Coi - Letter From Dogs Today

[patsy]

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First of all why are Greyhounds being discussed on a Whippet showing board? The word murderous is an emotive word with awful connatations,making the breed sound like mindless killers. Quite frankly Eceni Im not sure why you want a Sighthound because one of the things that make Sighthounds  so special and different is their ability and instinct to chase and hunt and all of us who own Sighthounds are well aware of what we have. It is very very sad that a dog was killed by Greyhounds but Greyhounds are not the only breed to kill another dog.Yet again a vet has stepped in to cause more trouble for another breed  , not content on signing the death warrant on a lot of SBTs, insisting, wrongly that they were Pit Bulls now whose next on the list. Yes  racing Greyhounds do get the short straw but there are a lot of people and organisations that are moving heaven and earth to to help them. What they dont need is yet another vet scaremongering .

There is a forum for Greyhounds Eceni why dont you take your views over there and see what the Greyhound people have to say to you.

Nicky

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Well said Juley and Nicky, the greyhound is such a lovely breed and so many people that are working so hard to rehome the ex racers do not need this sort of hype. I will offend Eceni but my lovely vet Jeremy loves sight hounds.Yes Nicky you are so right about vets being involved with the dangerous dogs act, it was a disgrace, they cost the lives of a lot of inocent dogs. I know because we were involed, the Stafford judges along with Trevor Turner and Roger Mugford did such sterling work saving the lives of many dogs. I read many of the reports from vets and it sickened me. So it is the last thing the poor Greyhound needs is another vet making sweeping statements about a lovely breed.

 

[anniewhippet]

I too was aware of this article from a lady who seems to have experienced quite a few 'problems' with dogs over the years.....

But I find some of your comments on the people involved in this 'debate' very hurtful, as I am sure they do too. The Queens English might not come easily to everyone concerned but we care about our dogs.

I have replied on this article in another forum but would like to say here that in my experience I have not come across any problems with rehomed Greyhounds. As to the racing question that is another discussion for a forum where those involved can contribute.

It seems to me that Sighthounds are now becoming a target for 'doom'..... :- "

 

 

[chelynnah]

For those who are interested in this debate (and I'm assuming those who aren't have left the thread long ago)
this was in Sunday's Telegraph (and no, I'm not a Telegraph reader, but it still seems useful and interesting and I didn't see it in the Observer or I'd post their link)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtm...11/eadog111.xml

m

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Sorry, but 'Emma the vet' has done more damage to the pedigree dog fancy than dozens of bad breeders combined. She has tarred the fancy with the extremes of everything, and because she was 'trained on TV' the masses believe her extremely biased and prejudiced views. She does nothing to help the problems she claims (in some cases rightly) are there - she just preaches the evils of pedigree dogs. Sorry, but all I have to do is see her name and the credibility of any article written goes right down the toilet.

And that's about all I can politely say on a public forum.

Wendy

 

[Seraphina]

This woman is obviously having an agenda, and she knows what buttons to push to get the public appropriately incensed. Unfortunately, in the case of breeding ever increasingly more problems into some breeds is based on fact. For instance hundred years ago Bulldog was a breed with minor deformities: slight dwarfism, undershot jaws and spinal deformity. Nowadays these deformities are lot more exaggerated and together with heart problems, breathing difficulties and birthing problems due to small pelvis, are making the breed less and less viable. There is a number of breeds that are similarly, albeit in lesser degree, bred into oblivion - dachshunds and bassets with their spine weakness, flat faced breeds with their breathing problems etc. I remember these problems being widely discussed 20 years ago and the breeders getting upset, and telling us that they are dealing with any problems, and that the critics do not know what they talking about. Yet the breeds got more and more exaggerated since and the only thing that changed is that breeders do not quite so openly admit to such a thing as their bitches having routine cesarean.

Unfortunately, if the politician will interfere we are all going to be affected, because the negative point of view is alway so much easier to present and is more remembered.

I do not need to repeat my view on inbreeding, but all what I want to say that you cannot compare breeding of animals for meat with breeding dogs. Chickens that are slaughtered within few weeks of hatching, cattle withing couple of years, may very well have whole range of horrible problems, and their immune system may be compromised, but who cares, they are pumped up full of antibiotics for most of their short lives and their is no time for these problems to become obvious. If they do, the animal gets slaughters earlier. While we expect our dogs to live more than decade of healthy active lives.

 

[seaspot_run]

It's a matter of "inflammatory language".

To say something is going "extinct" means that the population levels and the reproductive success will drop to such a low level that populations will no longer maintain. Even in the livestock industry, with short generations, this is clearly NOT true, since they are able to maintain their strains long enough to produce the next generation successfully. If they were not able to do this, it would not be profitable.

There are a few breeds who are so distorted as to be unable to propagate naturally without a lot of surgical or veterinary intervention. I am happy to say that none of the sighthounds are among this group of dogs. I leave the ethics of that to the fanciers of those breeds. I guess if I wanted to work with such a "forced" phenotype, there is nothing stopping me. But I do like the Whippets precisely because they are robust, for the most part, still quite functional to their original purpose, and able to breed on successfully without a lot of additional veterinary aid and attention. I could probably sit down and figure how many litters our kennel accounts for since 1982, and it would be a goodly number, and not one single litter has required a c-section. Other than my frozen to a dead dog, I've not had to do teched-out matings to get my girls in whelp. My average litter size is 8.4 live births--I did that one a few years ago and I doubt much has changed.

So, I have more of a glass more-than-half-full vision of my breed than perhaps some do, but I am also keenly aware that certain troubling problems which may be due to closebreeding are starting to crop up more frequently, and I feel that this is something breeders have to take seriously and re-evaluate their breeding schemes accordingly.

 

[Seraphina]

seaspot_run I mostly agree with what you say, but we cannot isolate ourselves from the other breeds, if the politicians get to pass legislation it will be right across the board.

 

[seaspot_run]

seaspot_run I mostly agree with what you say, but we cannot isolate ourselves from the other breeds, if the politicians get to pass legislation it will be right across the board.

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yes, I agree, that's why I was so vehement about the greyhound article.

 

[Seraphina]

seaspot_run I mostly agree with what you say, but we cannot isolate ourselves from the other breeds, if the politicians get to pass legislation it will be right across the board.

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yes, I agree, that's why I was so vehement about the greyhound article.

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Yes, that was disgusting, but demonising greyhounds is nothing new here in Australia. When I came here in 1968 I was absolutely astonished that greyhounds were seen as extremely dangerous. One person said to me that they will kill a child given a half chance. (w00t) Our GAP here is doing excellent job and there are many retired greyhounds living very successfully in society as pets. I know personally some that live happily with not only children but also cats, chooks and anything else. That is what I was saying above; one negative story gets lot more air time than all the good ones. And frankly, I would not be surprised if the story about the 2 greyhounds was total fabrication, or at least not the whole story. When I used to walk my Danes on a leash we would get, with boring regularity, attacked by small dogs. There were times that my dogs got bitten and blood was drawn. It was not easy for me to hold onto them while the owners of the small dogs did not seem generally to be too concerned. Usually the only way to get them away from my dogs was to kick them as far as I could. But imagine what would have happened if my dogs bit back.

 

[Eceni]

It amazes me how these things run...

this is a whippet forum and I had no intention of bringing greyhounds into it, just wanted to show that I'm not alone in the views I hold on close line breeding.

Bearing in mind that the BVA organises its speakers months in advance, I'd say that Emma Milne was chosen as a mouthpiece because, in this country, she has a high TV profile - it may well be that she believes what's being said - a lot of us do - (I'd be surprised if there were many viable bulldogs in 50 years time if they continue to push the extremes as they do now - even a 'normal' bulldog was always treated as a grade 3-4 emergency GA when I was in the clinics and I doubt if it's got any better) but I think she's being used to say it in as high profile a way as possible.

I have no wish to demonise sighthounds, I have a lurcher who is the light of my life, but I worked hard to make sure she didn't kill except when it was appropriate (yes, I used to hunt her. No, I don't now, she's too old to want to, which is exactly why I'm here, still exploring health issues)

I don't think Emma Milne was demonising sighthounds either, but anyone who's worked in clinical practice or been involved in rehoming knows that too many dogs are being bred and taken on by people who have little or no idea of animal behaviour and the result is tragic both for the dog, the new owners and the public. Greyhounds are lovely dogs, but are often not appropriate for today's lifestyles. The rehoming centres do a sterling job but are nevertheless overwhelmed. I had rather hoped that the DT article could have been moved forward into an examination of the racing industry and what happens to those thousands that can't be rehomed, but that hasn't happened and probably now won't.

so - I suggest we close this, it's not appropriate for this board and has been discussed in length elsewhere.

the original Telegraph piece did, it seemed to me, open other areas of interest, but if we're going to reduce it to ad hominem attacks on the mouthpiece, then there's little point in taking that forward either.

(and if we're going to compare it to people, we're in hot water. I have very vivid memories of one of our ophthalmic surgeons coming back in shock - literally white and shaking - from a meeting with her human counterparts where they'd been looking at the data/images from some of our minority communities where close line breeding is happening as a result of arranged marriages kept within the community. They were seeing exactly the ocular conditions we see in some of our more inbred dogs - and worse - but nobody can begin to talk about it in the general media, only work quietly and try to reverse the trend. Which is way too late for the children who's lives have been blighted. It was a tremendous lesson in applied genetics)

m

 

[jayp]

Just a few abstracts from papers published, illustrating the concerns of high inbreeding coefficients on the fertility of any animal population And i know this isnt a bovine forum but is none the less relavent to this discussion :- "

Inbreeding is widely believed to negatively affect reproductive performance. Indeed, in some species, high levels of inbreeding are thought to be the major cause of poor semen quality. It is, however, not clear whether inbreeding affects fertility in horses. In this study, the relationship between inbreeding and semen quality was examined in 285 immature Shetland pony stallions submitted for breeding soundness examination in March–April of the years 1992–1997. The majority of stallions examined were 3 years old (85%) and their coefficients of inbreeding ranged from 0 to 25% (mean±S.D.: 3±4.6%). For the purpose of analysis, stallions were divided into six inbreeding classes (0–1, 1–2, 2–5, 5–8, 8–12 and >12%) containing 132, 40, 42, 27, 25 and 19 animals, respectively.

The degree of inbreeding significantly affected many aspects of sperm production and quality, based on a standard examination of two ejaculates collected at a 1.5–3h interval. In particular, coefficients of inbreeding above 2% were associated with lower percentages of motile (p<0.01) and morphologically normal sperm (p<0.001). When the data set was used to estimate heritability of semen characteristics, the high values calculated for sperm progressive motility (0.46) and concentration (0.24) suggested that these traits could be improved by phenotypic selection. These findings support the hypothesis that inbreeding has a detrimental effect on semen quality in Shetland ponies, although examination of multiple ejaculates after repeated semen collection to bring the animals to daily sperm output is needed to confirm this conclusion. Nevertheless, the results support previous suggestions that inbreeding is an important cause of reduced semen quality.

This study was conducted to determine whether inbreeding coefficients of selected parents or of progeny differed between lines of mice selected for increased or decreased responsiveness to a nutritional toxicosis. A second objective was to determine whether the influence of inbreeding of parents and/or progeny on reproductive traits differed between those lines. Mice were selected divergently for 8 generations for the effect on post-weaning growth of endophyte-infected fescue seed in their diet. Forty pairs (or in Generation 7, 20 pairs) were selected and mated per generation in each line. Inbreeding increased 0.5 to 0.6% per generation in both lines, a rate close to that predicted from genetic theory. Inbreeding coefficients of selected parents were not higher in the susceptible than in the resistant line. A difference would have been expected if the inbreeding coefficient had been correlated with susceptibility to toxicosis. The magnitudes of inbreeding depression for reproductive traits did not differ significantly between lines. The average inbreeding coefficient of the potential litter tended to be higher in nonfertile than fertile matings (P = 0.10), but inbreeding coefficients of sires and dams did not differ between successful and unsuccessful matings. Inbred litters tended to be born earlier than noninbred litters (P = 0.10). Inbred dams produced smaller litters than noninbred dams (main effect P < 0.05) but only when the litter also was inbred (interaction P < 0.01). Sex ratio was not influenced by inbreeding of sire, dam or litter, but there was a higher proportion of male progeny in the susceptible than in the resistant line (P = 0.01). To avoid reduced reproductive fitness, laboratory animal populations should be managed to minimize inbreeding of progeny and dam.

The breeding soundness evaluation (BSE) was used to evaluate Senepol (Bos taurus) bulls (n = 495) on St. Croix over a 7-year period. Young, unproven bulls (10–26 months of age) and breeding bulls (16 months to 8.5 years) were tested prior to sale or use in breeding. Inbreeding coefficients were determined for a subset of bulls (n = 290). The percentage of bulls passing the BSE increased (P < 0.0001) with age. Bulls that passed had a higher percentage (P < 0.0001) of normal and motile sperm as well as a larger (P < 0.0001) scrotal circumference than bulls that failed. No bulls failed the BSE for physical soundness traits or other health reasons. The incidence of testicular hypoplasia was 2.5 and 3.3% and the incidence of cryptorchidism was 1.4 and 0.9% in 12- and 16-month-old bulls, respectively, with no occurrence in bulls >20 months. The proportion of all bulls that failed the BSE and received an Unsatisfactory rating for scrotal circumference or sperm motility decreased (P < 0.0001) from >90 to <25% with age. The proportion of all bulls that failed the BSE and received an Unsatisfactory rating for sperm morphology decreased (P < 0.0001) from 99 to 83.3% with age. The inbreeding coefficient was higher (P < 0.03) in bulls that failed the BSE than in those that passed (2.24 ± 0.19% versus 1.40 ± 0.32%, respectively). There was a tendency for bulls with testicular hypoplasia or cryptorchidism to have a higher (P = 0.09) inbreeding coefficient than bulls with normal testes (2.90 ± 0.46% versus 2.13 ± 0.11%, respectively). In conclusion, Senepol bulls raised under tropical conditions had a low probability of passing the BSE at young ages, but the passing rate increased with age. Older Senepol bulls were more likely to fail the BSE due to abnormal sperm morphology than due to inadequate testicular size or sperm motility. To prevent unnecessary culling, a BSE should not be performed on Senepol bulls <16 months old.

 

[maggie217]

(and if we're going to compare it to people, we're in hot water. I have very vivid memories of one of our ophthalmic surgeons coming back in shock - literally white and shaking - from a meeting with her human counterparts where they'd been looking at the data/images from some of our minority communities where close line breeding is happening as a result of arranged marriages kept within the community.  They were seeing exactly the ocular conditions we see in some of our more inbred dogs - and worse - but nobody can begin to talk about it in the general media, only work quietly and try to reverse the trend.  Which is way too late for the children who's lives have been blighted.  It was a tremendous lesson in applied genetics)
m

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I did mention that rather 'tongue in cheek', just to point out that inbreeding is legal in humans although mostly, I would agree, not advisable.

Pauline

 

[patsy]

It amazes me how these things run...
this is a whippet forum and I had no intention of bringing greyhounds into it, just wanted to show that I'm not alone in the views I hold on close line breeding.

Bearing in mind that the BVA organises its speakers months in advance, I'd say that Emma Milne was chosen as a mouthpiece because, in this country, she has a high TV profile - it may well be that she believes what's being said - a lot of us do - (I'd be surprised if there were many viable bulldogs in 50 years time if they continue to push the extremes as they do now - even a 'normal' bulldog was always treated as a grade 3-4 emergency GA when I was in the clinics and I doubt if it's got any better) but I think she's being used to say it in as high profile a way as possible.

I have no wish to demonise sight hounds, I have a lurcher who is the light of my life, but I worked hard to make sure she didn't kill except when it was appropriate (yes, I used to hunt her. No, I don't now, she's too old to want to, which is exactly why I'm here, still exploring health issues)

I don't think Emma Milne was demonising sighthounds either, but anyone who's worked in clinical practice or been involved in rehoming knows that too many dogs are being bred and taken on by people who have little or no idea of animal behaviour and the result is tragic both for the dog, the new owners and the public.  Greyhounds are lovely dogs, but are often not appropriate for today's lifestyles.  The rehoming centres do a sterling job but are nevertheless overwhelmed.  I had rather hoped that the DT article could have been moved forward into an examination of the racing industry and what happens to those thousands that can't be rehomed, but that hasn't happened and probably now won't. 

so - I suggest we close this, it's not appropriate for this board and has been discussed in length elsewhere. 

the original Telegraph piece did, it seemed to me, open other areas of interest, but if we're going to reduce it to ad hominem attacks on the mouthpiece, then there's little point in taking that forward either.

(and if we're going to compare it to people, we're in hot water. I have very vivid memories of one of our ophthalmic surgeons coming back in shock - literally white and shaking - from a meeting with her human counterparts where they'd been looking at the data/images from some of our minority communities where close line breeding is happening as a result of arranged marriages kept within the community.  They were seeing exactly the ocular conditions we see in some of our more inbred dogs - and worse - but nobody can begin to talk about it in the general media, only work quietly and try to reverse the trend.  Which is way too late for the children who's lives have been blighted.  It was a tremendous lesson in applied genetics)

m

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Our governing body The Kennel club are campaigning at over exaggerations in some breeds. There are no sight hounds involved. their slogan will be fit for function. The new challenge certificates which all judges sign now have the wording,Having assessed the dogs and penalised any features or exaggerations which I consider detrimental to their soundness, health and welfare. There is going to be a careful eye kept on judges in these breeds. The article is in last weeks dog world. So things are being done.