a lot of working BCs and also sheep dog trials. I also have friends with a house on the west coast of Ireland and saw a lot of small, light and agile BCs with very little coat and of completely differing phenotypes there. The dogs are a tool. I knew nothing about HD in those days, but as far as I can remember, the dogs were not as extreme in their work methods as the present trialing BCs—where, as in all trials, speed rather than dependability is of the essence. It would be interesting to go back to those farms and herds and have some hip testing done.
Speed is an element of the very first trials that has stayed from the beginning and which clearly separates WORK from SPORT.
The first trials were actually quite different than you’d imagine. They were aristocrat sponsored public spectacles that were valued for the chaos and confusion caused by being timed events with only cursory links with the actual work of shepherds. It was very much the rich enjoying a good laugh at the expense of their underlings and the style and rules promoted comedy more than cool control.
They also had adjoining beauty pageants.
“Sport breeding, which is what trialing is…”
Don’t say that to the “breed for herding only” people. Their perception is that trialing (USBCHA trialing, mind you) is the only “work” there is. Actual working farm dogs are not “working” dogs (unless of course they also trial).
Being fairly involved in Agility, I can tell you that most of the Border Collie “sport” breeders I know OFA or PennHip or both, BAER test, and do the CEA DNA test. Their primary worry I think is seizure disorders and early takeoff syndrome (for some, anyway–some believe that ETS is a jumping/confidence issue, not an actual eye problem). The perception, from some I talked to, is that ETS is coming from the herding-only lines–and it is true that I know a number of dogs bred for herding who have it, whereas the dogs that are from a combination of “barbie” and sport lines don’t seem to.
Sorry, they’re just going to have to deal with my take on their sport — it isn’t day to day work; just like eventing horses are no longer cavalry mounts and combined driving horses probably never see an artillery piece in this day and age.
As for the OFA and other tests — I’m sure they do. I was mainly considering actual working farm and pet home dogs. They usually don’t (in all honesty, my dogs are from working farm lines; I have never seen any testing on either’s parent — although they tested out fine themselves — OFA, which is not the best test imho, but it’s the most easily gotten around here, and CEA).
As to ETS…my experience is more with jumping horses than with jumping dogs, but are you sure this isn’t a training issue that may crop up with certain lines of dogs moreso than others? Leaving a stride out can be a common issue with young jumping horses (trust me, it isn’t a fun feeling to be on one either), but with time, the proper gymnastics/training most resolve the problem. There are horses, and yes, a lot of them are related or come from certain lines that are more apt to leave a stride out (this can be a big problem in a grand prix jumping event, especially now that courses have gotten more technical); oddly, a common denominator is that these are usually big, scopey jumpers who are more gung ho than afraid of the jumps (this might factor in with the herding only bred dogs; they can be pretty gung ho about things sometimes beyond what they should) — one of our best Olympic horses, Gem Twist, was pretty guilty of doing this, and he was a superb jumper who could never be accused of confidence issues (except perhaps having too much!)..Of course, you can’t ride a dog, so directly controlling them like you would a horse isn’t very possible; however, I wonder if some of the gymnastic training done with horses might not help out the dogs?
We’ve played around with agility and outside of some over enthusiastic jumps from time to time have never dealt with this (of course, we take the dogs over the horse’s jumps…because I’m way too lazy to make special ones for them, so that may be part of the equation).
Jennifer–have a look at Linda Mecklenburg’s articles on the subject. What she calls “classic” ETS isn’t a confidence problem, although it can cause confidence problems. It gets progressively worse. Dogs may not knock bars, and some are quite fast, but you can see stutter stepping, overjumping, and “short” landing. Some dogs actually don’t have ETS but do have structural problems (straight shoulders) that make it difficult to extend.
http://www.awesomepaws.us/early-takeoff-syndrome/
If you’ve seen a dog with ETS, it really doesn’t look like anything else–nobody blames the occasional knocked bar or “off” approach on ETS, though some Agility trainers who think they can “cure” it (and want to charge you a lot of money for their “jump training”) sometimes claim that. Bad ETS is painful to watch–you hold your breath hoping the dog is going to clear each jump. There are, however, dogs that are able to compensate–hell, half of the dogs in 16″ performance finals at USDAA last year had ETS (one of the reasons they were doing performance instead of championship).
Huh, after watching that, I wonder if the dogs are trying to cope with farsightedness?
I know with horses, with the way their head is shaped and eye placement, that they aren’t really seeing the jump all that great a few strides out (some veteran jumpers will actually cock their heads to try and get some more “eye time” going in). Maybe that’s what’s happening here???
Some dogs with jumping problems ARE farsighted, and if you look at Linda’s comments under the Whippet, he was diagnosed as farsighted (not ETS). I also know a local dog who has occasional jumping problems and is farsighted. Retinoscopy can actually discover farsightedness in dogs, which is why she emphasizes that retinoscopy should be done before you assume ETS. There is no test we can do (yet) for ETS, which is thought to be a depth perception problem.
Man, good luck — I hope something is found out, if anything for the dogs’ sakes (seems from those videos that they are trying to do what people want of them).
Seems like this might be an issues with many variables (including some trainer related issues — I’d hate to see a dog given up on and presumed to have ETS when in actuality it’s a trainer problem).
Informally, in Shelties we have some idea of where it’s coming from in non-Sable lines, and the feeling is to breed away from those dogs and do some breeding into sable lines. Unfortunately a lot of the good non-sable (black and blue) dogs are older. The good news is that at least in Agility, some are trying to move away from overused Conformation sires that we know are behind a lot of ETS dogs, so hopefully genes that wouldn’t have been kept or brought in to the lines ARE being kept–also more outcrossing is being done. Yeah, you lose some type, but Agility people care less about type (and better to have good structure anyway). Border Collies (and other breeds–there are few other breeds that DON’T show ETS, though I have never seen a sighthound with it–granting that there aren’t that many sighthounds in Agility) not so sure.
It’s also a problem in Flyball, though less obvious than in Agility because of the predictability of the jump spacing and low jump heights.
Most casual competitors with ETS dogs learn to manage it unless the situation is REALLY bad (and I have seen REALLY bad). As long as the dog is having a good time, not stressed or injuring itself, they can continue to compete. Though yes, some dogs do get placed in non-Aglity homes.
I’m not so sure that the best strategy is to get reactive and “breed away” from something (whether this ETS, or hip dysplasia, and perhaps a lot of other things as well) as to “breed around” it.
Sometimes I think we get ourselves into more problems by stampeding away from things (and cutting even shorter the ol’ genetic tree) instead of taking a careful look at it and saying “let’s find a way to lessen the problem, because we aren’t going to do away with it entirely, or even if we did, we could wind up with something worse”.
Jennifer, I don’t disagree with you. The thing with Shelties, though, is that we actually have a good idea of some of the overused conformation males it’s coming from. People who are primarily breeding for sport rather than conformation can avoid using males from those lines, and it actually tends to benefit the breed as a whole (IMO) because more outcrossing between lines is being done. BUT Shelties are much different from Border Collies. Color genetics is much simpler, for one thing (I’ve noticed a recent fad for “Australian Red” Border Collies, and am wondering about the effects of that recessive gene), and we don’t have all the “herding only” baggage–there are plenty of lines of mixed sport and conformation breeding, or dogs bred primarily for conformation that are good Agility dogs as well.
Yeah, I wonder about this recent fad for “exotic” coat colors in BCs myself. I suppose it’s cool and all, getting a wild colored pup in a sea of black and white — hey, the tricolors we got litter before last got snapped up, and they were darn cute — but as with horses, color isn’t the measure of a dog. Imo, it’s a bad trend…be happy if you get the fun surprise, but don’t make it a basis for what you breed.
The “herding baggage” is another situation — on one hand, if you’re going to breed BCs, you should be selecting for at least some good herding traits, but again, as with what I’ve seen from horses, you need to consider that extreme selection for one thing may cause issues some place else…besides, you do have to consider the market (extremely specialized, “master” herding dogs have their market, but it isn’t the only one, nor is it, imo, any more important than the other markets). Fortunately, some of the traits that make BCs such stellar herding dogs, makes them stellar in other areas as well, so I like to see that versatility/diversification plasticity stay put (so of course I like to see BCs who can promote this sort of thing).
This should make breeders happy — it gives them more room to “play” with traits and bloodlines (unlike, say what has happened to Thoroughbred horses, where “breed the best to the best” while getting some good things has also caused some bad things to crop up), rather than less — oddly, it doesn’t seem to.
If hip dysplasia provided an advantage in dogs that perform a lot of fast lateral work, rapid stop/starts and move from a run to a sit or down position frequently, then working cocker and springer spaniels ought to be riddled with HD.
Perhaps not so much an advantage, but the dogs who were stellar performers at trials may have been so-so on their hips (but they had other, very desireable traits and the hips were overlooked anyway). They get bred; their pups get bred, their grandpups, their great grandpups, and so on get bred (to each other) because they are winners (and probably carry some traits for herding style that the judges then award above anything else, thus cementing that particular type of dog as “the right stuff”, encouraging more breeding to and between those lines); other dogs who didn’t do so well or never went to trials are dropped by the wayside (this is a biggie — these dogs were dead ended because they didn’t have the ability or even the style, the style being the important factor, because ability is a hard selection factor but style is a very subjective, “soft” selection — I say always look well around something with no ability, but lack of style, especially if other good traits are there, isn’t something a person should nitpick over)..
Bingo, a population of dogs with hip dysplasia.
This is a little OT, but if anyone has a dog with HD, this seems like a well rounded, well-referenced, and article by someone with lots of training and experience and some critical reasoning skills.
http://www.2ndchance.info/arthritis2.htm
I find the HD discussion confusing because people say a dog has HD when they have been radiographically identified as such, even when the Xray shows a low grade problem and the dog has never shown clinical symptoms. My concern is more with managing/avoiding severe pain in old age…ie, same standards we use for humans. And, yes, to the extent that the problem is hereditary, it would be good to breed out higher grade problems with juvenile or young adult onset.
As you know there are many breeds inside a breed. A pure DDR working line GSD is very different from a show line GSD (both in temperament and physically) the same way a border collie from working lines is very different from a show border collie. Show border collies have over 60 years of breeding focusing exclusively looks. That’s over 20 generations of dogs that never worked or even seen sheep. Not to mention they are highly inbred. It’s just not right to say that border collies are bred focusing performance. There are many breeds inside this breed. I wonder if those hips statistics take this fact in consideration. In UK for instance I reckon there are much more show line BCs being hip scored than working collies. Few breeders of working collies hip score their dogs. All working stud dogs that I know of have better hips than BVA breed average. Anyway, dogs that consistently win major ISDS trials are real working dogs that do everyday practical work for their shepherds or farmers. It takes years of training and experience in real work situations to make a winner of disputed big trials. These dogs work everyday on huge areas and steep hills and big flocks of sheep.
C Denise Wall isn’t writing apologia for show dogs. She’s writing apologia for working dogs. She’s clearly under the impression that the unimpressive laxity in Border Collies is in working models.
So trying to make this a show issue is diverting the conversation. If you have some evidence that show dogs are more inbred and have the worse hips of the two groups, please present it.
Work?
Keep in mind that the sheep industry in the US is moribund.It’s worse than moribund. Stick a fork in it.
These “working dog” are almost exclusively “sport” dogs that are running sheep that are kept solely as training tools for their “sport.”
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Even if you keep a small number of sheep you still sell their lambs and have to look after them and need the dog.
At trials they have different classes, farmers and shepherds, cause contracted shepherds don’t have time to train or to go to many trials.
If you go to a database and pick a famous show kennel prefix and pick as many dogs from this kennel then go back generations after generation you will see they are highly inbred. ISDS dogs average at 7% counting since 1906. And now are opened to many other working registries and taking ROM registries in many countries.
I really don’t think border collies showing in HD statistics are selected for work. They are pets that play frisbee, agility and go to shows. Unless it’s in Sweden, Norway where they have to hip score to breed and pass a work test and there are no show collies.
I don’t think you have a firm grasp of the data being used here nor the population structure of the breed within the USA.
There are 30,000 ABCA puppies produced each year. There are 2,500 AKC puppies. Those AKC puppies are further divided into show breeding (which is vanishingly small, only a few dozen litter a year at most) and sport breeding which is many times the size of show bred dogs.
Plus, the OFA, which Denise Wall is using, publishes their results so that the AKC dogs are easy to separate from the ABCA dogs. I don’t think there was even a single show dog in the OFA data at all when her essay was first published. Plus, Wall also worked with researchers and trial dogs to get dogs tested, so that too is the data she is looking at.
There is little to no chance that Wall is being deceived by show dogs. Your hypothesis is lacking support.
Come on 123, let’s be really honest with ourselves here. Keeping a handful (maybe even two handfuls) of sheep to practice with (or do some hobby farming with) is hardly the same as the larger flocks and more isolated conditions that Border Collies evolved in (and even knew in the early days of the sheep industry here, although even it was still different from the conditions in the British Isles).
And let’s also be honest: a working dog who popped up terminally lame back in the day (even today) will be taken out and shot…so you weren’t going to know much about long term effects of extreme hip laxity in that case.
I also think people see the word “dysplasia” and freak — it’s a condition with a lot of degrees; while you don’ t want to be nonchalant about the quality of your dog’s hips, I think people having a freak out at the very term and overreacting is as big of a problem — address the issue, don’t overreact, why is this so hard?
(which is why conformation shows don’t freak me even though I think they’ve had a horrible track record; they don’t have to have one! same with the high performance aspect — if conformation-istas and performance-istas would just work together…and get a freaking commonsensical grip!).
You are talking about inside FCI or outside it? I would agree with you when it comes to AKC and ABCA or perhaps the ANKC and AWBCR; but not when it comes to the largest registry in the world: the FCI.
FCI Border Collies have the ISDS as their studbook, and it is very common to see show-lines, sport-lines, trial-lines and working-lines overlapping in the pedigrees of continental European dogs.
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FCI in Europe have really good working dogs, but most of them are pure ISDS dogs with dual registries or their offspring. Especially Norway, Netherlands, Sweden.
I’ve seen people breeding working to show or sports dogs to get merle for example. They are in the 3rd gen and still breeding weak dogs.
It looks like Denise Wall has removed her entire website. Perhaps you should actually read the essay to which I am responding.
http://web.archive.org/web/20130427233009/http://www.stilhope.com/writings/hips.html
You’ll see clearly that her data goes back to long before the BC was even in the AKC or any Australian show dogs even set foot in America.
Jennifer Sept 30th 2,013. YOU are talking a lot of sense! Pups nowadays are stuffed to the gunnels with high protein diet. A recipe for disaster as far as their bones are concerned.
In the old days shepherds wouldn’t breed with blind dogs or dogs unable to work through lameness.
Sheep dog trials where there is a large purse in prizes haven’t helped, neither have huge prices for collies, Everyone flocks if you will forgive the pun, to the same trial winners resulting in even closer breeding . Common sense has gone out the window. Flocks are herded by shepherds and farmers on quad bikes – this certainly hasn’t helped.in regard to breeding dogs with brains and stamina.
Collies are bred predominantly Black & white for a reason – in that sheep settle to these colours and the dogs are easier to see on a hill.People in-breeding for colour and conformation should be banned from registries. Its ability that counts.Line breeding is different – in regard to the fact the same dogs several generations back do not do a multitude of harm unless their parents are severely in-bred as in the case of WISTON CAP – a widely used stud dog due to his ability and his looks. 23 crosses of Wilson’s War Years Cap 3036 being 22 crosses too many.
The people that know the most about these dogs are the people that evolved them and those that work with them everyday – not the boffins.
Certain parts of UK are/were renowned for their light breeds of sheep, Yorkshire, lancashire, wales. Anyone purchasing a sound dog for work/trials should purchase off a hill farmer who has bred the same line successfully for a number of years – a farmer with “heavy” sheep ie sheep that are not easy to move without strong dogs.QUALITY in collies is VERY important. The shepherds adage “If the tails right the heads right”.should be taken seriously. An erratic tail denotes an erratic brain. A collie should work on its feet with a low head carriage, ie brisket level, so as not to eye-ball (challenge) the sheep..It helps if a working dog is relatively free of “eye.” This makes it more pliable.
OOps – a blonde moment!!
What’s the error? I’ll correct it.
Christopher the herding styles where the say a Rough or Smooth Collie herds with a loose style with more shoulder action. The Border Collie herds with what is called “presence” with the sheep with eye contact. Rough Collies can gain control of a herd of sheep by first establishing eye contact of the leader, but is not frequently seen today.
Honestly Chris I am wondering what breed of herding collies he could possibly be referring. This seems to be a language barrier or experience barrier. I am not sure ..maybe both?
n the list of breeds that maintain or convert to good hip status when breeding selection is based solely on performance, are breeds that run or pull straight ahead, or mostly so. Border Collies, on the other hand, do a great deal of quick flanking and lateral movement, quick starts and stops, pivots on the hind legs, and traveling in a crouched position in their work. It seems likely that there needs to be some “give” somewhere for efficient performance, and that give has been selected for. In the same way slight cow hocks allow for efficient performance and have been selected for through the many generations of working stock, so perhaps has some laxity in the hips
Read more: http://www.border-wars.com/2013/09/hip-dysplasia-an-advantage.html#ixzz2zj3SYvBA
Cow hocked…well straight hocks that are often hidden under tons of dripping hair are far worse condition. Take this link that often is hidden under tons of dripping hair in the show and some performance rings. http://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/musculoskeletal/c_multi_patellar_luxation
This condition in my studies come from breeding straight in shoulder and laxity being results of improper training, pushing the puppy to soon to work or perform, poor nutrition in large growing stages, but it does become a genetic predisposition in some blood lines. The conformation of structure of a sound pure breed must be the first order of good breeding practices in every breed not what color or lack of color, or worse breeding to something just because it has its championship or herding titles. Know the healthy conformation and movement of your breed. All the test in the world won’t substitute this knowledge in my opinion from experience and observation.
he good news is that although it appears Border Collies may, as a breed, have somewhat lax hips, predisposing them to HD, many also have the protective factors such as increased pelvic muscle mass and good hip formation and fit. Increased pelvic muscle mass and good hip formation are factors not taken into account during PennHIP laxity measurements and not always measured accurately in the standard OFA view
Read more: http://www.border-wars.com/2013/09/hip-dysplasia-an-advantage.html#ixzz2ziub1FDA
I see no blonde or better said because I am a blond/gray blonde now to question the standard by which Border Collies and for that matter any Pure Breed is measured. Your question and research into this issue from my own in Collies are exactly the same.
You can have the best hip check Excellent or Penn Hip grading …Been there done that so to speak, but if the shoulder is not correct, or lack of strong muscle and ligament development …The dog will become dysplasic. You can have a good or excellent dog but as in many breeds now.. If you have bred two carriers of Degenerative Myelopathy it will become a cripple. http://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/neurological/c_dg_degenerative_myelopathy
he problem with using a one factor, “one-size-fits-all” procedure with a disease caused by a combination of factors such as HD, is that all breeds do not have the same percentage contribution of these factors. All breeds of dogs are built somewhat differently, are of different sizes, activity levels, and selected using different standards as the primary criteria. Some of these standards involve performance criteria as a major selection criteria and some don’t. In dogs bred to look a certain way, the selection against such factors as favorable pelvic muscle mass may change the percentage contribution of that particular HD factor in that breed. It’s not surprising then, that adherence to a certain screening and selection technique would be more or less effective in decreasing the incidence of the disease in one breed versus another
Read more: http://www.border-wars.com/2013/09/hip-dysplasia-an-advantage.html#ixzz2zizCQ0GY
I have and others used this measuring system to eliminate crippled or HD in offspring for decades. However the Question is …Why do two OFA dogs or Penn Hip matings produce HD? This has been the burning question for decades not just in Border Collies. Chris these people who wish to argue a mute point now with research in my opinion are beating a dead horse. It is a measuring device only from my studies, and experience but as your correctly point out in my opinion it depends on exercise, good nutrition (adding this one) strong bone, muscle and healthy (not too loose) ligaments.
Growth patterns of young puppies with exercise and work should be careful to train these athletic or working abilities with due dillence.
Christopher this topic of HD has come up several times in the last few weeks. I went back into the Archives to reread your article. Honestly, did not know there were so many that know nothing about training for Obedience, Agility or just Running with their Dogs. Growth patterns and growth plates are extremely important factors in growing puppies. Many breeds growth plates do not close until 18 months. The larger breeds it may not be safe until two years old to begin heavy exercise training. Balance of exercise and nutrition is essential.
I have noted that “Force exercising “as early as six months often results in cripples.. Please pet folks just because an adult of a breed is a great performance dog let it grow up first.. Sadly no surprise the young puppy begins to limp if “Force Exercise” is practiced. Ligament is stronger than bone. Force exercising before growth plates are closed can create life long crippling soft tissue damage. This soft tissue damage can cause incorrect bone development which can led to HD and elbow dysplasia.
Many today want instant gratification and should have purchase an older dog that would be ready to immediately train. Common sense is in short supply. Dogs need warm up exercises just as any human runner ….and gradual endurance training. If you are wearing running shoes please remember that concrete or asphalt can be as much as 145 degrees. Get paw protection if you want your dog to run or jog with you, and don’t forget the water for the dog.