Kennel Club To Clamp Down On Breeders

Well, to answer your question, Emma, not only have I dealt with a rare problem that cropped up in my lines in an extremely public and forthright way, and this is well known in the US, but I have also changed my thinking in the last decade about how tight I want my pedigrees to be on average. I feel that there are certain combinations of rather concentrated blood in several of the successful US show lines that appear to me to carry a higher risk of mitral valve murmurs in middle age, some of which progress to cardiac disease at ages younger than ten. I like a lot of these lines a bunch and have had great results with them in most regards, but I am now of the conclusion that in order to work those lines without an unacceptable incidence of mitral valve disease, I need periodic infusions of very outside blood.

I can't comment on what would work for UK breeders, but I can speak to what is going on here. The American Whippet Club is being proactive on the cardiac issue, and has long had tools in place to encourage all breeders of Whippets to have their eyes checked clear of hereditary eye problems.

Additionally, I am beginning to have my own stock more routinely checked for cardiac issues, I'm doing as much research as I can on lines that I might consider using, but the #1 thing I have been doing is attempting to open up my gene pool by the judicious use of domestic outcrosses as well as imported sires and dams without close relatives in my pedigrees already. It may be five to ten years before I will be able to say if my scheme is bearing fruit, but so far, my first generations bred under that scheme which are now nearing the age of 7 have not had mitral murmurs reported. That does not mean I only outcross; I do not. But I am doing more outcrossing than I was.

These things are talked about very openly and candidly in the US and I have no real understanding why they are such a hot potato on this board. Not everyone agrees that fixating on COI is useful, but neither is it controversial to discuss it as a potential tool.

North-Row said:

I would like to know what all the people who are talking about the alleged health issues / problems in the breed are doing within their own breedlines. It is all fine to talk about the alleged problems but what are you doing about stopping it. Just talking about CoI is not the panacea for all ills

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There is nothing 'alleged' about cardiomyopathy and PRA, they do exist in Whippets. I am getting my dogs tested for those. I meant to do it for sometime, and it was the talking about all this that made me to make few calls, find out how to go about it and make an appointment.

And the whole spectrum of autoimmune diseases is also cropping up in Whippets. Unfortunately, they cannot be detected until they develop. But having lower CoI does give a dog better chance of not developing them. Therefore talking about it is useful, if it will make people to think about it when planning their next litter.

Karen, you also mention a hearing test. Is the deafness in Whippets associated with loss of pigment? Would it be then only relevant for dogs with white around their ears?

Forgot.... here is a picture of a couple of my BIS Champion bassets hunting in the back paddock

Cheers

Anne-Marie

Seraphina said:

North-Row said:

I would like to know what all the people who are talking about the alleged health issues / problems in the breed are doing within their own breedlines. It is all fine to talk about the alleged problems but what are you doing about stopping it. Just talking about CoI is not the panacea for all ills

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There is nothing 'alleged' about cardiomyopathy and PRA, they do exist in Whippets. I am getting my dogs tested for those. I meant to do it for sometime, and it was the talking about all this that made me to make few calls, find out how to go about it and make an appointment.

And the whole spectrum of autoimmune diseases is also cropping up in Whippets. Unfortunately, they cannot be detected until they develop. But having lower CoI does give a dog better chance of not developing them. Therefore talking about it is useful, if it will make people to think about it when planning their next litter.

Karen, you also mention a hearing test. Is the deafness in Whippets associated with loss of pigment? Would it be then only relevant for dogs with white around their ears?

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The deafness I encountered was in particolors, but they had complete head markings including over both eyes and ears. Unilateral deafness appears more common in the white-headed or extreme piebald (mostly white and asymmetrical head markings), and bilateral deafness can be found in mostly white-headed IG's and some Whippets as well. It appears likely that there are several genetic forms of deafness in Whippets and Greyhounds, and Italian Greyhounds--all of them fairly rare and only some of them associated with a lot of white.

For now, here in the US, a BAER test to check for normal hearing in BOTH ears is considered SOP for show breeders. That is in large part due to my candor about having found it in some of my own litters in the mid-90's, but I am by no means the only breeder, nor were my lines the only lines, to have some incidence of congenital deafness.

I feel that I have licked this problem more or less, but I am still reliant on the honesty of other breeders when I consider using outside lines. I know which lineages I work with are risky and I will not double-up on those without being very aware that there is a risk where hearing is concerned. So, I almost never do this, and it has to be very very far back in the pedigree for me to risk it at all.

Karen Lee

Good post Anne-Marie :thumbsup:

Just to add the reason Pekignese were being dicussed was because they're the first breed that the Kennel Club have brought to the media's attention with it's new guidelines. Also it's reassuring that not all peke breeders are breeding towards what is essentially a deformity although no-one has disclosed whether these dogs are UK registered ones. To be honest I wouldn't expect the problems associated with Peke's to be the hardest to remove for the reason that if their's an abundance of the breed within the UK with a desirable muzzle, there should be enough to maintain genetic diversity. I also think that the popularity of whippets has also been the reason why these dogs have remained relatively hardy. I am in agreement with Seaspot Run's comments though, longevity does seem to be impaired as living in a household with both peds and non-ped whippets you can see a massive difference between their wellbeing as they get older.

Bearing in mind these 2 breeds used to be one and the same.

chakrata said:

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Forgot.... here is a picture of a couple of my BIS Champion bassets hunting in the back paddock

Cheers

Anne-Marie

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I stuffed that up

Just to clarify, I had posted then modified a comment on the Albany pack

I was delighted to cruise around that website

I have bred Basset Hounds since 1975... always bred them lean and with clean lines and showing daylight underneath.... no bellies dragging on the ground. I hunted the show dogs in the early days and they stood up well to the test

Rarely do you see a functional Basset Hound in the show ring today... the intent of the breed seems to be forgotten. Thank God for packs like the Albany pack who keep their hounds true and functional

I attended the Hound Club in England two years ago and was appalled to see the winner, so heavy, he had a great deal of difficylty getting up the slight incline of the hill in the General Specials ring.... labouring and dragging his feet....... a very different picture from my visit to Crufts in 1990 when I saw the magnificent dog hound Ch Lodway lancer of Islwyn.... at 10 years old he would have worked in well with the Albany pack and not disgraced himself

I do believe that generally the Whippet breeders have looked after the Whippet over the years.

For me, having had Basset Hounds and Pointers (plenty of corruption of health and conformation in that breed as well) the Whippet is like a breath of fresh air.... I think they have less conformation problems, albeit I hear more and more of health issues incl hearts that are creeping into the breed. Breeders seem to network more and share problems and solutions. That needs to continue so that the Whippet breed remains true and robust and the Whippet fancy retains its high standing in the general community

Cheers

Anne-Marie

ps... the pic is of BISS Ch Chakrata's park Royale (on the right) and BISS Ch Chakrata's Peach Melba on the left (brother & sister)

Emma, your post prompted me to comment although I had been luking and not intended to post as for me, the thread is quite fragmented. This thread has tangents in that there are posts describing function and evolution of various breeds. That’s a separate issue to health unless the current type induces a health problem which can be said for mating, whelping and breathing of some breeds.

When a problem arises, it’s not a simple matter of deleting dogs from pedigrees. Everyone acknowledges that once you single out one problem, something else will crop up. Look at the countries that have banned tail docking. Many traditionally docked breeds are now breeding for the naturally bobbed gene. I personally believe that this will lead to other problems but I may be proved wrong. And then some breeders are not willing to test. So often you hear the cry “our breed doesn’t have xx problem”.

But without proper testing, the involvement of geneticists and unbiased records and statistics, no-one has any real idea what problems there are in whippets. The same can be said for many breeds. Unless you test, you don't really know if you dog has a problem. COI's in my opinion, aren't necessarily the answer. Sure they give you a predictability for type and some diseases, but to eliminate or reduce a problem you need to understand a gene’s mode of inheritance.

Not all problems come from both sides of a pedigree. It only takes one dog/bitch to introduce a problem but it takes many generations to eliminate / remove the problem.

An example is Boxers. One dog from Belgium I think it is, over 80 years ago, was proven to have introduced PXA into the breed. Breeders worked hard to reduce this dog’s influence in pedigrees.

The Dog Genome scheme has done wonders and now gives Border Collie breeders much DNA information on their pups. As such, they never breed carriers to carriers of CL, CEA and TNS.

Fanconi Syndome in Basenjis was quickly identified and carriers deleted from the gene pool.

But be careful for what you wish for. I can remember how testing for polycystic kidney disease nearly destroyed Bull Terrier clubs here in Australia and how the breed, world-wide, lost a vast percentage of breeding stock. I know of one breeder who after testing, was left with 3 dogs out of 15. It’s been a tough long crawl back for the breed and I have only respect for those who continued.

Testing is only one part of the equation. The problem is that you can test whether a dog is clear, a carrier or affected for many diseases but you can’t test for other diseases. A litter may test clear for cardiac disease but you can’t tell if one of the dogs is a carrier for the gene. Same applies to testes – a dog may have two but produce puppies with only one. I bought an RR who when bred, produced multiple mega oesaphagus. I subsequently found out she had an affected littermate and my litter was the 3rd generation of mega. The breeder of my bitch didn’t consider mega a serious health problem. We always x-ray and score our RR’s for hips and elbows but that doesn’t mean that a dog with a low score won’t produce a HD affected pup. It happens. And do we really know if whippets have HD? Pugs are pretty bad so it's not restricted to large breeds.

I guess you need to decide what’s a serious health problem (cleft palletes, cardiac disease, PRA, haemolitic autoimmune, etc) and what’s an annoying problem from a conformational point of view (kinked tails, erect ears, poor bites, etc.) and then also of interest is familial disposition to problems / diseases (caesars, mastitis, missing teeth, cryptorchids, etc.).

I am an advocate of testing but I also understand that it won’t necessarily stop me producing serious problems. I’ve experienced fatal cardiac diseases in whippets. My dogs are tested clear and outcrosses but that didn’t help as the gene is one of incomplete penetrance. I did an extremely close mating as a test mating and never got one affected puppy. So it’s made it difficult to determine where the gene originated from and how to breed away from it and even more importantly, who to trust.

Breeding isn’t a simple matter or something to be taken lightly. It’s challenging, hard work, and whilst there may be rewards, there’s lots of frustration and tears along the way. You are constantly watching, learning, reviewing, and when faced with a major problem, the first thing I’ve learnt is there’s no easy solution.

This made me think of recent threads of bitches bred to two sires. This may be the quickest way to identify problem genes. Just a thought.

How each and everyone of us deals with a problem is different and dependent of lots of variables – vet advice, experiences of other breeders, what’s in the litter and what’s best for your bitch, the general attitude of the day, and ultimately, your own thoughts and decision.

Back to lurking. :- "

belge said:

I'm not sure if some of these traits are just recently 'gone'.  I have a reprinted book first published in the 1870s which show pictures of some of these breeds that have been 'ruined'. 
The book is Vero Shaw's Classic Encyclodpaedia of the Dog published between 1878 and 1881.

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Here are some pictures from this book:

These are artworks so it is difficult to judge how faithful to the subject they really are. Nevertheless they do look considerably different from what these breeds look like in the ring.

In any case i prefer to deal with facts, not artists impressions.

This is a bulldog skull; modern and old from 1905

And some stuffed bulldogs in a museum

belge said:

belge said:

The book is Vero Shaw's Classic Encyclodpaedia of the Dog published between 1878 and 1881.Here are some pictures from this book:

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I forgot the pug!

And now they look like this, and keep fainting because their soft palate blocks their airways. This is caused by shortening of the nose. Just because this breed had already somewhat short nose 150 years ago does not make it OK to try to breed it even shorter.

If we are going to use artwork as an evidence of fine points, this is bulldog