@jenz - It sounds like you have drank the same koolaid that Lindsay and Eunice have. Your view of what makes a healthy dog is defined by OFA or CERF certifications. And I won't argue that the underlying disorders they test for and certify against aren't part of the health picture. Because they are. But, there are other ways to look at the health of a breeding population:
GENETIC DIVERSITY IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING when it comes to a breed.
When you are laying the foundation for a breeding program, starting from essentially zero dogs, getting diversity in your lines will contribute far more to the health of the breed than being able to put a specific label on a specific dog will.
Also, please be careful about bringing ethics into this discussion. Deciding that health checks are the mark of an ethical breeder is as arbitrary as saying that only someone without a website could be an ethical breeder. Or only somebody involved in rescue. Or who grew up in Montana. Or wears purple socks on Sundays.
@Brad I was commenting on Casey's "And yes, I know that it is virtually impossible to test every single specimen of a breed, unless there is a very small and very dedicated breeding community (with a theoretical bottomless checking account)."
I can see it impossible to talk people into but I don't see it as a lack of finances issue.
One interesting thing I have noticed with some pet (s/n) contracts from a few breeders of established and newer (to the US) breeds is that they require some basic OFA scoring. Some contracts would state that during the spay/neuter, prelims should be done for the hips and knees, as well as the eyes if that is a serious issue with the breed. Others would require the dog to be s/n at 6-8 months and have testing done at 2yrs old. I've always found this sort of requirement to be a bonus, as this shows that the breeder is serious in trying to keep records of the health trends in the dogs they produce.
Interesting paper .....several hurdles to overcome but I think they are on the same vein as we are certainly discussing here.
Btw, do you happen to know if the research program InterDog & Interbull is under way and taking samples world wide, or if this is merely a small Sydney Australian initiative that is ramping up with this paper as part of the beginning research proposal?
At this time I do not have access to the research libraries that would ferret that out.
I forwarded that particular article because it had good summaries of the problems of selection vs. diversity, Mendelian genetics (single gene traits) vs. complex traits (ie. hip dysplasia), and several suggestions on how to proceed. The article was also free and complete unlike others that only offer an abstract. You'll have to ask someone deeper in the field as to what's going on specifically with Inter-dog. Or at least someone with the access and will to do article searches. Unfortunately, I don't have the access either.
I've only heard of Estimated Breeding Values, particularly with English Shepherds. The ES people control their own database and registry, and I think they apply EBVs to not only disease traits but also working traits.
Sorry in advance to be a off-topic@jenz--thanks for the glucosamine advice.
@ayk or I guess anyone out there--I have access to quite a bit of scientific journals...if there is one you would like the pdf of, just send me the link...
in addition to others, you could always go on ncbi.nih.gov/pubmed to get research articles (just search canine). There are usually a lot of open access journals but there's one that you want but can't get, msg me
How much does basic test cost in the States like eyes, knees and x-rays from elbows and hips? And does the OFA charge something from the statement from the x-rays? Who is the "big boss" who gives the statements from hip and elbow x-rays or can your vet do this? And can every certificated vet do eye checks and give official result?
@MirkaM - I think the only OFA test your vet can officially diagnose is for knees, since that is that can be diagnosed by feeling the dog (popping the knee). I'm not quite sure how much all of the OFA costs are, though I think prices are posted on their website. I know that to just get an x-ray done (without OFA fees) by me, it would cost about $500 for 1-3 films/scans depending on who you go to.
@okiron - I know that the tests usually range between $400 - $800 depending on location and resources... However, as a breeding program expands, testing and certifying each puppy can start to get quite expensive, especially if not every puppy will be used for breeding. Sorry, I guess I should have specified... But then again, I am thinking out loud, trying to put everyone's opinions into perspective.
@brada1878, I will try to explain my thoughts better. I've tried to type it up a few times but I'm not sure I'm choosing the right words. I guess the best way to say is that to *me * breeding dogs that are superior health-wise is more important to the breed than genetic diversity. As the old adage goes, "garbage in, garbage out." As a puppy buyer I would only be willing to spend my money and support a breeder who health tests their dogs AND breeds only the ones who pass their tests with normal, good, or excellent results. If that delays or slows the establishment of the breed in the US for 10-20 years, I would personally have no problem with that. What's the rush? IMHO, it's easier to be super careful and super selective in the beginning rather than try to weed out problems farther down the line when you have hundreds or thousands of the breed being registered every year.
As a dog fancier and someone looking at it as an outsider (I don't have a NK at this point although I very much envy them from afar and would love an Akita someday) -to me-that would be the more responsible and logical way to go- slow and steady, establishing the breed with the Best of the Best. However, that's just my opinion.
Can we keep this discussion on topic, please. Let's chill with any comments that aren't constructive or could be received as rude/pointed/attacking. I'm asking all of us to keep it civil and constructive, please.
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I agree with Dave RE: diversity. I think that's the number one problem in most dog breeds - even breeds with large numbers - but especially breeds with small numbers. These health issues wouldn't really be the issue they are today had population diversity been as important to breeders as phenotype was/is.
I'm not suggesting that the health of breeding stock shouldn't be scrutinized at the highest level tho, I think it should.
In regards to cost, I think the issues has less to do with the actual cost of the tests, and more to do with the cost of importing P1 stock only to have to cull them from a program due to health issues. I know, at this point, we've spent $50k+ on our importing efforts, so culling a pup from our efforts due to ANYTHING is a bit painful... but we still do it.
On the other hand, we have the resources to do it, and so we take on, and understand, the risks. If a breeder can't afford to cull unhealthy breeding stock, or at the very least test them and breed for health improvement, then, yea, they shouldn't be breeding.
@jenz - Having owned some very sick dogs myself, I can appreciate where you are coming from.
But let me ask you this, what if the breed we are discussing was in very poor health. Like let's say 95% of the breed, which is a rare breed (so small numbers), has HD and all the representatives of the breed who are HD free are related to each other - like furthest relation being first cousins...
Applying your thought process, how could a breeder successfully proceed under those circumstances and only breed 100% healthy dogs?
In that breed it wouldn't be an issue of waiting for improvement, it'd be an issue of shrinking population, and therefore a race against the clock....
My answer to Brad's first thought experiment: I wouldn't be exercising due diligence by using only the information provided to choose a breeder. It's not just the number or outcome of the results (even if good health was so cut-and-dry as "failing" or "passing"), but what you actually DO with the information. Health records do not make a dog or its offspring invincible, but I maintain that their presence or absence speaks volumes about the kennel's breeding philosophy.
My answer to Brad's second thought experiment (are the rest of us allowed to answer?): the breeder needs to make a choice as to what cost breed "purity" must be maintained. I would say if things got that bad, it's high time to select from outside the known gene pool, or let the breed go.
Yes, my view flies in the face of the very notion of "preservation" itself, but that's my naive, uninvested outsider's take for ya. If a breeder-conservator is unwilling to let their breed go or compromise the "purity" of the breed, then I guess they proceed by resorting to close inbreeding (like the Sapsaree?) or making choices that risk breed health (and thus alienate potential puppy buyers). Depends, I suppose, on how you define "success."
My thoughts are shaped by what I've been able to learn about the rectifying efforts of Basenji breeders -- a breed that now has a critical mass of numbers (enough to set breed-wide health agendas), and started with a limited number of founders who were not initially health tested, then selected too stringently for health issues (as Ann's link points out, and I thank her for breaking the ice by bringing up B's first since I often get sidetracked by this alternate breed example -- it's just that they have so much information publicly available). For B's, the OFA matters. The Fanconi test, for example, is compulsory for the database -- if you order the test, it WILL be there, so unlike most other OFA tests, you CAN use the database to verify whether or not this test has been done at all. This makes it a "useful" database for both breeders and puppy buyers alike. But it took a community of responsible breeders working very cooperatively with the OFA, as well as the research labs that submit their results to the OFA, to make the results what they are for this breed.
I feel like I have a lot more to say but I don't have the authority to say it, nor am I sure it's relevant to this discussion, so I'll stop here. Thanks nozomifarm for starting a really interesting thread and everyone who's added something. I'm watching with great interest and learning a lot.
Off-tangent a bit, but they did eventually open up the Sapsarees from the original saved group to dogs that were close enough to Sapsarees. Out-crosses in short. Genetic diversity.
I'm all for it because the preserver (a US-educated Korean Professor) is all for it. It's not about some outsider having the ego to alter a country-of-origin's native dogs.
The Fanconi genetic test was a recent development (2007) while the Fanconi disease was noticed decades before in 70% of the breed. What were breeders to do in the interim? Let the dogs die out in the US?
@ayk I guess they studied the heck out of pedigrees, line bred if they felt they could justify their choice, and made it possible to step out of the known gene pool by importing new blood from Africa (traversing some fairly politically treacherous terrain, as I understand it). I do not think the breed was in danger of dying out as in Brad's example, despite what Animal Planet's Dogs 101 would say.
And some breeders ignored and continue to ignore the risk of Fanconi and continue to breed without monitoring for that aspect of health. It's not a perfect breed model. But I think the fact that a lot of Basenji owners HAVE had to live with Fanconi-affected dogs accounts for the dire attention to health that most people in the breed seem to display.
[EDIT: Actually, I read a more rigorous followup to that 1989 health account that puts the percentage much lower, but I have to dig up the ref. I'll message you with a link when I find it.]
Ah, well, now we come back to the beginnings. "Studied the heck out of pedigrees." The first Basenji's were imported somewhere around the 1930's? That's compared to ~1990's for the Kai and what, 2000, for the Shikoku? That's not a whole lot of generations available on hand to study.
Don't they have Japanese pedigrees before 1990 and 2000? Sorry if that's a really ignorant question. I mean even if there is no full record of health tests (which I think this conversation has established is not 'done' in Japan), you at least know who's coming from what 'lines', when they died, and hopefully how they died, right?
Comments
@okiron - I don't think anyone wrote that health checks are too costly to do.
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GENETIC DIVERSITY IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING when it comes to a breed.
When you are laying the foundation for a breeding program, starting from essentially zero dogs, getting diversity in your lines will contribute far more to the health of the breed than being able to put a specific label on a specific dog will.
Also, please be careful about bringing ethics into this discussion. Deciding that health checks are the mark of an ethical breeder is as arbitrary as saying that only someone without a website could be an ethical breeder. Or only somebody involved in rescue. Or who grew up in Montana. Or wears purple socks on Sundays.
I can see it impossible to talk people into but I don't see it as a lack of finances issue.
Interesting paper .....several hurdles to overcome but I think they are on the same vein as we are certainly discussing here.
Btw, do you happen to know if the research program InterDog & Interbull is under way and taking samples world wide, or if this is merely a small Sydney Australian initiative that is ramping up with this paper as part of the beginning research proposal?
At this time I do not have access to the research libraries that would ferret that out.
Snf
I forwarded that particular article because it had good summaries of the problems of selection vs. diversity, Mendelian genetics (single gene traits) vs. complex traits (ie. hip dysplasia), and several suggestions on how to proceed. The article was also free and complete unlike others that only offer an abstract. You'll have to ask someone deeper in the field as to what's going on specifically with Inter-dog. Or at least someone with the access and will to do article searches. Unfortunately, I don't have the access either.
I've only heard of Estimated Breeding Values, particularly with English Shepherds. The ES people control their own database and registry, and I think they apply EBVs to not only disease traits but also working traits.
@ayk or I guess anyone out there--I have access to quite a bit of scientific journals...if there is one you would like the pdf of, just send me the link...
in addition to others, you could always go on ncbi.nih.gov/pubmed to get research articles (just search canine). There are usually a lot of open access journals but there's one that you want but can't get, msg me
Jesse
The more life happens my yardstick of what's considered expensive gets warped lol.
Jen
As a dog fancier and someone looking at it as an outsider (I don't have a NK at this point although I very much envy them from afar and would love an Akita someday) -to me-that would be the more responsible and logical way to go- slow and steady, establishing the breed with the Best of the Best. However, that's just my opinion.
----
I agree with Dave RE: diversity. I think that's the number one problem in most dog breeds - even breeds with large numbers - but especially breeds with small numbers. These health issues wouldn't really be the issue they are today had population diversity been as important to breeders as phenotype was/is.
I'm not suggesting that the health of breeding stock shouldn't be scrutinized at the highest level tho, I think it should.
In regards to cost, I think the issues has less to do with the actual cost of the tests, and more to do with the cost of importing P1 stock only to have to cull them from a program due to health issues. I know, at this point, we've spent $50k+ on our importing efforts, so culling a pup from our efforts due to ANYTHING is a bit painful... but we still do it.
On the other hand, we have the resources to do it, and so we take on, and understand, the risks. If a breeder can't afford to cull unhealthy breeding stock, or at the very least test them and breed for health improvement, then, yea, they shouldn't be breeding.
----
Since I'm a bit lazy as of late, here's my first hit about them (dated 1989):
http://www.basenji.org/african/brow8907.htm
But let me ask you this, what if the breed we are discussing was in very poor health. Like let's say 95% of the breed, which is a rare breed (so small numbers), has HD and all the representatives of the breed who are HD free are related to each other - like furthest relation being first cousins...
Applying your thought process, how could a breeder successfully proceed under those circumstances and only breed 100% healthy dogs?
In that breed it wouldn't be an issue of waiting for improvement, it'd be an issue of shrinking population, and therefore a race against the clock....
----
My answer to Brad's second thought experiment (are the rest of us allowed to answer?): the breeder needs to make a choice as to what cost breed "purity" must be maintained. I would say if things got that bad, it's high time to select from outside the known gene pool, or let the breed go.
Yes, my view flies in the face of the very notion of "preservation" itself, but that's my naive, uninvested outsider's take for ya. If a breeder-conservator is unwilling to let their breed go or compromise the "purity" of the breed, then I guess they proceed by resorting to close inbreeding (like the Sapsaree?) or making choices that risk breed health (and thus alienate potential puppy buyers). Depends, I suppose, on how you define "success."
My thoughts are shaped by what I've been able to learn about the rectifying efforts of Basenji breeders -- a breed that now has a critical mass of numbers (enough to set breed-wide health agendas), and started with a limited number of founders who were not initially health tested, then selected too stringently for health issues (as Ann's link points out, and I thank her for breaking the ice by bringing up B's first since I often get sidetracked by this alternate breed example -- it's just that they have so much information publicly available). For B's, the OFA matters. The Fanconi test, for example, is compulsory for the database -- if you order the test, it WILL be there, so unlike most other OFA tests, you CAN use the database to verify whether or not this test has been done at all. This makes it a "useful" database for both breeders and puppy buyers alike. But it took a community of responsible breeders working very cooperatively with the OFA, as well as the research labs that submit their results to the OFA, to make the results what they are for this breed.
I feel like I have a lot more to say but I don't have the authority to say it, nor am I sure it's relevant to this discussion, so I'll stop here. Thanks nozomifarm for starting a really interesting thread and everyone who's added something. I'm watching with great interest and learning a lot.
I'm all for it because the preserver (a US-educated Korean Professor) is all for it. It's not about some outsider having the ego to alter a country-of-origin's native dogs.
And some breeders ignored and continue to ignore the risk of Fanconi and continue to breed without monitoring for that aspect of health. It's not a perfect breed model. But I think the fact that a lot of Basenji owners HAVE had to live with Fanconi-affected dogs accounts for the dire attention to health that most people in the breed seem to display.
[EDIT: Actually, I read a more rigorous followup to that 1989 health account that puts the percentage much lower, but I have to dig up the ref. I'll message you with a link when I find it.]