Piled Higher and Deeper

By

Christopher

– Posted on September 28, 2013Posted in: agricultural obsolescence, biosensor, Border Collies, Canine Health & Genetics, dogs, german shepherds, inbreeding mistakes, lethal semi-dominant, Pedigree Abuses, people, tollers

There’s really no excuse for someone who has earned a PhD to be offended at the concept of defending their theses and being held to a standard of evidenced based argumentation and unbiased interpretation of data.  Sadly, PhDs are fallible and prone to the same illogical self-serving rationalizations and breed biases as anyone else in the greater dog debate.  To simply cede to their assumed authority or expertise is a logical fallacy and it’s actually quite telling when someone who should have the experience and fluency in a subject fails to form a cogent defense of their position.

This blog is no stranger to calling out PhDs on their bullshit, especially when it’s obvious that breed bias has fuelled motivated reasoning and deceptive arguments.  Any argument needs to stand on its own merits, not any fallacy appeal to education, experience, or expertise.  You’ll notice a pattern among all the PhDs covered here: they allow their bias to aggrandize their own breeds to supersede their integrity as intellectuals.  Here are some examples of PhDs that have been subjected to the Border-Wars logic hammer:

Carmen Battaglia, PhD

Dr. Carmen Battaglia, BA Psychology, MS Social Welfare, PhD Criminology Corrections and Sociology from Florida State University

Dr. Battaglia wants you to believe that tickling a newborn puppy’s toes with a Q-tip for only a few seconds per day for only a few days after its birth is going to result in amazing and profound health and performance benefits throughout the dogs life.  He co-opted the name of a failed military program that had dismal results and sells his overly-exact method on cruise ship conferences to eager but naive breeders looking for amazing results with little effort. It’s complete quackery and the only saving grace is that it’s likely entirely benign to the puppies who are subjected to it.

In only 15-25 seconds a day for only 14 days in a dog’s life you will realize “life long lasting effects:” “improve performance,” “respond maximally,” “attain sexual maturity sooner,” “resist cancer and infectious disease,” “withstand terminal starvation,” achieve “psychological superiority,” “stronger heart beats,” “stronger adrenal glands,” and “improved cardio vascular performance!”

Carmen Battaglia’s criminal misrepresentation of the defunct military Super Dog (which he calls Bio-Sensor) program is covered in four posts:

Bio-Sensor is Bad Science: Quackery	Bio-Sensor is Bad Science: True Biosensor	Bio-Sensor is Bad Science: Superdogs Are Made, Not Born	Bio-Sensor is Bad Science: Super Dog Failed

Battaglia likely came across the Military Working Dog Program (dubbed “Super Dog”) while researching his own breed, German Shepherds who were the breed of choice for that program and others looking to develop military dogs.  It’s not a stretch to believe that part of his infatuation with the junk science of “Bio-Sensor” stems from the branding of German Shepherds as ideal working, protection, and police/military dogs and the opportunity to increase their image in this regard.  This same German Shepherd breed bias is behind Battaglia’s other major educational initiative: to push Brackett’s Formula as an ideal inbreeding scheme to produce perfect German Shepherds.  Lloyd Brackett was a “father of the German Shepherd” in the USA.

The claims Battaglia makes in support of Brackett’s formula are critiqued in these two posts:

Brackett’s Formula for Failure	Brackett’s Formula: Nothing Special

There is no magical amount of inbreeding that will maximize benefits and minimize detriments, and the entire Brackett’s Formula sales pitch is a logical fallacy appeal to Brackett’s supposed success in the breed ring after using his “formula.”  You’ll notice a pattern in Battaglia’s promotion of both Bio-Sensor and Brackett: they both offer supposedly amazing success for very little thought or action.  Bio-Sensor is like “Puppy raising for Dummies” and Brackett’s Formula is like “Inbreeding for Dummies.”  Both are supposedly proven by how amazing German Shepherds are.

Battaglia exploits his position within the AKC and the Dog Writers Association of America to promote these pseudo-science pamphlets to eager but ignorant dog breeders who want easy answers to complex questions.  It’s alarming to me how popular both of these protocols are within hobby breeders and I know numerous breeders who use and swear by both despite the obvious conclusion that they hold little value and are unethically being pitched as best practices for dog breeders.

Battaglia’s bias toward German Shepherd supremacy and fondness for a notable GSD breeder have corrupted his exercise of basic reason and ethics.

Melanie Chang, PhD

Dr. Melanie Chang, BA Communications, PhDs in Anthropology and Biology from the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Chang has a deep interest in promoting the “working” faction of Border Collies over the show faction.  She has Border Collies herself and even acquired an imported working dog that she intended to trial with–this is sort of a status symbol within the trialist culture: newbies train their own pet dogs and both handler and dog being novices usually fails to produce great results, so more serious hobbyists will get a started dog off of someone more experienced, followed by getting a dog from a top winning trialist in the US, and for those with the money an imported dog from the UK with ISDS papers is the luxury model.

The US trial community has a breed split deep within their culture and this war plays out constantly within.  Donald McCaig’s book, “The Dog Wars,” documents this political war over registry politics, mostly between the ABCA and the AKC over splitting the BC gene pool but it also touches on the previous registry wars within the US Border Collie world (between now defunct registries that each focused on a certain philosophical ideal of dog, trial vs. actual farm work, imported vs. home grown, etc.).

So it’s not particularly surprising that while she was working on a study involving neurotic behaviors in dogs, of which Border Collies are of interest because they popularly display several neurotic behaviors (notice that this isn’t really a good thing for most owners and speaks poorly to the compromises people have made in the breed for working performance), Dr. Chang expanded the scope of the study to inquire if there was a genetic split within the Border Collie breed (this can’t be of much interest to science, especially the sort being looked at by this study, but it is clearly of interest to people with an agenda to politically split the breed).

The thinly supported argument presented by Chang that there is “a genetic split within the breed between working and show Border Collies that is probably as large as the genetic distances between some breeds” is questioned in these two posts:

A Breed Apart I	A Breed Apart II

Dr. Chang uses biased sampling and scant sample size to make a point that her data is insufficient to make, that there is a breed split in Border Collies.  Notice how much diversity is shown in the Australian Shepherd chart, several dogs are easily at a greater distance from each other than the few Australasian Barbie Collies are from US trial dogs, but the conclusion is presented in that manner by Chang.  A SPLIT AS LARGE AS SOME BREEDS!  Well, which breeds and what are the size of these splits?  Are we talking 13 inch beagles from 15 inch beagles here or Chihuahuas vs. Great Danes?  Is the split more impressive than the one we might expect to see forming between the Groenendael, Laekenois, Tervuren, and Malinois?

Notice too that the split is presented as not only an extant fact but it’s not questioned as a negative thing.  With a larger sample size and a wider spectrum of genetic analysis, Chang and her colleagues could put together an analysis of the genetic health of the Border Collie in terms of the number of alleles they have per locus and how those alleles are spread within the population.  We could then assess what the cost of that “breed” split really is and what we’d be sacrificing by placing political barriers between those populations and discouraging people from breeding them together.

Dr. Chang et al didn’t find the genes for noise phobia or any other neurotic behaviors in Border Collies, but they did get around to publishing a more complete summary of their work before their lab shut down entirely.

In the supplemental materials to that publication, you can see that the “Barbie Collies” in pink actually cluster with several “Working Border Collies” in red.  So the “split,” much like what defines a breed in general, is what we make of it, and Dr. Chang made a bigger deal of it than the scant data supported.

Barbie Collies aren’t as differentiated in this analysis.

Another PhD who has allowed their breed-bias for trial-bred Border Collies to taint their analysis is Dr. C. Denise Wall.

C Denise Wall, PhD

C. Denise Wall, BS Medical Technology, PhD BioChemistry from the University of Tennessee Memphis

Like Dr. Chang, Dr. Wall participates in sheep dog trials as a hobby and is supportive of both institutional separation and genetic separation of trial dogs from show dogs (as well as sport dogs).  Unlike Dr. Chang, Dr. Wall has a long history within the breed and the ABCA (like being a long time member of the Health and Genetics Committee) and is not an active research scientist.  But this has not prevented her from putting her name behind an essay which seeks to rationalize an extant fault within Border Collies (their hips aren’t particularly impressive) and justifying the purging of not only show dogs, but dual purpose and “versatile” bred dogs as well.

Dr. Wall’s arguments are put to the test in these two posts:

Hip Dysplasia an Advantage?	Versatility “Dangerous” to the ABCA?

Both Melanie Chang and C. Denise Wall are biased in favor of trialing border collies and against the rest of the border collie population, namely sport dogs and show dogs.  They are both interested in a religious/philosophical division of the breed and thus they push interpretations of data and administrative registry policies that support a physical, genetic, and conceptual split to become more of a reality.  They both also participate in apologia for trial dogs by attempting to recast negative aspects of the breed–neurotic behaviors in the case of Chang and hip laxity/hip dysplasia in the case of Wall–as either positives or sine qua non features that are necessary evils to maintain working ability.  Our dogs are neurotic and have blah hips, but FUCK THOSE SHOW DOGS! That is all that’s really important.

As with the other PhDs covered here, they have allowed their breed bias to supersede their basic reason and ethics.

Bruce Cattanach, PhD

Dr. Bruce Cattanach, BSc Agriculture, PhD and DSc Mutagenesis & Mammalian Genetics

Dr. Cattanach is both a geneticist and a breeder and exhibitor of purebred Boxers.  BorderWars first covered his work on this excellent article on inbreeding, that still contained a small but important fault as described in the Inbred Mistakes VI post.  Any proactive health focused breeder should support Dr. Cattanach’s conclusion “there is no need to inbreed/linebreed these days and the price we will pay for continuing to do so, whether as standard procedure or otherwise, will be far too high.” But his bias toward pure-bred dogs has tainted his argument that deleterious recessives are not rampant in dog breeds.  Evidence keeps mounting that genetic diseases are more numerous and more prevalent in all purebred dogs.  To say they are not is simply an argument from ignorance, specifically our own ignorance as to the genetic causes behind many (if not most) of the afflictions that plague our dogs.

For example, before there was a name and a DNA test, “Trapped Neutrophil Syndrome” wasn’t even on the radar in Border Collies.  It was a disease that typically killed puppies before they’d go to their new homes so there weren’t outraged owners demanding answers and the breeder code of omerta ensured that it just wasn’t talked about openly, if at all.  Heck, even after it had a name and a test the working community insisted it was just an Australian show problem and nothing of the sort was known about in the UK and US working dogs, but then testing showed that even ISDS dogs have the gene.

This one observation completely destroys Cattanach’s assertation that “were deleterious recessives to be so common in dogs, every one of us who breeds dogs would be finding abnormal pups in most litters, and this is patently not the case.”  The TNS case shows that breeders aren’t even good at identifying deleterious recessive diseases when they appear early when breeders have a lot of puppies in their sample.  How are breeders really to make the same sorts of assessments on all the dogs they sell and don’t see often or at all for the rest of their lives?  And how many causes of death work out to be a named and known recessive disease?  Plenty of dogs die of “kidney failure” or “infection” or unspecified disease path that NEVER gets linked to some underlying genetic condition or reported back to the breeder.  So the contention that we have a good handle on deleterious diseases in purebred dogs and that breeders are in a good position to take note of all of them is just not credible.  We should err on the side of caution and appreciation of our ignorance.

Another serious criticism of Dr. Cattanach’s work stems from using his position to denounce a Toller outcross for genetic health reasons as well as his clearly biased assessment of the negative health consequences of the bobtail gene.  These arguments are presented over several posts including a good back-and-forth with Dr. Cattanach:

Without a Tail to Sit On	Like a Bobtail Without an Anus	A Long Tail Cut Short	Inbred Mistakes VI

Similar to the other PhDs, it’s clear that Dr. Cattanach’s bias for his own dogs has tainted his interpretations. He downplays recessive disease in purebred dogs because he has a major investment in purebred dogs. He downplays the negative health effects of the bobtail gene because he structured an entire breeding program around bringing that gene into Boxers to keep the look of a docked tail after legislation banned the manual docking of tails in UK dogs as cruel. Although the rest of his work and research is decidedly against known health disorders in Boxers, it’s telling that he has never outcrossed to work against health issues, only for the shallow reasons of aesthetics, and in doing so, introduced a gene that has negative side effects which he is not forthright about into his breed.

He even went so far as to call into question a study which documented ill effects of the bobtail gene even though those scientists used the genetic test for the allele that Cattanach developed!

So while I don’t doubt that he wants healthier dogs, he has in effect created less healthy dogs by outcrossing and failed to use outcrossing to create healthier dogs. On top of that he has slandered a breeder who HAS done that, to outcross to promote health.  That’s very counter productive and a horrible precedent to set for the rest of the fancy who lacks Cattanach’s genetic expertise: Hey, if there’s some really shallow and unnecessary conformation issue in your breed, go right ahead and outcross, and do it now!  But if there are fundamental and insurmountable genetic issues that can only be solved with outcrossing, let’s talk more about it, we need more research, and anyone who does outcross just to bring in new genes (like DLA immune system alleles) needs to be disparaged and shunned.

It’s ironic that before his inclusion in Pedigree Dogs Exposed 3 Years On, Dr. Cattanach published a critique of Jemima Harrison concluding that “I think you have done more good than harm.” Unfortunately I think that his outcross project has done more harm than good to Boxers and his attack on a breeder looking to combat a genetically bereft breed via an outcross has certainly done more harm than good.

And that leads me to the last two PhDs who have gotten the Border-Wars treatment. The breeder that Dr. Cattanach criticized was looking to bring in more diversity to the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. This is a breed that has some of the fewest founding dogs and smallest gene pool of any breed and their life expectancy suffers greatly for it. The final two PhDs are both owners and breeders of Tollers and their judgement and analysis of their breed suffers for it.

Claire Wade, PhD

Dr. Claire Wade, BSc from MIT and PhD from the University of New South Wales

Given that Tollers are a rare breed with both a small founding population and small extant population around the globe, which suffer from both severe inbreeding and a number of inbred diseases, you’d think that they would be lucky to have any traction at all with canine genetic researchers let alone having two PhDs who own, show, breed and study them.

But that’s not the case.  Tollers are being ill served by Dr. Claire Wade because she has drunk the purebred koolaid and believes that the artificial concept of breed purity is more important than genetic health.  She’s gone so far as to publish apologia for Tollers that states “Any claims that this breed requires urgent out-crossing are ridiculous and I truly hope that such claims will be ignored.”

In the same open-letter she also claims that Tollers are only being targeted by evil bloggers like Border-Wars because the Toller community is so open with sharing their dogs’ problems to assist with research: “We need to be exceptionally careful not to confuse breeds that assist research with genetically unhealthy breeds.”

She doubles down on the delusion that Tollers are so healthy that out-cross supporters are worthy of being ignored (is that how the Scientific Method works?), she makes bold claims about Toller health:

My observations are that the occurrences of genetic disorders in this breed are well below the norm for high population size breeds, let alone rare breeds. I am appalled that this breed is being targeted simply because the breeders have been open and interactive with scientists.

This is utter bullshit.

For a breed that is not afflicted with a pronounced conformational dysfunction (like dwarfism or brachycephaly) that is written into its breed description, Tollers are rife with genetic disorders.  Tollers are frequently affected by a Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (SLE) related disease, so much so that it has been dubbed as “Toller Disease.” Forty percent of Tollers are carriers for Progressive Retinal Atrophy and 7% are affected with the recessive disease.  One in 6 Tollers have Autoimmune Thyroiditis.  Only one in a thousand other dogs are affected with Addison’s Disease but 1% of Tollers suffer from it and 18% are carriers.  An estimated 2.5% of the Tollers studied in Norway have Aseptic Meningitis, and Steroid Responsive Meningitis-Arteritis (SRMA) is common enough in the breed to be dubbed “the other variant of Toller disease.”

Add to this list growing concern and awareness of Pulmonic Stenosis, Subaortic Stenosis, Auto-immune Hemolytic Anemia, Pemphigus, Immune-Mediated Polyarthritis, Hypothyroidism, Collie Eye Anomaly, Congential Deafness, Epilepsy, Hip Dysplasia, Herniated Spinal Discs, Hydrocephalus, Megaesophagus, Chondrodysplasia, and undiagnosed but present disease paths.

Beyond this list of disorders in the bred, health surveys indicate that the average age of death for Tollers is a mere  6.4 years.  Another study found that One in Three Tollers surveyed died of cancer and the median age at death was 8 years.

There is NO SUPPORT for Dr. Wade’s bogus assertion that Tollers are healthier than large breeds or even better than other rare breeds.  But that letter isn’t Wade’s only distortion, she has even committed academic fraud in the design of her published papers in order to downplay Toller shortcomings as I have documented in these six posts:

For Whom the Dog Tolls	Academic Fraud in Toller Research	As the Toller Burns

Pedigree Collapse	COI: How Many Generations are Enough?	Monitoring the Chatter

Dr. Claire Wade’s partner in crime in Toller Apologia through Academia is Dr. Danika Bannasch.

Danika Bannasch, PhD

Dr. Danika Bannasch, BS Genetics from UC Davis, PhD Molecular Biology from Princeton, and DVM from UC Davis

Just like her Best Friend Forever Claire Wade and Dr. Cattanach, Dr. Bannasch is disgusted by the notion that Tollers need to be outcrossed to combat the numerous health issues manifest in the breed.

“This ‘need’ for an outcross is ridiculous. I have no issues with outcrossing when there is a clear purpose and scientific reasons for doing – ie the Dalmatian backcross. Tollers are in very good shape from a population genetics standpoint.”

Given that the average Toller has a COI of over 25% (as if they were the product of a father-daughter or sibling mating, even when they are not) the level of consanguinity in the breed is a touchy subject to Toller apologists who have bought into the “pure” hype of pedigree breeds and desire to keep the stud book closed.  Not only is Bannasch a Toller apologist and a strident believer in breed purity (she states that the ONLY reason you should outcross is if that is the ONLY option available to you), she’s also an apologist for severe inbreeding of closed populations such as dog breeds and lab mice.

In a response to Jemima Harrison over her coverage of Tollers, Danika claims that strains of lab mice are highly inbred and are quite healthy and fertile!  This, of course, is also bullshit and is refuted in the following post.  Those lab mice are quite inbred but they are also atrociously unhealthy and prone to numerous devastating diseases and many of the lines are so infertile that they can only produce more by cutting the ovaries out of the sick inbred lines and putting them into healthy outcrossed females.

Those Inbred Lab Mice

 

You have the published works and responses of the PhDs above and you have my analysis of where they’ve gone wrong.  Every single one of them has distorted the truth or violated the standard of impartial and unconflicted analysis in their arguments in a manner that benefits the public perception of their breed or their breeding programs.

Dr. Battaglia wants you to buy his books, attend his lectures, and respect him as a purveyor of classified military techniques to create super dogs and breed winning German Shepherds.  He wants you to believe that both programs are time-tested and highly vetted by experts and guaranteed to produce profound results when his schemes are actually impotent (Bio-Sensor) and fraught with unintended dangers (Brackett’s Formula).

Dr. Chang wants you to believe that her aversion to show bred Border Collies has manifested itself into a genetic split in Border Collies that is remarkable for being as large as splits between other breeds.  This genetic observation would support her desire to continue the political ostracism the trial community exerts against sport and show bred Border Collies using registry policy.  To make the argument Dr. Chang is want to present, she really needs to expand the sample to compare Australasian show dogs vs. Australasian working dogs and UK show dogs versus working dogs to rule out the effects of geographical isolation.  It’s also imperative to define what genetic distances we’re really talking about and how those compare to distances between other breeds, this needs to be a specific and objective measure, not subjective and vague.

Dr. Wall wants you to rethink Hip Dysplasia as a necessary evil because working Border Collies supposedly need hip laxity for performance when the truth is that she wants to explain away the inability of selection for trial success to purge the breed of HD.

Dr. Cattanach wants you to think highly of his outcross program where he introduced a disease gene into Boxers to circumvent a humane treatment law, so he’s not forthcoming on the potential hazards of the gene he decided to use.  He also places the unscientific concept of breed purity above genetic health in dogs such that he is skeptical of any outcross that is not a last resort to replace a disease allele that is saturated in a breed.

Dr. Wade wants people to think well of Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers and thus she wants to downplay the disease levels in the breed, their small founding population, the genetic loss since their founding, and the level of inbreeding present in the current population.  She too wants to place the concept of breed purity above actual genetic health and so she wants to slander anyone who supports outcrossing Tollers save the last-resort case of a 100% saturated disease gene (like we’ve seen in Dalmatians). And she thinks this extremist stance against outcrossing makes her circumspect and open to outcrossing, because she’s not against any and all outcrossing by being supportive of the one rare and extreme case.

Dr. Bannach also wants people to think well of Tollers and thus she downplays the dangers of inbred strains, misrepresenting the actual state of health of inbred lab mice.  This serves as supposed evidence that you can inbreed with abandon and still have healthy stock, so that the already highly inbred Tollers can be claimed to be healthy when they are not.  The mice are not healthy and neither are Tollers and Bannach knows this but distorts the truth to attempt to win an argument.

ALL of these PhDs have used motivated-reasoning to lie to you and make you believe things which are not true and which make them all look better for their particular biases towards their breeds of choice.  The numerous posts linked above have outed both these conflicts of interest as well as the specious reasoning and evidence these PhDs have used.  None of these arguments presented on BorderWars stands on an appeal to this author’s education, authority, or original scientific research.  They all stand only on the quality of the arguments themselves.

While we should expect more from people who are professional scientists and supposedly ethical and supposedly working with the expertise, experience, and standards to present only facts and unbiased analysis, it’s crystal clear all of these scholars have failed in that regard.  In this case, an appeal to a PhD is more apt to invoke images of bullshit piled higher and deeper than it is to confirm a superlative standard of quality.

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Comments and disagreements are welcome, but be sure to read the Comment Policy. If this post made you think and you'd like to read more like it, consider a donation to my 4 Border Collies' Treat and Toy Fund. They'll be glad you did. You can subscribe to the feed or enter your e-mail in the field on the left to receive notice of new content. You can also like BorderWars on Facebook for more frequent musings and curiosities.
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Tags: biosensor, bobtail, border collie, border war, boxers, brackett's formula, breeding, corgis, dog shows, dogs, Dr. Bannasch, Dr. Battaglia, Dr. Cattanach, Dr. Chang, Dr. Wade, Dr. Wall, ethics, genetics, german shepherd, health, hip dysplasia, inbreeding, lab mice, mice, sheep trials, sheeple, tollers

About Christopher

Christopher Landauer is a fifth generation Colorado native and second generation Border Collie enthusiast. Border Collies have been the Landauer family dogs since the 1960s and Christopher got his first one as a toddler. He began his own modest breeding program with the purchase of Dublin and Celeste in 2006 and currently shares his home with their children Mercury and Gemma as well. His interest in genetics began in AP Chemistry and AP Biology and was honed at Stanford University.

20 Comments

1. Reply

   Tegan

   Posted September 28, 2013 at 4:00 AM

   Your ongoing commitment to analysing and appropriately criticising science is fantastic. I will be sharing this blog post on my Twitter and blog soon. It’s a great little index to all the research you do.
   Tegan recently posted..Is desexing a cult?

2. Reply

   Jen Robinson (PhD)

   Posted September 28, 2013 at 6:48 AM

   It’s a little naive to think a PhD certifies a person to be above irrationality, biased and flawed logic, greed, or outright stupidity. Consider the large number of physicians who have opted to get rich running pill mills. Consider the even larger number whose choice of prescription drugs is swayed by bribes from big pharma. Consider Linus Pauling’s absurd stand on vitamin C. Consider the enormous number of PhD scholars who bought into the Gaia Hypothesis and treated it as truth despite preponderance of evidence that ‘Mother’ Earth has had serious biological upheavals over the scope of geologic time…some of them caused by the expanding and diversifying biosphere.

   An extra four plus years in university under supervision of a committee increases your ability to jump through hoops, find references to support your arguments, use correct punctuation, etc. But it does not make you honest, wise, or impart common sense.

   I rarely flash my credentials, and am turned of by others who flash theirs. But there are plenty of people who say: “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

   The ‘Piled High and Deep’ joke (which I heard doing my doctoral research in the early 1980s) has survived so long because it rings true to experience.

   Titles guarantee nothing. Don’t get me going on ‘men of God’ who have been guilty of gross indecency with minors, or using the proceeds of the collection plate as personal income.

   All of us have blind spots when it comes to the future. In the 60s, when my tribe was all for getting out of Vietnam, we failed to see the tragedies of Cambodia.

   I still have a little voice telling me that my current assessment may be blowing genetic diversity way out of proportion, and if I live another 30 years I may look back and say: “What a fool I was.” Eg., it niggles at my science-indoctrinated brain that the standard poodle, despite being horribly inbred and cosmetified, still has a lifespan that is somewhat longer than most retriever breeds.

3. Reply

   retrieverman

   Posted September 28, 2013 at 7:16 AM

   LOL

   This is what happens when people who study science allow “the dog world” to distort their clear thinking.
   retrieverman recently posted..A foxhound-dachshund cross varmint dog

4. Reply

   Jennifer

   Posted September 28, 2013 at 2:53 PM

   Oh, let’s just be honest: many learned people are educated idiots — not capable of blowing their own noses without help no matter how intelligent they may be in one specialized area; and on top of that many of them are arrogant and vain, thus they refuse to acknowledge that their noses need blowing if pointed out to them by someone “lesser”; and on top of even that society has come to worship their credentials — conferring some magical prowess to the holders of the same to be “better” than the average lot (which is ridiculous, when you consider that some serial killers and all around villians have been smart…Dr. Mengele was smart, and had a piece of paper…but I wouldn’t advise using him as your family doctor) — both the credential holders and the other people who don’t have those credentials (and who may have more knowledge and/or practical wisdom and ethics) do still believe that the magic sheepskin makes for some sort of genius god who can do no wrong and are deserving of unquestioned faith…so we have to listen to them and follow their lead(and that’s gotten us in some trouble now hasn’t it?).

   Break that cycle (and it has quite the long and varied history since the Enlightenment within western civ., and perhaps longer in non-western civ.) and you’ve gone a long way to putting a brake on the problem…but it’s been operative for a very long time.

   (yeah, I don’t have it piled higher and deeper, but I do have postgrad under my belt…and it does go to people’s heads a bit overmuch)

5. Reply

   Kate Williams

   Posted September 29, 2013 at 1:18 PM

   I first became your fan through reading the “Inbred Mistakes articles. It was almost impossible to find articles like that series anywhere else. I continue to be a fan because of your ongoing specific critiques of claims and positions. In fact, I consider you a peer of all of the people you critique and peer review is one of the best tools for getting the garbage out of the thinking, and establishing what the facts are. Just because you are on the internet and not in some obscure peer reviewed journal, doesn’t make your work inadequate. Let’s state that positively:

   Your reviews and critiques of academically-credentialed prestige-seekers in dog breeding, are more than adequate in a field rife with wild claims. You stand on a sound knowledge of genetics. Your POV is entirely defendable and you do defend it with good evidence. Not one person whose work or statements you critique has a degree related to the subject at hand, population genetics, for instance, so their graduate work is nil when talking about dogs and their degrees have nothing to do with their knowledge or POV about dog breeding. You and the folks you review are all peers through connections with dogs, and you are one of the few doing any critiquing at all.

   Personally, I think doggy in-breeders do not base their choices on science, but on eugenics, racial (breed) purity. We all know that eugenics is an unscientific and disproven concept. Yet people with highly inbred dogs stick to the eugenics position, dogmatically. They simply do not have the evidence to support their claims that breed purity and inbreeding are good things. Quite the contrary.

   Fortunately, better dog DNA testing is in process, and when adequate populations of each breed are tested and compared to samples of street dogs from around the world, or food dogs in Asia where the genetic diversity is so high, we might be able to develop some really good breeding plans that increase genetic diversity and keep types. Until then, if I were a breeder, I would start admitting that using principles of eugenics is not the best way to breed dogs.
   Kate Williams recently posted..An introduction to native American dogs.

6. Reply

   Dorothea Penizek

   Posted September 30, 2013 at 8:59 AM

   Dr. Cattanach may have done his bobtail experiment for the wrong reasons, but he has proved, as has the outcross to Pointers for the HUA Dalmatians, that in a few generations one can back-breed to show quality dogs. This is or should be important information for breeders whose breed has such a small effective population that an outcross to another breed is the only antidote.

   • Reply

     Christopher

     Posted September 30, 2013 at 4:56 PM

     Absolutely. And I’ve re-iterated that important advancement he made in my several posts that mention his work. It’s just highly unfortunate that he’d both downplay the extant issues with bobtail AND come out against a nascent out-cross program at a time when doing so is not only highly prejudicial but might chill others from accepting the out-cross or doing their own. It’s a strange case of cognitive dissonance and perhaps sour grapes.

   • Reply

     Dave

     Posted October 1, 2013 at 9:19 PM

     While he has been able to prove one can back-cross to regain the original phenotypes for everyone who want an open-registry; at the same time, his refusal to recognize new data which came to the surface is hindering honest conversations within breeds which have the semi-dominant bob-tail gene since those breeders are viewing him as a guru.
     Dave recently posted..From Which He Flushed

7. Reply

   123

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 10:49 PM

   Are you really suggesting we start mixing show collies and working collies?

   And that people that says there has to be a religious absolute separation of the breed are unfounded, biased and doing it out of spite?

   Would you sell a pup from 50% working/50% show lines to someone that called and asked for a pup to work on a farm?

   How to tell in real world what does it mean if scientists discover there’s a really really tiny difference in genome of working collies and show collies?

   • Reply

     Christopher

     Posted October 4, 2013 at 11:33 PM

     (1) Please decide on a name and e-mail combination. Every time you change one or the other I have to manually approve your comments because it thinks you’re a new user. I don’t care if you want to remain anonymous, but please decide on an identity for convenience and continuity.

     (2) “Are you really suggesting that we start mixing show collies and working collies?”

     I’m suggesting that breeders have the freedom to do what they want within a breed without artificial institutional barriers. So I suggest that if someone wants to breed a show collie to a working collie, they should be able to. And that’s what I’ve done in my own program. I don’t care if anyone else does or does not want to breed their dogs, I’m not responding to tribalism and authoritarian rules by being authoritarian and demanding that everyone start mixing their lines. But the option should be there to breed purebred border collies to purebred border collies without registry politics getting in the way.

     I also believe that it is healthy for medium and long term breed survival to have an easy and convenient appendix system where new blood can be brought in for whatever reason. You don’t want to breed to it, you don’t have to. But the way it is now is little more than bigotry and tribalism, the same sort of bias that would make bringing home someone from a different race or religion a cultural taboo.

     (3) Re: religious separation

     I can only reason and guess at motives, but it’s undeniable that the further sub-division of gene pools is harmful. Save the divisions that are imposed by nature, such as being a different species, the divisions we have between “breeds” are all in our heads. They are mental models.

     (4) Would I sell a 50/50 pup to a working farm?

     Yes, I would. I wouldn’t make any promises and I’d be open about the breeding, but if someone on a farm wanted one of my puppies, I’d trust their own ability to judge their wants and needs. Unlike some sort of “my breeding is going to be perfect for everyone” that you’ll see from people, I don’t believe that. But I believe in free markets and I believe in a diversity of products competing against a diversity of interests and needs.

     In fact one of the puppies from my 50/50 litter works daily on a large centennial cattle ranch over hundreds of head of stock. She was even bred and her offspring do the same on several other ranches. So YES, I would sell a hybrid puppy to a working home and let the results speak for themselves. Let people who actually work determine what dogs they want to buy and let people who play determine what dogs they want to buy, etc. We don’t need up-front obstacles from ideologues.

     (5) I’m not sure what you’re asking in that last question. But in general it’s going to be very difficult to trace behaviors to genes. The concept of “a gene for ___” is overly simplistic and many outcomes are more complex than being able to say “work” is defined by this gene or these two genes, etc. The study this PhD did failed to identify any genes associated with behavior or adult onset deafness, so it’s not going to be as easy as “if you look for it, you’ll find it.”

     So the implications of there being a split, large or small, are hard to say. The point is that one shouldn’t make conclusions when there isn’t really an appropriate level of data to back them up. That’s motivated reasoning, not science.

8. Reply

   123

   Posted October 5, 2013 at 12:40 AM

   (1) Yes, I want to remain anonymous but I’ll try to do that 🙂 I really like your blog specially Border Collie history and pedigree posts. And I learned a lot here. Just to clarify, my posts in your last 2 articles are just about few lines of what you wrote which I don’t agree. Not that I agree with the phd people and it’s not even directly related to the article main subject.

   (5) Then those tree charts don’t matter. What matters is that in real life different lines behave totally different when working. There is the split in the breed.

   I have seen many dogs on sheep including some descendants from the most famous show kennel of NZ. Show dogs tend to lack the most important trait a BC must have: Balance. You cannot teach balance it’s innate. Without it you cannot train it to do what a working BC can do. You can be the best trainer in the world and won’t be successful…

   You see, there are many definitions of work in this situation. Any mutt with no selective breeding that is keen to work stock, maybe barks at cattle or heels and moves them is working. This is what ACDs, Australian Shepherds do too. Only pushes stock.

   But it is completely different from a border collie gathering on his own initiative, with no commands, out of handlers sight at 1 mile distance. It’s the only breed in the world that can do this. Not all from pure working lines have the brains and stamina to do this and it definitely requires a lot of training and natural abilities such as balance. You need this extra quality dogs in trials, large areas, big flocks.

   • Reply

     Christopher

     Posted October 5, 2013 at 1:51 AM

     > (5) Then those tree charts don’t matter.

     They might not. It’s up to the person putting them out there to make the case that they are telling us something important. I don’t think that’s been done so far.

     Very similar trees have been made in other cases, though, that DO tell us interesting things. For example, the trees can be used to suggest close relationships between breeds that are not thought (because of breed lore) to be highly related. So the tree can cross examine and refute popular breed origin myths. For example, a genetic tree documented that the Pharaoh Hound is not ancient and does not group with the ancient dog breeds, rather the tree and other analysis shows a much closer affinity with modern show breeds that were developed in the last century.

     Such a tree might also give some clarity to the question of how related the two Corgi breeds are. Or how related are Flatcoats from Golden Retrievers.

     So there could be a split between Border Collies, but to define it so shallowly as work vs. show with so few samples, is really jumping the gun. Show me that it’s actually more due to work vs. show breeding than it is separation of stock by thousands of miles between the UK -> Australia -> USA.

   • Reply

     Christopher

     Posted October 5, 2013 at 2:07 AM

     > I have seen many dogs on sheep including some descendants from the most famous show kennel of NZ. Show dogs tend to lack the most important trait a BC must have: Balance.

     I won’t argue against your observation. And I’m not going to argue the popular show line that you can breed for looks and maintain working ability. No, rather the question is not about re-creating or maintaining the best working dogs, the question I ask is what do you want to have happen with this breed over time as conditions change.

     If your only goal is to create the best working dogs, then by all means construct your own breeding program around that. But is that the best thing for the breed as a whole and is it so important that you need to restrict others from having the freedom to deviate from your interpretation?

     What actual harm would befall your ability to produce what you consider the best working dogs if we allow other breeders to do things like breed a show Border Collie to a working Border Collie? What harm would you actually face if we allow any breeder to bring in another breed and hybridize their lines? Are you being forced in any way to breed different dogs than you’d want? No.

     And how can the breed survive the pressing fact that the supposed industry upon which it’s reason to exist is tied is in retreat in every country where the breed is popular? Did we not learn the lesson of the American farm collie? They used to be numerous and widespread. Now, there are a few fractured breeds with very low numbers and any number of lines have simply died out and been lost to the modern breeder. Why? Because the culture changed and the “work” was not enough to support the breed.

     Well, I don’t think that there’s enough sheep work to support the Border Collie breed as-is. And there are new jobs with unique demands that the Border Collie makes a great base to start with and continue. Why should the breed not be diverse in abilities and considerations? If part of the breed is inappropriate for some demand, then don’t breed to it, or fix it. But as it is, I see a lot of people claiming to be breeding for work, when they are actually just perpetuating kennel blindness and narrowing of the gene pool with popular sires. And they are demanding that everyone else do the same thing. And they are doing it in the name of a sport, not work in general. And the work behind it, if only in theory, is going away and has already crashed hard since the breed was formed.

     The number of sheep in the USA when the first BC registries were founded was TEN TIMES the number of sheep today. And there are roughly 33,000 BCs registered in the country today. 30,000 in the ABCA and 3,000 in the AKC. Why is the breed better off if those 3,000 are cut away and not allowed to mix with the 30,000? And really, how many of those 30,000 have anything to do with the sheep industry? Why should we be breeding so many Border Collies to a “working” standard alone when so few of them will ever be used for work at all and many times that many will be used as “mere” pets?

     I think we should breed good dogs in all categories. We should breed good pet Border Collies. We should breed good Sport Border Collies. The show folks are welcome to breed good show dogs too. And people who actually have work for the dogs, and those who use them as a partner for their hobby herding sport, by all means, let them breed how they want. The breed is better if we have more diversity of interests and genetics being used and allowed for mixing and innovation.

     That shouldn’t be a controversial view. It’s pro-diversity. It’s pro-freedom. It’s pro-longevity. It’s pro-health. It’s pro-thinking. It’s pro-performance. It’s pro-innovation. It’s pro-science.

9. Reply

   123

   Posted October 5, 2013 at 10:21 AM

   > …But is that the best thing for the breed as a whole and is it so important that you need to restrict others from having the freedom to deviate from your interpretation?

   It’s the only thing you can do to maintain quality working dogs. To continue breeding top dogs to top bitches. Anyone can interpret the way they want but they need to know what they are talking about. They need to train a collie to a higher standard to understand. There are technical differences in working stock roughly specially a heavy herd like cattle (any mutt can do it) and precision work.

   > What actual harm would befall your ability to produce what you consider the best working dogs if we allow other breeders to do things like breed a show Border Collie to a working Border Collie?

   No harm for me but some people think because it’s a pedigree border collie it’s a good working dog. They don’t have time to study the breed and know about different lines and might buy the wrong dog for what they want and be harmed. Please if you use dogs that are not fully trained in breeding don’t tell people your pups are for work. If the pups you bred are good workers this is pure luck.

   > The number of sheep in the USA when the first BC registries were founded was TEN TIMES…

   What about the number of cattle and goats in USA? What about big sheep stations in NZ, OZ and Argentina? What about hill farms in UK and Norway? They will always need the working dogs as long as people eat meat.

   > It’s pro-diversity. It’s pro-freedom. It’s pro-longevity. It’s pro-health. It’s pro-thinking. It’s pro-performance. It’s pro-innovation. It’s pro-science.

   It’s definitely not pro-performance.

   > Popular sire lines

   The true working collie is what it is now working wise because of the breeding they did in the past. Popular sires are that popular because they really are superior it’s not luck.
   There are many breeds capable of working stock but the true collie is capable of doing it at a higher level, higher precision, working in packs and this is needed in some cases. Breeding them to show dogs is losing this abilities that differentiates them from other breeds. Anyone can breed collies for whatever they want, as long as they don’t think they are breeding top working dogs and don’t sell them for work.

   • Reply

     Christopher

     Posted October 5, 2013 at 12:27 PM

     >It’s the only thing you can do to maintain quality working dogs

     Bullshit. This is like saying the only way to win at NASCAR is to prevent Toyota from making a Prius. It’s preposterous to claim that kicking sport and show dogs out of the gene pool is somehow making breeding trial dogs possible and that it wouldn’t be if you allowed them to stay in.

     > Continue breeding top dogs to top bitches

     This is also bullshit. When people actually look at performance in any selective endeavor (even winning show titles) there are numerous examples of quality dogs coming out of parents that are unremarkable. Wiston Cap and Old Hemp among them in Border Collies.

     And, why are you bothering to even bring this up? No one here, especially me is demanding that anyone stop their breeding strategies like “best to the best” … so that’s not an argument against my position at all. Freedom means freedom. Asking for freedom for me is NOT imposing restrictions on others.

     > they might buy the wrong dog and be harmed

     This is more bullshit. There are no ignorant boob farmers who are going to be fucked over by buying some Border-Collie-turned-Sheltie by the show ring on the mistaken impression that it’s going to be an appropriate animal for their needs. Find me these people and quantify the disaster. Show me that this is a problem that you aren’t just pulling out of thin air.

     Going further on this argument, actual working people aren’t represented well by the extant registry. If you study the history of the US registries you’d know that before there was the ABCA vs. AKC nonsense over work vs. show, there were registry battles between the AIBC and the NASD which was basically the “let’s import UK trial dogs for sport trials vs. let’s use endemic American ranch dogs for actual work, which was more often cattle than sheep given that the cattle market isn’t disappearing into oblivion in this country.”

     That’s still the case. If you look at working cattle pedigrees you’ll see very little use of recent imported UK sheep trial dogs. You’ll see a lot of southern breeding instead of New England trial-sport breeding. And if you look into the relative importance and prestige of the trials, the sheep trials get 10 times the attention of cattle trials even though sheep is a dead industry walking in this country and cattle is rather robust and healthy.

     You’ll also notice that the REAL work of Cattle has sprung forth SEVERAL unique and ad hoc breeds to meet the needs of the US cattle industry, geography, and culture that are NOT UK trial
     Border Collies (although many have collie landrace blood). The English Shepherd, the Australian Shepherd, Several flavors of Aussie Cattle Dogs, the McNab Dog, any number of un-registered local mixes, unregistered beardies, dozens of boutique cattle dog mixes like Hangin Tree, even some lines with bulldog blood, etc. ALL of that is innovation and healthier genetic strategy. It’s also sustainable long term because the industry is sustainable.

   • Reply

     Christopher

     Posted October 5, 2013 at 12:57 PM

     > It’s definitely not pro-performance.

     Bullshit. If anything has failed to perform, it’s the US Trial breeding. They have never, in decades and decades of trying, produced a quality trial dog that has done anything impressive on an international scene. In the time it has taken the USA to win national awards in European sports like Soccer, the US Trial community has never produced one dog nor handler that has gone back to the UK and won a big trial. NOT ONE.

     So what performance are we really talking about here? Where does the ABCA get off breeding 30,000 “Border Collies” per year when not one of those dogs can apparently hold a candle to the UK dogs in terms of sheep trial performance? Especially considering that the sheep industry in the USA is dying and that most of the sheep are kept in parts of the country very different from where most of the sheep trial people live and operate on their Martha Stewart Trust Fund Hobby Farms.

     There’s no industry call for the US trial people to produce better working dogs. The industry is moving away from dogs more and more each year, period. So what’s the point? Are we to allow the Border Collie in the USA to go extinct right along with the extinction of a thriving sheep industry?

     I’ve documented a versatile bred Border Collie doing quite well at the American trials, but the supposedly “performance” minded bigots in the sheeple community were so appalled they harassed me, the owner and breeder of the dog. It’s not about performance, it’s about tribalism and bigotry.

     And as for “performance” in all those other “silly” dog sports, the USA has produced top winning dogs in all of those events that travel the world and win major events and are the gold standard. So we have one performance area where the dogs are pathetic and unremarkable on an international stage and in the other area, the US Border Collies are superlative. I don’t see any shame in breeding dogs that are amazing athletically, are also tested intellectually, and are solid enough in temperament to live in the house and be city dogs as well. To me that’s a much more impressive product than some of the shitty nasty dogs that trial people put up with because they’re convinced edgy nasty dogs will help them win trials or they just don’t know any better.

     IT’s also telling that when it comes to sheep trials, that there are plenty of more examples of the same handler winning the top trials with entirely unrelated dogs than some breeding program that turns out amazing dogs that win under different handlers.

10. Reply

    Jen Robinson

    Posted October 6, 2013 at 5:35 PM

    What a mess for BC’s.
    So glad that that gundog breeders seem to have taken great pride in dual champions since before the stud books were closed, and, at least with Labbies, significant numbers of show dogs are used for hunting even when they aren’t trialed.

11. Reply

    123

    Posted October 6, 2013 at 7:15 PM

    > …kicking sport and show dogs out of the gene pool is somehow making breeding trial dogs possible and that it wouldn’t be if you allowed them to stay in.

    Since they won’t blend together trial dogs will be fine.

    > …there are numerous examples of quality dogs coming out of parents that are unremarkable…

    Probably because those unremarkable parents already have good working genes. To make a dog famous you have to give it the chance to develop, have an awesome trainer and handler and show the dog to the world. Many good dogs don’t have one or more of these things but can be good breeders.

    > Find me these people and quantify the disaster.

    I can’t quantify and I’m not naming names. But I’m in better position to say this does happen.

    > …has never produced one dog nor handler that has gone back to the UK and won a big trial

    They don’t compete against each other. USA has top handlers that could win ISDS trials. Same with dogs. Look for 2012 team members, two bitches bred in California.

    > Where does the ABCA get off breeding 30,000 “Border Collies” per year

    That’s a lot of dogs and I agree many of them are probably weak. But there are many top quality ABCA dogs on the same level of any other country.

    > I don’t see any shame in breeding dogs that are amazing athletically…

    Show collies are really big and heavy. And judges want them over weight as well. I don’t think agility people want that and they will have to breed back to working collies at some point.
    Athletic are those hill dogs. They are unbelievably light. Imagine a male weighting 17kg of pure muscle.

    > that there are plenty of more examples of the same handler winning the top trials with entirely unrelated dogs than some breeding program that turns out amazing dogs that win under different handlers.

    That’s correct. Some top handlers buy and sell lots of dogs to find that special one capable of winning big trials.
    But good breeders know what they are doing. They breed a really consistent line. I believe all well bred pups will work if trained correctly and if you respect their individuality (some mature faster than others, some are soft and can’t take too much pressure etc)..

    • Reply

      Christopher

      Posted October 7, 2013 at 3:36 PM

      > Since they won’t blend together trial dogs will be fine.

      So answer the question. If Trial dogs will be fine, why do you need to kick the other dogs out of the gene pool?

      > I can’t quantify and I’m not naming names. But I’m in better position to say this does happen.

      You’re anonymous and it doesn’t appear you even live in a country where Border Collies were developed or used widely. So it’s put up or shut up really because you can’t ask us to appeal to your expertise if you’re not going to provide it in an argument instead of “trust me, I know, I’m in a better position to say.”

      Beyond that, it’s a stupid argument that smacks of the same old racism and tribalism that we have seen in other human endeavors. Protestant parents who disown their children for marrying a Catholic. Then that same couple has a fight over what to raise their child. And then when that child starts dating a minority, the same tribal extortion cycle of violence is repeated. All, just because. All because people make up supposed harms that don’t materialize.

      If you can’t document the harm you’re claiming here, then it holds no weight.

      > But there are many top quality ABCA dogs on the same level of any other country

      Then how come they never do well at International trials? How come no American born handlers go over to Europe or the UK and make a living teaching THEM how to move sheep? The opposite is quite true. Frankly if you look at the history of top winning US trialists, many of them are actually born and raised in the UK and were sponsored to come over here and teach people how to trial sheep dogs. Where’s the PERFORMANCE? I don’t see it.

      > Show collies are really big and heavy.

      Show Collies. What about show Border Collies? I’m not talking about athletic (rough/smooth) collies. There are very few of these dogs used in any dog sports. I can’t recall ever seeing a single one at a Frisbee competition, at a flyball tournament, or even doing well in the competitive ranks of agility.

      I don’t know about show Border Collies in all parts of the world, but the trends I see vis-a-vis show and working border collies in the USA and UK and NZ/AUS is that working dogs are getting bigger (Old Hemp was clearly a small dog) and the show BCs are rather smaller in comparison.

      • Reply

        Nora

        Posted October 7, 2013 at 11:00 PM

        Conformation BCs seem to be shorter, but have more bone IME (from watching Agility, where there is a lot of mixing of show and sport-bred dogs). Some of the most titled Agility BCs are a mix of show and sport dogs, and some sport-bred dogs are Conformation champions.

        I have yet to be convinced that performance in ANY sport (including sheepdog trials) has as much to do with breeding as it does with training. Take a dog with half-decent structure, decent temperament, and willingness to BE trained and a good trainer could do a lot with that dog. Unfortunately, the good trainers often turn out to be not-so-good trainers when they come up against a dog that needs a slightly different hand.

        Can’t say I like 123’s comments about “any mutt” being able to handle cows and basic farm work, like farm work is somehow beneath a Border Collie. Really? If I was on a farm (yeah, even a SHEEP farm) I would want an all-purpose dog (hell, if it also killed rats I’d be THRILLED).

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