The ideal Aussie, an intersection of two semi-dominant lethal traits.
The Australian Shepherd is a breed that has been constructed to maximize two different lethal semi-dominant traits: Merle and Bobtail. Without the careful hand of breeders to prevent Merle x Merle breedings and perhaps even Bobtail x Bobtail breedings, what would the expected outcome be of a wild population of Aussies with both of these traits saturated in the founding population?
Let’s pretend that the prophecies of doom in 2012 are true and that human civilization fails, leaving herds of wild Australian Shepherds roaming the West. Aussies are elitists and will not breed with other canids, including other dog breeds, but they are progressive enough not to stigmatize Merle and Bobtail. What would that population look like?
As we learned before, when you have a lethal semi-dominant trait where the homozygous form doesn’t produce viable offspring, you can never breed true. A certain percent of your puppies will always retain the wildtype features: in this case long tails and solid patterned coats. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason that solid coats are still allowed in the Australian Shepherd breed standard is because it’s impossible to breed it out.
The many outcomes of a Merle Bobtail cross.
Aussie graphics provided courtesy of Cartoonize My Pet.
As you can see from the chart above, out of 16 possible outcomes, only 9 produce viable offspring: a 43% failure rate. Of the 9, less than half of them are born ideal copies of their parents (the 4 along the / diagonal) and the rest are suboptimal in some manner. Two of the remainder lack a tail but are the boring and undesirable solid coloring, and three of the rest are born with tails, requiring manual bobbing anyway. One dog has neither the right coat color or the right tail, and could thus be confused for a Border Collie, perhaps the most aggravating result of all to the fancy.
I’ve included the tri-color feature in both parents as well to demonstrate the key difference between semi-dominant and either dominant or recessive traits. Tricolor is a simple recessive and if both parents are tricolor all their offspring will be tricolor too. Likewise, if both parents were homozygous for a dominant trait, all their offspring would display that trait as well and all will pass it along.
Things aren’t looking good for our wild Aussies. Without the repairing hand of a breeder to manually bob the tails of 1/3 of the offspring, the stubborn and arrogant Aussies would ostracize them as Border Collies, an extermination that would have to be carried out every generation, for the tail will always haunt the Aussie breed. Another 2/9 of the population is naturally tailless but in the decidedly mundane black coloring. Are they even worth altering? From looking at the entries at popular dog shows, the merle dogs easily outnumber the solid colors 2:1, meaning that at least in the show world Merle is about as saturated as it can get. There’s no way to tell from a distance if a tail is a natural bob or a surgical one, so the saturation of that allele is a question for science.
None of the tailed Aussies I’ve encountered were Merle and I’ve met a few. This anecdata suggests to me that breeders are less inclined to manually dock solid colored puppies to the standard (especially considering that one would expect to see twice the number of tailed-merle dogs vs. tailed-solid dogs if breeder’s were not docking), or perhaps Merle is more of a fetish in “conforming” show breeders than breeders who don’t worship the standard.
Blue Merle Tri Aussie cross with alleles.
For the genetically inclined, here’s the same chart as above with the actual genotypes marked over the phenotype pictures. For the uninitiated, the four columns across the top can be thought of as the four possible sperm that the sire dog can produce and the four rows are the four possible eggs the dam can produce. Where they intersect represents the meeting of that particular sperm and egg. Sperm and eggs only carry one copy of genes so that when they combine there are two copies in the zygote. When we are looking at two different genes, there are four possible pairings. Four kinds of sperm meeting four kinds of eggs result in 16 possible outcomes, several of which are genotypically and/or phenotypically the same.
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Anton
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Wouldn’t the Bb MM and bb MM survives? Only with blindness and deafness?
Dave recently posted..Peanut Butter Is Not a Lie!
A certain percent will survive, it’s not AS lethal as the bobtail gene. But it is still lethal. And really what’s better, birthing deaf blind dogs or having them fail before birth?
What’s better is adoption…
I met a merle aussie with a long tail. ONCE. A beautiful blue boy.
It’s still sad that they dock tails though.. I dont care if it’s the breed standard or not. Not.a.fan. What do you know about stumpy tailed cattle dogs? I’ve heard the only difference is that they are born with stumped tails…but they come from litters where it is mixed. Like smooth coat BCs I guess.
Aly recently posted..Our Second Trial
The stumpy tail cattle dogs have the exact same bobtail gene as the Aussie. Check out this post, it explains it all: Lethal Semi-Dominant Bobtail
Conclusion with this gene is that it’s highly unlikely to cause problems with one copy, but it’s lethal with two. I think, all things considered, that lopping off the tails surgically is superior to the gene. Even with the gene, you have to surgically remove the tail. I say leave the tails! or if you must, don’t mess around with a lethal gene.
Even with the gene, you have to surgically remove the tail.
…or place the tailed puppies, if you can.
It’s funny, actually, now I come to think about it. I’ve run into maybe an order of magnitude more Australian shepherds (and the majority of them by far rescue dogs) than I have Pembroke Welsh corgis, in my rambles through San Francisco. However, maybe a quarter of the Pembrokes I’ve run into have had tails. (Some of them are also ‘flawed’ in other ways, largely fluffy or flop-eared, but that hasn’t seemed to correlate with the tails in particular.) I have seen almost no Aussies with tails: in fact, the only one I can think of may have been a mixed breed (and was a rescue).
I have absolutely no idea what that means, though.
(Yes, that’s all anecdotal evidence. However, it’s anecdotal evidence from someone who has been taking pictures of an average of two dogs every day in San Francisco for the last 19 months, and has seen countless more.)
Adam Lang recently posted..Dog of the Day: Maddy-Pup the Akita/Siberian Husky Mix
I asked a Welsh dairy farmer that question once. His reply was that the English (having heavily colonized what used to be the county of Pembrokeshire)are at heart sadists. Cardi’s, on the other hand, remain a pure dog.
Oh, and Congratulations on the new blog! Team BatPack
What are the chances of getting a homozygous bobtail that survives pregnancy to be born?
I think this is an important context. If the chance is really low, then it might be acceptable to breed them.
It seems to me that it’s really low.
retrieverman recently posted..Old type Neapolitan mastiffs
I don’t know the answer to that question. I suspect that a full copy of this study would be the first place to start: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17850278
A study of inherited short tail and taillessness in Pembroke Welsh corgi.
Indrebø A, Langeland M, Juul HM, Skogmo HK, Rengmark AH, Lingaas F.
Even if it’s minute, the question of efficacy still remains. Why use a lethal gene for a task that can be done easily by a vet or a breeder?
Every breeding can potentially produce pups with something wrong with them. If it’s really minute, then maybe it’s just one of those potential horribles that can go wrong.
retrieverman recently posted..Old type Neapolitan mastiffs
My position is not that if one puppy can ever be born messed up that the breeding must be banned. It’s a simple weighing of using this gene for a goal at which it is only partially effective.
As I demonstrated in this post, you can only add up so many shitty genes before you’ve fundamentally changed the breeding equation. I’d really like to see a study of health and litter size in a breeding just like this one, with two semi lethal dominant genes.
If you’re a merle fetishist, you can’t get that any other way, save many expensive trips to a hair salon. But for a docked tail vs. a bobbed tail? Any breeder can learn to do that in 5 minutes.
If all your puppies are near-clones in looks, say in a litter of Flat Coats, perhaps having large litters isn’t that important. But for a breed like the Aussie that is a mess of coat color and pattern and then marking variability, throwing away 25-45% of the possible puppies is not an insignificant down side.
Pups that don’t survive pregnancy are either aborted, stillborn or reabsorbed. Any of those 3 choices increases the likelihood of health problems for the bitch. As you say, that could happen in any litter, but why do it on purpose?
Chris, love the graphic on this. “Boring” “Hell No!” so accurately captures the attitude of barbie breeders.
Hey Ms. X! Glad to see you’re still around. I’ve missed reading your blog. If you get a chance, update your link in to my new address. I ditched blogspot. That way it’ll show up as an incoming link when I search so you’ll stay on my blog roll.
Met a long-tailed, blue merle bitch once. Breeder and owner’s choice. Watching a bob-tailed dog move is getting to be painful for me. Dog sports is starting to put some pressure on the practice, at least for those involved. I know of a few that will not get another copy of their dog/any dog that is bobbed.
It seems to me that breeding semi-dominants results in a predictable narrowing of the gene pool – smaller litters, with less possible variance in the off-spring as the semi-dominant genes “kill off” possibilities that might otherwise add to overall health.
Yes, one of the original goals of Australian shepherd breeders when the breed began to coalesce was to develop a blue merle breed. When they figured out that the genetics of merle don’t allow that, they accepted they needed the solids and went on from there. A few colors that showed up in the early years were discarded (sable and I think brindle). Some of the rationale behind choices in the standard are explained in the Annotations to the 1977 Standard (the first and, to date, only standard ASCA has had). You will notice that inside the accepted colors, all are equally acceptable. There are limits on the extent of white that is allowed because people did pick up on the vision and hearing problems with double merles and the hearing problems that can show up with excess white on the face/head.
Despite what you saw on the Westminster video, the solids (non-merles) are well-represented in the show ring. As the 2010 ASCA Nationals showed, they do well there. In Intact Conformation, Best of Breed, Winners Dog/BOW, RWD, and Winners Bitch all were black tris, as were 6 of 10 Premier Dogs and 4 of 10 Premier Bitches (1 Premier Dog and 2 Premier Bitches were red tris). This leaves Best of Opposite Sex (blue) and RWB (red) as merles, along with 3 Premier Dogs (possibly 1 red, definitely 2 blue) and 4 Premier Bitches (3 blue, 1 red) also as merles. In the Altered Conformation the merles are more prominent. Only the RWB (red) was solid, along with 5 of the Premier Dogs and 5 of the Premier Bitches.
An Aussie breeder did a study of the effects of breeding NBTs. You can find her results at http://www.imgnr.com/nbt_study.htm. Her study indicates a tendency to slightly smaller litter sizes in NBTxNBT crosses (6.00 vs. 7.41 for NBTxFull Tail and 7.22 for FullTailxFullTail).
In the US, I think a lot of breeders don’t worry much about tail length when determining breeding stock because the tail can be docked to meet the standard if necessary/desired. You’ll see 2 dogs in my avatar. The red bitch (a bicolor, btw) had a full tail at birth. Her breeder is adamant that the pups she breeds will be docked, but she makes no effort to select for NBT. The blue merle bitch on the right has a full tail. If she had enough working instinct to be useful on a ranch, her tail hair would be a detriment. It is so long and full that she would have burred and matted it to her (long and full) britches in short order.
Thanks Judi for all the information. Breed formation is quite fascinating and so much of it is cloaked in later retcons and re-writes and obfuscations.
There are some real boxy Aussies here that no one would mistake for a BC, tail or no. But the interesting “test” I’ve found from participating in Frisbee is their jumping style. Border Collies almost universally drag one toe on the ground and/or jump very much chest first, hips down. The Aussies SPRING! with a nearly level topline, hips as high as chest. This is actually very desirable in frisbee sport where the dogs get more points for catches with all feet off the ground, much to the frustration of those of us BC owners whose dogs “do the BC drag.”
Went to an all-day disc seminar last year run by an Orthopaedist for people. He never mentioned better points for the Aussie level jump but he did say that this style was much better for the spine and for the prevention of both immediate injury and long term damage.
Thanks Judi for providing accurate information to balance the gross inaccuracies in this article. It’s unfortunate that uneducated individuals choose to spread falsehoods.
As an Aussie breeder for 18 years, I have never selected for bob tails, in fact fewer than 1 in 10 of my pups have expressed that gene (phenotype) and never select for any colour over quality (physical and mental). Sadly, that means I have never kept, or in fact, bred a red (or red merle) as those dogs with that colour gene haven’t been the right match for my bitches to produce the quality and breed standard match I was working hard to achieve.
It’s marvelous to have such genetic variety in this breed, four colours with and without white and copper! It’s a boon to the breed and creates endless variety and makes Aussies wonderful and unique and are nothing like the over-simplified backyard genetics presented above.
Thanks again for your lovely and measured response!
Beth, you’re going to have to be more specific as to what you find grossly inaccurate. I’m not one to ignore a correction when needed.
But I hope you do realize that the premise of this article is a thought experiment with some clearly wild assumptions! Specifically on the assumed behavior of some post apocalyptic wild Aussies and their prejudices.
This genetics here are very accurate and a scientific approach to see what happens if you saturated these two alleles in one population.
Christopher recently posted..Double Merle Breeders Don’t Want You to See This
Actually, I was the one who proposed such a speculation to Chris. Click on the boded phrases to access the research used in the thought experiment.
We stumbled across a few accounts of double merles suffering from renal faiure, so the question of why homozygous merles were being born without ani was on the table. And why so few. One such example was a Catahoula Cur named Juniper. We then found out dogs carrying the T-Box gene (C189) are susceptible to throwing the rare occasional litters of anorectal atresia and spinal defects; most of these embryos would had been reabsorbed, but for some reason one or two that makes it to full-term slip by once in a blue moon. This fact was already known to Swedish breeders who were trying to adhere to the bobtail requirement of the United Kingdom’s standards in a country which forbid taildocking. If it wasn’t for the corgi breeders in Sweden and Finland, in tandem with the tailless Boxer research the research on the T-box gene would had not been pioneered.
Since we knew the working cur landrace in America do habour the natural bobtail in the gene pool. And since four of the organizations dedicated to the Catahoula Curs recognize the existence of natural bobtails, alongside the fact there are breeders attempting to peddle bloodlines of bobtailed merle curs, we begun to wonder what happen if the C189 gene interacts with the Merle factor.
We couldn’t pick on the Catahoula Cur. They are relatively obscure. Most people have not even heard of them. They are not even being shown anywhere in the world among kennel clubs who have become a household name. Sure, there is the United Kennel Club, but it’s not as famous as the American Kennel Club.
However we did know when Europeans banned tail-docking, a few breeders went to the extremes of breeding for the tailless genes. When we noticed that Australian Shepherds, among 23 other known breeds, carry the T-box gene. So we asked ourselves: “what happen if America followed suit with Europe and banned tail-docking as well? What would happen to the show ring? How far people will go to maintain the iconic image of a merle dog with no tail?” So, this post was put together and published by Christopher.
This topic is nothing more than a “what if” speculation based on the precedents established on the other side of the pond.
Dave recently posted..Dogs, Guns and Porn
“the corgi breeders in Sweden and Finland” and “the tailless Boxer research” should had been two separate highlights. Both links are still in there, so hopefully people still have the common sense to hover over both URLs.
Don’t assume people are not low enough to carry such a twisted experiment out. If Dr. Bruce M. Cattanach, albeit brilliant man, is vain enough to maintain traditions in face of the British anti-docking law, despite the fact in Germany Boxers are now left undocked, then there are going to be people who are susceptible to such aesthetics. Hell, the corgi breeders in Sweden fell for it in the 1980s before they realized it wasn’t possible to isolate the alleles without throwing small litters.
Given the scandal of Alfenloch Kennel, do not assume there are no one who are callous enough to do something this perverse. The only thing stopping selfish breeders from carrying out this experiment is the allowance of tail-docking.
Dave recently posted..Dogs, Guns and Porn
I have some questions about a dog I recently adopted and i would like to speak to someone who is knowledgeable about aussies. Would you call me . 727-288-3330
Nancy – this is a good place to go for information. It’s a national rescue group – rescue people tend to be very open and honest about the good *and* bad aspects of their breed.
They may also be able to refer you to someone local, if that would help.
http://www.aussierescue.org/
Judi, Thank you for this educational and insightful post. I have been around Aussies for 30+ years and have never heard the views expressed on this page. I was beginning to wonder if I was in a twilight zone or something.
Jaime recently posted..How to Leave Really Excellent Comments
Jamie, I read your “How to Leave Really Excellent Comments” post and I think you’ve failed at that advice.
So what exactly don’t you like about this post? I’m sure in your 30+ years of experience no one else bothered to tell you that merle and bobtail were lethal semi-dominant genes. So what’s your beef?
Two things, first off please that that photo off your site of the Australian Shepherd. I took the photo and it HAD my copy write on it. 2MC Design. The photo has been hacked and placed all over the internet on websites that have not purchased the rights to this photo.
Second you might want to read up on your information. go to ASHGI.org and you will read there is no such thing as a lethal bob tail.
Heidi, perhaps a link back to your website with credit would suffice?
As for “no such thing as a lethal bob tail” I’m afraid you’re sadly mistaken. This is well documented.
Please do the research. As a Swedish Vallhund enthusiast, an admirer of Karelian Bear Dogs, and as someone who covets the now-extinct short-tailed Tahtlan Bear Dogs, I provided the links about the semi-lethal bobtail gene, C189.
The reason why it is unheard of is because most of the embryos are reasborbed back into the uterus– producing small litters. It is only when you get bizarre scenarios like people attempting to breed for tailless Pembroke Corgis in countries with anti-tail docking laws, it occurs much more often.
By the way, you should really pay attention to the research institutes in Finland. They are churning out papers faster than breeders can keep up with. And yes, they are in English.
Dave recently posted..Dogs, Guns and Porn
The suppositions here are so extremely unlikely as to be completely useless in any sort of practical application…
The comments in the article and following comments chiding Aussie clubs, breeders, and Exhibitors are insulting at best. If the tone and suppositions were not so off-putting it there might have been some interesting points in the article.
Jonathan,
Perhaps your mind is lost in a rather simple frame story, but there’s a very simple concept here…. and if you have trouble reading I’ve even made a crystal clear picture for you too. Two of them in fact.
If you breed a Blue Merle Bobtail to another Blue Merle Bobtail, it is statistically likely that 7 of the 16 possible offspring will have a double dose of a “lethal” gene. 3 of the rest will have one or more undesired faults. 2 of the rest will be bobtail but will lack the desired merle coat. And only 4 of the 16 will exhibit the Merle and the Bobtail like their parents.
That, really, is the only takeaway. The other “supposition” as you call it, is merely for humor and to make the genetics easier to grasp for the laymen.
Congratulations on failing that rather simple test.
Ah, but it did happen already; and it not useless. It happened with Catahoula Curs. There are more than one accounts of tailless white merle puppies born without anuses. Why it can’t happen with Australian Shepherds as well? Despite the vast differences in the breed and their histories, they both have the same genes in their breeding stocks.
People need to be aware the dangers of playing God. Such brainstorm posts like these enables breeders to be more careful in their selections and to be aware of the potential consequences.
I don’t have anything against breeding for merles– I love merle Cardigans. I don’t have anything against the bobtail genes– I love the bobtailed Tahtlan Bear Dogs, but that doesn’t permit me to participate in intellectual dishonesty and hiding the fact it already happens in a landrace of working dogs– especially with one well-known strain.
Dave recently posted..Dogs, Guns and Porn
No, I would like the photo removed because it has not been purchased by you as a stock photo. If you would like I can have my lawyer contact you to make sure it is removed.
Wonderful Heidi, I’m always eager for more hands on experience with intellectual property law.
Let’s make this a lesson for you too.
(1) You’d be better served with a free link back to your site than paying “your attorney” (I’m glad to hear you’re rich enough to own one) their hourly rate to send me a letter.
(2) So far you’ve failed to establish that you do have copyright over the original image. I looked at your site and didn’t see it.
(3) I didn’t take the image from your site nor remove any copyright at all. Nor am I selling your image as my own. You don’t have any damages here.
(4) The image displayed here is not, in fact, entirely your work. If we assume that you took the original photo, you would agree that the image displayed here is, in fact, a significant alteration of that image. A new artistic work, unto itself, made from but a subset of the original image, and edited into a new work.
(5) According to Title 17 Section 107 of the U.S. Code, use of said image falls under the doctrine of fair use. Not only is the image downgraded in quality and clearly altered from the original, it is also being used for one or more of “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.”
(6) The image is not being used for any commercial or for-profit use. Thus, there is no basis to claim that my fair use impinges in any way on the potential market for, or value of, the supposedly copyrighted works.
(7) As you admit, and as any internet search will attest, the image appears on countless other sites with no attribution or copyright mark of any sort. Here is just a sampling:
http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/australian-shep.jpg, http://www.viarural.com.bo/ganaderia/mascotas/fotografias-perros/pastor-australiano-0.jpg, http://www.viarural.com.ar/viarural.com.ar/ganaderia/mascotas/fotografias-perros/pastor-australiano-0.jpg, http://www.2all.co.il/Web/Sites/ilananar2/PAGE352.asp, http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v69/lissakaye/, http://davisdog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Australian_Shepherd.jpg, https://www.gotpetsonline.com/pictures-gallery/dog-pictures-breeders-puppies-rescue/australian-shepherd-pictures-breeders-puppies-rescue/pictures/australian-shepherd-0457.jpg, http://www.ambassadorsfordogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/australian_shepherd-220×300.jpg, etc.
You have failed to defend what copyright, if any, you have over said image, by failing to intercede in said online webpages republishing said image. The law says you don’t get to pick and choose how you defend your copyright.
But I would love to hear where I’m wrong on this. I appreciate you paying your attorney to inform me.
Since I’m guessing that you don’t actually have an attorney on retainer, nor are you likely to fork over the money for one simply to write me a threatening letter, I’ll offer you a chance to educate yourself and get my interpretation of your image taken off my site all at the same time.
If you look up the scientific research on the bobtail gene and either support or retract your statement that “there is no such thing as a lethal bob tail” then I’ll remove the image no matter what my rights are to display it.
This should be easy for you, Dave has already posted the links. All you have to do is admit that you were wrong and that the lethal bobtail gene is not a figment of my imagination as you suggest.
The term Lethal suggests that it’s going to cause a puppy to be born that will die, and that’s what’s not true about the NBT gene. The puppies never develop, and you don’t miss what you’ve never had (both in terms of the puppy, and the tail!)
If as you say Dave, NBT breeding causes smaller litters, then I say thank goodness, as my last litter was the result of an NBT to Tailed mating, and I got 9 puppies (8 of them bobtail).
I’ve been involved with 2 different NBT breeds over the past 14 years, and seen a lot of new born litters, and can honestly say I’ve never seen a case of deformity within either breed. The way a dog moves isn’t affected by it’s NBT status either, otherwise you’d be able to tell from a distance if an animal is NBT or docked. (and this isn’t possible) Movement has a lot more to do with an animals overall balance and structure, than how long it’s tail happens to be.
Sorry Wajoma, you can’t get out of this issue by cleverly redefining what “life” or “lethal” is. If you read the comments on my other posts regarding Merle, you’ll see people just like you are trying to define “lethal” as the exact opposite of your intent, i.e. that double merle isn’t “lethal” because it doesn’t always kill fetus puppies.
Funny how the Merle breeders don’t want to call Merle lethal and the Bobtail breeders don’t want to call Bobtail lethal.
The morality of these two genes and their use is up for debate. That is a discussion. You can have you own opinions, but you can’t have your own facts. The fact is, both genes are lethal, and data suggests to a different extent.
But even if you want to claim that bobtail isn’t so immoral because aborting fetuses isn’t as bad as producing live puppies that must be put down or which live with severe impairment, will you also agree that aborting fetuses “naturally” isn’t risk free for the bitch? Will you entertain the possibility that there is potential harm done?
Your comment about breeding a bobtail to a tailed dog suggests that you don’t really understand what’s being discussed here. I think you should read this post:
http://www.border-wars.com/2011/03/lethal-semi-dominant-bobtail.html
The real issue with these genes is not so much in having a single copy, but in having two copies. That really doesn’t happen in a bobtail x long tail breeding, as the long tail dog is not likely to have the bobtail gene as that gene is semi-dominant.
Besides, you can constantly breed bobtail to bobtail over many generations. The merle factor is just a recipe for doom. The two genes function very differently.
However, I think the old guards saw the rare disastrous results as something akin to Trapped Neutrophil Syndrome (TNS) in Border Collies. They didn’t understand what they were seeing, they knew sometimes a dog will throw a defective pup and usually they die shortly after birth– it was just something you expected to occur. I can’t name one breeder who haven’t had a defective offspring in a litter or a clutch in any of the breeding-related hobbies I have had participated in.
As far as ethical or moral implications, that is really up to the breeders themselves to deal with. There is no evidence any of the homozygous bobtail pups will actually make their way to pet owners– except in a few bizarre rescue cases, which I am sure is a result of confiscating an already pregnant mother. However we can’t definitively state that since we don’t know the background stories to those personal anecdotes from people who have no involvement in the productions of puppies. It is far much better to talk to breeders who are willing to participate in an open forum.
I don’t see a problem for breeding for bobtail to bobtail. It’s unnecessary, but the worst thing that will happen is… what? Ether?
Dave recently posted..Dogs, Guns and Porn
You want to battle? Well it is on. Also how do you not know these other people already paid me for the rights?
Dear Aussie Lovers: don’t feed the trolls. They are obviously misinformed. Anyone who feels they need name their page “Border Wars” proves they are trolls. Anyone can see through their prattle and realize they are full of it, and 20 minutes of research proves it. Nothing to see here, move along.
KT,
You say big words like “obvious” and “misinformed” and you even claim to have done 20 minutes of research and have proof. Please provide that proof so that we may all learn.
Twenty minutes to debunk a month’s worth of work, years of funded researches and follow-ups on decades of breeders’ personal accounts! Amazing! Ladies and gentlemen, someone disproved existing theories unscientifically in ground-breaking time!
Seriously, Internet trolls don’t take the time to put out stuff like this. Sure, certain bloggers like the one who fights groundhogs have a knack for quoting and reposting tadbits which only takes seconds to do in attempt to flame people. However it takes quite a bit of sweat to produce original content like this.
Dave recently posted..Dogs, Guns and Porn
Furthermore, I don’t see why people are so threatened by article. Most people who are knowledgeable about the merle factor knows it’s unethical to breed for homozygous due to post-natal problems. The ones who are not ignorant and still do it anyway, that is another matter altogether. Bobtail is a non-issue since the frequency of homozygous live-birth is so low, most people are completely unaware of such occurrences.
Pray tell, why does this topic shakes people so? Is it because it forces people to think? Oh, gracious me, it’s a bad thing to think for him- or herself.
Dave recently posted..Dogs, Guns and Porn
Heidi, I don’t want to get in the middle of this but I am interested in the subject so I poked around and found this article:
http://heartifb.com/2009/03/30/fair-use-explained-more-on-copyrighted-images-on-blogs/
“First and foremost, courts have found that to be “fair” a use has to be transformative and not just reproductive. This means that someone cannot simply start up a blog and upload all the images from the Neiman Marcus website. This would be a merely reproductive use that was not in any way transformative. If, however, you upload select photos from the Neiman Marcus website in order to comment on or criticize the store, products, or even the photograph itself, you are not longer just reproducing the work, you are transforming it. If you are using an image for the following purposes, it is most likely a transformative fair use and not copyright infringement: criticism, comment, news reporting; teaching; scholarship or research; parody.”
I am pretty sure Chris’ use of your photo falls under “fair use” and is perfectly legal.
The German Shepherd fanciers tried to threaten Chris on his post: http://www.border-wars.com/2010/12/bracketts-formula-nothing-special.html for his uses of images. They didn’t get anywhere.
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Well, I like to say that you haven’t lived until you’ve been threatened with a lawsuit by a dog breeder. LOL. But honestly, they seem to do an awful lot of that. I have been threatened several times myself.
This is also good reading. A decision just this week (in my federal district) ruled “Reposting Entire Article Is Fair Use.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/fair-use-defense/
It’s weird how when people don’t like what you have to say they scream “copyright infringement” as though that is going to shut you up or distract from your message. If anything, by raising a fuss over some stupid picture they just draw more attention to the article in question.
People need to come to grips with 21 century publishing, anyone can now say anything they want and disseminate that information to the world. If you don’t like what somebody says you have the right to create your own blog and publish your opinion but you can’t just shut somebody up by claiming copyright infringement.
Yes, I am speaking from experience.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
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I guess Christopher wanted more attention by not taking down the photo because had he done this at the beginning this would be a moot point. Just use a different picture, continue with your discussion.
Please realize I take my work very seriously. So you might say I am just screaming copyright infringement but it is. I personally do have an issue with people stealing my work. But more being ugly when I politely asked them to take it down. If I stole something from someone, I would be more embarrassed that it was on my site and do the right thing when the owner asked for it to be removed…. But not everyone has the same respect for others work.
Heidi
As a web designer I know where you’re coming from. On the other hand, as a breeder, breed historian and advocate for healthy dogs I have been known to grab pictures off the internet for my own website. I feel that we (breeders and advocates for healthy dogs) are really all on the same side despite minor differences in opinions.
In the past when I have been approached about copyright infringement issues it has always been when someone disagreed with what I was writing on my site, as though they were okay with others use of their images as long as they were not offended by the message. I hope that is not the case with you but I have to wonder if you would have made an issue of this if you had agreed with this article.
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Heidi,
So I haven’t heard from your attorney yet, so I assume that threat was empty. You haven’t really even established that it’s your image. Not one of the other sites that have published that image include a copyright watermark or a link or a name or anything, nor can I find that image on your website. There are literally dozens of websites that use that image. Here are only a few of them:
This would not be the first time I have been contacted by someone claiming to own a copyright over an image when they, in fact, have no such claim.
Nor have you decided to provide any scientific evidence to support your claim that “there is no such thing as a lethal bob tail.”
So all we really have established is that you don’t like what I’ve said and that you want to punish me in some manner.
Wow, Christopher. While I realize you think you may have the right to put up here whatever you like and legally you might. I would think as a thoughtful human being you would choose another image if the rightful owner of the original image merely asked you nicely to remove it. This has nothing to do with your stand on merle to merle breeding just on a photographer’s request not to use their images. I guess common courtesy in this day and age is lost. Sad. By the way, I can verify who took that original photo as I was the one holding the dog when it was taken (of course this was prior to your modification)
Donna,
I still haven’t seen any evidence that Heidi took that image. She hasn’t provided a link to where it is shown on her website, nor is there a single version of it on the internet with a watermark or any other bit of identification that would allow me to confirm that Heidi took the image.
Also, had Heidi simply asked like you said, I’d take it down and go find another image to use. But she insisted on declaring me a flat out liar and fabricator of the bobtail information. As you can read, if she simply found either the study that proves her point or she reads up and admits that my information is accurate, I’d happily remove the image post haste.
So no, she’s not actually just a photographer, she also has a beef with what I wrote, and she’s admitted such. In fact, she’s provided a lot more information regarding her not liking what I wrote than she has to support that she took the photo. I don’t see the image for sale on her site, nor do I see it for sale in any of the online stock photography catalogs with an attribution to anyone that would be traceable. If it’s her photo, why is she entirely unable to provide one shred of evidence that it’s hers?
Donna, If you were there holding the dog, what’s the dog’s registered name?
While I do know this dog’s name, I choose instead to not drag anyone else into this. I would just hope you would do the right thing.
Well, how about this. If YOU can answer these four questions correctly [True or False], I’ll take down the image.
1) Is Merle a lethal semi dominant allele that is known to cause issues with vision and hearing most markedly in homozygous animals?
2) Is Bobtail a lethal semi dominant allele that is known to cause severe anatomical defects in the homozygous form, including failure to reach term, deformity in the posterior lumbar region and spine, and failure to thrive.
3) Given that both genes are present in the Australian Shepherd breed, it would be smart and ethical for breeders to be aware of these genes and their effects before embarking on a breeding program that could result in double merles, and they should monitor dam health and litter sizes when doubling up on the bobtail gene.
4) Heidi Mobley lied when she said “there is no such thing as a lethal bob tail.”
Your reference to the Federal case has no standing on the issue at hand. If you take the time to actually READ what you posted it says it was not evidenced that the market for the work was harmed. This is extremely specific to that case AND it can be proven that the market of the photo has been harmed. The removal of a watermark and proliferation of that image has robbed the creator of the royalty fees associated. Unfortunately for you, you can’t just take things off the web for publication because you feel like it.
It is clearly stated:
When creating a Web page, you CANNOT:
* Put the contents of another person’s or organizations web site on your Web page
* Copy and paste information together from various Internet sources to create “your own” document. [You CAN quote or paraphrase limited amounts, if you give credit to the original source and the location of the source. This same principle applies to print sources, of course.]
* Incorporate other people’s electronic material, such as e-mail, in your own document, without permission.
* Forward someone’s e-mail to another recipient without permission
* Change the context of or edit someone else’s digital correspondence in a way which changes the meaning
* Copy and paste others’ lists of resources on your own web page
* Copy and paste logos, icons, and other graphics from other web sites to your web page (unless it is clearly advertised as “freeware.” Shareware is not free). Some organizations are happy to let you use their logos, with permission – it is free advertising. But they want to know who is using it. They might not approve of all sites who want to use their logo.
To top off your ignorance on copyright laws, you are also extremely ignorant about “bob tails” in the Australian shepherd. I also find it ironic that you surmise there would be no solids except it can’t be bred out, when one many people seek out Black-bi’s and red-bi’s, myself included.
No ethical breeder would do a merle to merle breeding, not to mention that you can’t even find an Aussie with a natural bob any longer. Because of docking, they have become irrelevant and as I was noting recently, it seems that they have been practically bred out because of their irrelevance.
Can you please state the Acts and amendments involved, for all of us to research? Thanks.
Dave recently posted..Formakin Canine Stars
We may be ignorant, but we are not naive.
Further more, since there are collie breeders who are deliberately breeding merle-to-merle, and there have been Sheltie breeders in the past, accomplishing the same thing: it’s a bit dangerous to assume ALL of Australian Shepherd breeders are above of the breech of ethics. The only reason why it wasn’t widely spoken of it is because those double-merle collies were only shared within a certain circle. Are you really stupid enough to assume everyone within your circle is righteous and holy?
Plus, 28 of 70 Australian Shepherds in the study, conducted in 2009, “Ancestral T-Box Mutation Is Present in Many, but Not All, Short-Tailed Dog Breeds” was found to be semi-dominant (C/G) with the G allele. 42 were C/C. 28 out of 70 is about 40% of the sampled dogs. That is quite a bit. However, I will concede, the study was done in Europe; not North America.
However if tail-docking is banned in the States, breeders would import European blood, no?
As stated before, in one of the earlier comments, the post is nothing more than a thought experiment. We first theorized this with the Catahoula Curs. However presenting the case with those Curs would had not provoked people to think outside the box: picking on a popular merle breed, the Australian Shepherd, would had gotten a better reaction.
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Well, she didn’t say no aussie breeders breed merle to merle; she said no ETHICAL aussie breeders breed merle to merle. I think we’re all in agreement on that point? 🙂
Ethical is subjective though, especially when people consider well-known kennel breeders as idols– then they go around and do something moronic.
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Andy it is a little different between just a breeder and a professional photographer. I am a professional photographer. Yes I am also a breeder of Australian Shepherds. This is not my dog. This is my photo, my property. Big difference.
Have you threatened every website that is currently using your picture without permission, or just the one small blog who’s saying things you don’t like? Still haven’t answered that question.
Pai, we generally only get nasty with people who are either a) making money off our work (you find interesting things on eBay sometimes), or b) passing our works off as their own (more common than you might think.) Otherwise, we ask for that the name and a link back be posted, even if it’s a site that says, “Whoa, this art sucks!”
We have found that by being fairly lenient and accessible, even for your basic ‘collection of cool art’ sites, that people are far more likely to approach us for permission for even the most trivial uses (like for a message board avatar.)
The people that are definitely, actionably infringing (making cash) know that they are doing something wrong and never need to be told twice.
It also behooves you to remember that the internet is forever, and eventually Google will pick up your snit fit on a blog or site that draws very little traffic in the grand scheme of things, and your lack of snit fitting about other sites will just make your behavior look more extreme. IOW, you need to consider whether looking like a total asshole in front of the entire internet is worth it.
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Lets just say…. Pai – when I see my images on other sites I ask for them to be removed and they are. No problems. The issue with this site is the way Christopher has handled the situation.
Christopher at this time I have nothing else to say to you…. As I said you want to battle. I will battle.
The issue is that you have yet to demonstrate on even a basic level that you took the original photograph (ignoring any claims for fair use). The only thing you have demonstrated is that you disagree with the message in this post and want to selectively enforce what _might_ be your copyright.
All you have to do is educate yourself on the bobtail gene and retract your statement.
You might also want to read this:
LV Review-Journal may be violating law with selective copyright suits
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201005070024
Christopher recently posted..Love Them and Leave Them, Italian Style
Much as I agree with Christopher (and Dave) on genetics, and the ethics of dog breeding…
It is an infringement of copyright to copy anybody’s photographs, whether or not there is an obvious copyright notice on it and whether or not you are making any money out of it. It _might_ be fair use, I’m not a copyright lawyer, but personally I wouldn’t risk it!
Heidi is also within her rights to allow other sites to use that photograph, but not this one, if she so wishes.
However, given how widely distributed this particular image is, and that it was impossible for Christopher to know where it had come from, I think it is only fair that Heidi should show some evidence that the photograph is indeed her own. (To Christopher directly if she wishes, not on a public website.)
There is a reason why I included a section about Canada’s “fair dealing” law on my blog under “Policy.” The problem here is the issue of fair use.
The photograph has been CLEARLY altered, in that it was mirrored. It was mirrored upon itself so it could be used as a parody.
Also, it is clearly non-profit since Chris haven’t sold any litter via his blog. Why would he? He is well-rooted in the agricultural industry enough to keep his sales by words-of-mouth. He has nothing to gain from his blog.
Thirdly, the photograph was used in a critique, a personal study, if you will, as part of his research. The law is clear he can use others’ works in his research, as long it doesn’t form the bulk of his project.
Lastly, in order for copyrights to trump fair use, the owner of the photograph must prove that it hurts her right to livelihood.
Dave recently posted..Formakin Canine Stars
The first one that will receive the fact the photo is mine is Go Daddy. I have nothing to prove to any of you. I asked nicely.
Once again. I don’t go around the internet looking. I hate to say I have taking thousands of photos and several of them are all over the internet. When I find them, I politely ask them to take it down as I did here. I have never had anything act the way Mr Landauer has. At this point I really don’t care what he says about the lethal bob tail.
You didn’t ask nicely, you called me a liar.
So should I not be checking my mail for a letter from “your attorney”? I guess they took your money and said “no case, sorry” huh?
Good luck with Go Daddy. Angrier breeders have tried and failed.
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I dunno about the ‘altering’. I am an artist and from what I’ve read on the subject I would have to alter an image _far_ more than that for it to count as ‘fair use’. Personally, if I’d painted that picture and you’d posted it like that I wouldn’t be happy. I’d be much more polite, but maybe that’s just because I’m British 😉
That’s a different issue really. An artist who creates a derivative work for sale (read:commercial use) is operating under a very different segment of the law than me using this in a clearly non-commercial educational post.
The first factor of fair use is::
The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature (no!) or is for nonprofit educational purposes (yes!)
I could post the exact image with a caption “this sucks” and it’d be fair use as criticism, yet again another segment of the law.
The degradation and alteration go toward establishing that this is not the entirety of the original work, it is a reproduction, nor is it in any way in competition for the potential market for or value of the original work.
A rigorous internet search and multiple requests to the claimed author have resulted in marketed products. You couldn’t license the original image if you wanted to. We’ve also established that if Heidi is the author, she has failed to protect the market for this image and even has said that she doesn’t care.
So we’re left with a strategic threat of lawsuit to intimidate or silence my views.
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Actually, even if you had not manipulated the photo, your use would likely be considered transformative, beyond just the non-profit and educational aspects of it.
Say that photo is a vanity shot of the owners dogs, mean to promote their breeding (I have no idea of the original purpose of the photo, thus the ‘say’.) Your use of it *in this article* transforms the meaning of the photo, from ‘look at the gorgeous dog I bred’ to ‘look at this dog someone bred that would be unable to survive in the wild.’ Even the physical setting of the photo (big natural rock, trees) actually adds to the irony of its usage for *this* article.
Jackie, under US copyright laws there is no certain amount the original has to be changed to quality as transformed. Simply the context can change and that can be enough in some cases.
The law is very clear that copyright is *not* exclusive. In most cases where money or the ability to make money is not involved, pursuing it to the point of court is a waste of money (IMO.)
In any case, in order to sue for damages, the copyright must be registered. Statutory copyright is not enough.
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Artwork doesn’t have to be for sale for this to be an issue, and the ‘alteration’ I was thinking of was much more radical than just copying the picture – collage and so on. However I am now getting entirely and irrelevantly off topic 🙂 I’d better put my geneticist’s hat back on.
Sure, this is all off topic, but it’s not exactly something I’m afraid to talk about. I appreciate the input, this is a learning process after all.
You’re right, as far as I understand, that it doesn’t have to be for sale, and that the more you’ve altered or created “art” the safer you are. The way I read it, there isn’t even a clear line, just four factors to consider.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
All four don’t have to be met, but my point is that it’s better if you have at least something to consider under each. The case is not that I edited the image or that it’s a crop, but that those actions weigh something toward the 3rd and 4th factors.
The biggest claim is the 1st factor, obviously.
Your opinion is always welcome.
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Also, this isn’t totally off topic because all parties involved have had the opportunity to demonstrate at even the most basic level that this photo was taken by Heidi Mobley and they have failed to do so.
They’ve also failed to even retract their demonstrably false statement regarding bobtail.
So I have to conclude that since so many of Heidi’s statements appear to be false, (this image is everywhere on hundreds if sites but she claims that she takes this very seriously and that she shuts sites that use her work down; she claims that her wanting the image down is not about what I had to say in the article, but she can’t even treat the material fairly or accept my simple offer to remove the image if she does; she blusters with threats of attorneys, court cases, but not she’s stumbled to the level of e-mailing Go-Daddy.
All she needs to do is post TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE to the four statements. She could even just type “All true.” Two words.
Christopher, Thank you for this article.
For the last few years I’ve been looking into the Aussie breed and this year I have been looking for breeders.
I live in Australia where tail docking (and ear cropping) is illegal and seem as quite inhuman, which i completely agree on (Not wanting to start an argument with anyone here).
But even though the breed isn’t very popular here there is a large amount of NBT dogs in Australia. And many breeders have NBT X NBT matings.
I wasn’t aware that this could be a problem till I remembered my old genetics notes about bob tailed cats. So I decided to look into it.
Although it seems many breeders either don’t know or don’t care about the risks of breeding these dogs, I find this very worrying.
Im happy to say I have found a wonderful breeder, who I’m on the waiting list for, who does not breed NBT x NBT and breeds all four colours, never merle to merle.
And I personally would be more than happy to have a full tailed dog
PS: I have noticed a lot of breeders sometimes get pups with half sized tails. I’m sure in America you would never see them as they would be docked. But do you know anything about breeding from this phenotype?
PPS: I don’t have a website and it won’t let me post a comment without one so I just copied your sites address in, hope that’s ok.
Hi Lisa,
The frequency of full-term homozygous NBT remains unknown due to breeders refusing to submit data. To date, there are three pups who are confirmed homozygous– two in Norway, one in Finland. However Finland found grounds to ban NBT x NBT (along with other semi-dominant genes) around 2009. It caused a lot of angst among breeders world-wide. So, at this point we can’t make a decisive stand on whether or not if the breeding is ethical.
However, the quarter and half tail variations are the result of NBT gene. I have a few pictures of Karelian Bear Dogs with half-tails; they’re never docked, but they are known carriers of C189. I will post these on my own blog sometimes soon in the future (perhaps a month from now).
Just thought you’d like to know that my family breeds Aussies for working–with tails intact of course! My current female is genetically merle but only shows a single spot of merle on the tail (hidden under her tri-looking coat). Aussies are a distinct breed, but the distinction should be in working style (a more upright drover style, pushing stock more aggressively and vocally, vs. the border collie eye from a distance). Breeding for the continued appearance of homozygous lethal genes reflects a lack of love for the real dog (some sort of silly skin deep only appreciation).
Started here learning about semi-dominant lethal traits, but in the end I learned a better lesson: To get hold of a good solid PDF or text regarding modern Copyright law.
The reason breeding merles or NBT’s together is not allowed here & showing docked dogs is banned also.
I have 2 full-tailed aussies myself and they’re awesome, in fact I don’t even like bobtails and all my aussies & possible litters will be with full-tail, I love my dogs as they are and they don’t need to be docked or anything until they hurt themselves badly and it has to be done…which will never happen.
Docking & cropping is banned, Finland forever 🙂
Wow, I am really glad that I stumbled upon this article. As an Aussie lover (and hopefully owner of one in the future), I had no idea that this was an issue. I’ll definitely be on the look out for such things in the future.
I am surprised that solid colored Aussies are listed as “boring” on this article. Maybe I live in a different Aussie area of the world from you but most of the big conformation show winners I know are non merles and the owners LOVE having and campaigning their solid dogs. I have also seen several litters born this past year from people I know that were non merle x non merle breedings guarnteed to not produce merles. So there is obviously a great love for these non merled Aussies.
Show fads change. I’ve seen the behavior in other breeds where some big name pooh bah will Champion an out-of-favor color just to prove it can be done, then the little minions will suddenly all want to do the same.
If we took a survey of breeders who sell puppies differentiated by price according to color, would we not find that merles fetch more?
Plus, this criticism is not simply of show culture, but of all merle to merle Aussie breeding. Ethically, it doesn’t matter to me if it’s done to make merle puppies for sale or merle winners for the show ring.
“If we took a survey of breeders who sell puppies differentiated by price according to color, would we not find that merles fetch more?”
Among breeders that actually price based on merleVS.not, yes most definitely.
Ditto Erin. I think merles have been the smallest classes around here for a while now. Most of our BOB specials lately have been reds of all things. It has nothing to do really with “fads”, it is just what turns out to be the best in the litters at that time. No different than some years bitch entries are extremely high compared to males and other years it is the opposite.
I personally know of NO breeders that preferencially keep certain colors over another, it is structure/temp/drive they are worried about.
Also, to defend tail docking for some of the first posters….it is a gruesome thing to see a broken/degloved tail on a working aussie. These are tight quarters working dogs, not BC’s who specialize in open areas. I have seen both the the above in imported working dogs numerous times and can tell you it is physically and mentally distressing for the dog on multiple levels.
Yes and I imagine all those Aussies working in the tight quarters at crufts are so glad they don’t have their tails so the judges can’t accidentally break them while they check how close to the “standard” they are.
Show dogs could easily keep their tails yet breeders breeding for show always seem to dock.
Hi, just thought I’d update my post from 2011, It’s taken me this long waiting for the right breeder and litter, but I recently got my Aussie pup.
The breeder kept on a Black tri girl, and two tailed pups have been placed in show homes one of which specifically wanted to start campaigning a tailed pup.
I’ve been seeing more and more tailed dogs in the show ring here, so hopefully we are seeing a change 🙂
Very cool that people are campaigning tailed Aussies.
Really hate how animals are labelled like objects! Someone that loves their dog would never call it “boring”, “fault” or “hell no”, that’s what superficial and greedy people do who mass breed animals for cash and attention. How heartless must be the people who come up with those standards?
Also find tail docking unnecessary, cruel and selfish, and it is certainly not normal when dogs(or any other animal)are born without a tail(or other body parts).
Especially on this breed it looks ugly when they don’t have a tail. Looks like something is missing(literally)and looks as wrong as a tailless German Shepherd, Dachshund or Wolf.