Genetics, Health And Breeding?

[UKUSA]

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Manda, thank-you very much for your veterinary expertise in explaining so much to us , however as I have said before I do not believe that the breed is heading to hell. Should you get your Whippet puppy there is no reason to believe that it will not have a healthy and long life,at the moment on my couch sitting next to me are two of my old ladies both14years old, one a Fergal daughter the other a daughter of Penloe Dutch Escort, both bred by me and both still going strong. In fact one of the reasons that we have so many dogs is that we have a lot of oldies., so certainly in our house where I might add there are a lot of line bred dogs they are not dropping like flies.

I do not question for one moment the problems that a lot of people have and are facing in our breed and I am really glad that this thread has given the chance for those problems to be truly brought out in the open though I do feel that there are some who are not sharing and could add much to the debate through their own experience.

However I am now starting to feel as though this is now bordering on the hysterical, I feel as though we are losing perspective ,yes there are problems out there BUT the great majority of our dogs are healthy and live long lives.

Manda thank-you for letting us know what we need to do, it is now up to us as Whippet breeders, it has always been up to us, to do what we need to do to ensure that every puppy we breed is a healthy one as the majority of us have always done. Let those who have knowingly bred from dogs they shouldnt have live with their conscience and let us not forget that it is not only the dogs that should be removed from a breeding program that has gone wrong but the bitches as well and those that do not do that have no right to be righteous and point fingers at others. As I have said Manda thank-you for opening this emotive topic now I think the rest is up to us

Nicky

 

[jayp]

When inbreeding or tight linebreeding then rigid culling is the way success was achieved by the breeders of old. Today this would be considered unacceptable, everything that did not conform to the breeders criteria was simply culled. They were not passed on as pets to be bred from in future by the novice breeder with little knowledge of what they were perpetuating. Most pet owners were not interested,they neither had the moneyor inclination. Breeding was in general left to the breeders!!! My point being that in todays world of more hobby breeders than breeders of great experience producing many many litters that close breeding should not be advocated as the only way to produce good dogs and beleive me that is exactly the philosophy passed to everyone who wishes to breed.

 

[~elizabeth~]

When inbreeding or tight linebreeding then rigid culling is the way success was achieved by the breeders of old. Today this would be considered unacceptable, everything that did not conform to the breeders criteria was simply culled.

But do we have evidence that the breeders of old were always culling on criteria related to health and vigour, or sometimes just for one exaggerated behavioural or physical trait in many cases?

 

[bertha]

When inbreeding or tight linebreeding then rigid culling is the way success was achieved by the breeders of old. Today this would be considered unacceptable, everything that did not conform to the breeders criteria was simply culled. They were not passed on as pets to be bred from in future by the novice breeder with little knowledge of what they were perpetuating. Most pet owners were not interested,they neither had the moneyor inclination. Breeding was in general left to the breeders!!! My point being that in todays world of more hobby breeders than breeders of great experience  producing many many litters that close breeding should not be advocated as the only way to produce good dogs and beleive me that is exactly the philosophy passed to everyone who wishes to breed.

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I don't know where you get the culling thing from, this is something I have never heard of. when I first started in dogs in the late 50s, I worked for a well known GSD kennels, they also had a couple of whippets from the Always kennel, no one culled then, I can't believe your remarks!!!!!!!!

Any litters bred then were not culled, heaven forbid, they went as pets, some with papers, those not up to standard without papers, that is how things were managed then.

 

[~elizabeth~]

I don't know where you get the culling thing from, this is something I have never heard of.

It's something you hear about how some breeds were started, usually in the 19th or early 20th century. The instance that springs immediately to mind is the Captain Edwards and the Sealyham Terrier, which were apparently culled very methodically if they did not show an immediate enthusiasm for hunting small game (though presumably any that were had obvious defects or weaknesses didn't get that far).

 

[UKUSA]

No Janice you are right that kind of culling would not be acceptable today. As far as pet puppies being bred from are concerned. I can only speak for us here at Savuka and say that we endorse EVERY puppy we breed even those that we keep. We let people know that that is our policy from the moment they make that first enquiry and when they come to look at the litter they are told again and that if they buy one of our puppies they will have to sign a contract that will also state that, we have never lost a sale because of this. It is not open to negotiation. As far as linebreeding is concerned it is to be hoped that you are aware of what you are doing surely it can be more dangerous to use an out cross dog whose parentage you have very little information about.

Nicky

 

[Eceni]

However I am now starting to feel as though this is now bordering on the hysterical, I feel as though we are losing perspective ,yes there are problems out there BUT the great majority of our dogs are healthy and live long lives.Manda thank-you for letting us know what we need to do, it is now up to us as Whippet breeders, it has always been up to us, to do what we need to do to ensure that every puppy we breed is a healthy one as the majority of us have always done. Let those who have  knowingly bred from dogs they shouldnt have live with their conscience and let us not forget that it is not only the dogs that should be removed from a breeding program that has gone wrong but the bitches as well and those that do not do that have no right to be righteous and point fingers at others. As I have said Manda thank-you for opening this emotive topic now I think the rest is up to us

Nicky

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OK, I'll back out now and let the experts amongst the breeders sort it out... I await with interest what happens

m

 

[Strike Whippets]

That being said, I wouldn't mind a cap on the number of litters a stud dog can sire in his lifetime.  Surely after 10-15 litters, a good sire will have some sons worth using.  We CAN do more.  We CAN choose not to overuse certain popular sires.  We CAN be more honest with each other and help new breeders not make crosses we feel based on our experience increase genetic risk (although some new breeders are mighty stubborn....I know when I was new I was! whistling.gif )

You are right ... We could all do more ..... I personally would like to see top studs limited to the number of bitches they cover (like you said) ......There are breeds in England that their own breed clubs have brought THIS rule in .... It makes the stud dog owner THINK before they say yes ..... (as everyone would want to pick the best of the bitches on offer for their stud dog ) .......

I agree with Dragonfly that the KC really should refuse such closely bred litters, instead of just taking the money .....Though sadly even though our dear KC could help, they never will ....Look at how much revenue they'd lose !!! ....

I have 3 Whippets with medical problems (and NO they aren't complete racing breds :thumbsup: ) ......I do think we have over looked another matter as well though ...... Temperaments :- " .....Our dear Whippet be it working bred, show bred, coursing bred or racing CAN have sharp, neurotic or fearful temperaments ....Not ideal as a pet !!! JMO though ....

 

[seaspot_run]

Temperament is certainly very hereditary, and needs to be handled in breeding programs the same as polygenetic faults or health defects.

One reason I've tended to do more close breeding through the years is that I've liked the consistent temperaments I've gotten. I have been very careful with my outcrosses to avoid bringing in any outside lines if I see a number of dogs from them who have a nervous or suspicious disposition--I also like a good work ethic and a dog that likes to perform for the handler.

I have had good luck with Temperaments in English Mabel's pups, although not all of them have a work ethic. I think that a lot of the UK dogs are very good homelife dispositions and it is good to reinforce this from time to time. I also got superb temperament outcrossing to Byerley Savile Row, who is UK/Aussie.

 

[Seraphina]

  However, I do not think that the demon here is just line breeding.  You can  have a healthy breeding program if you are staying within your line whilst breeding only from stock that are known (or as far as you can know) to be healthy. 

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The problem with that theory is that with repeated close breding you are reducing the gene diversity in your line and slowly compromising their immune system.

Inbred individuals may look the way you think they should and win in shows but they also may have reduced fertility, be unable to whelp naturally, and have other problems.

 

[~Annie~]

I think I've followed all this ... so unless I've missed something (which I may well have done) ... what hasn't yet been explained is why does lowering genetic diversity compromise immunity? What mechanism is at work here?

Annie

 

[dragonfly]

As I have said Manda thank-you for opening this emotive topic now I think the rest is up to usNicky

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So what do you think "the breed" should do now that it is up to us?

 

[patsy]

As I have said Manda thank-you for opening this emotive topic now I think the rest is up to usNicky

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So what do you think "the breed" should do now that it is up to us?

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Cathie for a lot of the problems that have been mentioned on this thread there are test readily available, some run weekly, you can have heart tests Baer testing etc. But more to the point Cathie, you are the one that knows what you have done

to eradicate the problems that you have had, breeders in other breeds have been open and honest. You are now advocating out crossing as the way forward. I am afraid there will be a lot of people who are line breeding sound healthy whippets that will not agree with you. Me included.

 

[maggie217]

I think I've followed all this ... so unless I've missed something (which I may well have done) ... what hasn't yet been explained is why does lowering genetic diversity compromise immunity? What mechanism is at work here?
Annie

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That would be my question too, Annie, so I am very interested in an answer.

Unless there is a reason for the lowering of immunity/fertility etc in close line breeding I would have thought that such lines could be found to be healthier as unwanted recessive traits would have been more likely to show themselves if present, and therefore AS LONG NONE BECAME APPARENT, OVER A NUMBER OF GENERATIONS, then that stock could be assumed to be pretty free of such undesirable genes. Surely the danger would be in outcrossing to lines where the dangers in any recessive genes are not known or apparent.

As Manda said in an earlier post you can only breed in the first insrtance for the phenotype but during the continuence of a well thought out breeding programme you would get some understanding of the genotype.

So how does line breeding in healthy stock lower immunity/fertility etc? Of course, I have heard that it does, but like Annie says have never heard a convincing answer as to why this should be so. But I am not a biologist/zoologist so it may just be that I am too ill-educated to understand.

Pauline

 

[parnew]

Its not about how tight you breed, its the dogs that you are breeding too that may cause the problems and are some of these dogs carriers, affected or clear, do we need to dna to find out what lines or dogs should be bred from and so on. I've just done a pedigree run down on an outcross litter and a line bred litter. The outcross litter out of an Aust Bitch and an UK Import dog and in 20 gens there where 1607 total dogs and with the line bred mating of a UK import to an all Uk bred bitch there was a total of 1282 dogs with Dutch gold coming in 26 times in 10 gens. So for me this shows that you still have a lot of dogs in your line and every time you breed you are once more removed. So can some one tell me how long will a dog such as Dutch Gold keep and influence on a breed and if you are line breeding to him are you breeding to his parents aswell and their parents, where is the cut off point and how many gens do you need to breed for the influence to stop, when you find this out then a lot of these problems will stop overnight. At the moment most kennels would be up to around 60 gens or more back to the first pure whippets which total thousands so unless you have bred mother to son, father to daughter for many gens and years then the problem lays with the line you are using, but in saying this how many of us would start over from scratch if it was found we were breeding a line with problems, 1 would you try and breed another line into your current line or 2 Go and buy a line with little or no problems and turn your back on a good show line. In playing match maker and breeding whippets I don't think anyone has the right combo to get the best whippet from all the lines around the world and if it was as easy as this dog to this bitch for these lines, then we would all have the perfect dogs with no known problems. How many breeders would admit to problems in their lines any way lets get breders to do this for a start then we can all work together to improve the problems and breed away from them, I think its all a bit cut throat in the comp ring and racing for people to share this info, no one wants to it known to the whippet world what problems they may have and this is been the case for years.

 

[dragonfly]

As I have said Manda thank-you for opening this emotive topic now I think the rest is up to usNicky

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So what do you think "the breed" should do now that it is up to us?

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Cathie for a lot of the problems that have been mentioned on this thread there are test readily available, some run weekly, you can have heart tests Baer testing etc. But more to the point Cathie, you are the one that knows what you have done

to eradicate the problems that you have had, breeders in other breeds have been open and honest. You are now advocating out crossing as the way forward. I am afraid there will be a lot of people who are line breeding sound healthy whippets that will not agree with you. Me included.

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No I am not advocating out crossing as the salve for inherited genetic disorders. I think we need to go a great deal deeper than a few out crosses, but it needs the whole breed to be involved. We need to look at all the individual unrelated lines but first we need to find them, it is a mammoth number crunching task for a statistician with a good computer programme. We need a geneticist and we need many health reports from multiple sources, and we need total honesty from all.

I am against constant linebreeding because it sets homozygous pairs and will eventually send the breed down a cul de sac particularly when the same dogs are used over and over again.

I am also very disturbed by (mostly new) breeders who come up to me waving a couple of pedigrees announcing their intention to use a certain dog "because it ties up".

They see having relatives the same on both sides as positive regardless of who the dogs were and knowing nothing about their health or temperament or even what they looked like. I think this is because line breeding is advocated as the best way to go with no explanation of how to do it properly.

Cathie

 

[beaker]

people have mentioned the usefullness of sites like whippet pedigrees and whippet archives for sharing pedigree information, but there have been concerns expressed that the information is corruptable.

my question is

would it ever be possible, if the breed clubs all united and were the only ones who could add information to ensure authenticity, to form a similar database that contained not only a photographic and pedigree history of the breed, but occurances of hereditary problems and results of all health testing?

i'd be more than happy for any of mine to take part in any health testing schemes that are organised if this information was being added to the database.

or would it be a damn near impossible task?

becka

 

[Natalia]

I think I've followed all this ... so unless I've missed something (which I may well have done) ... what hasn't yet been explained is why does lowering genetic diversity compromise immunity? What mechanism is at work here?

It's quite complicated and long story, but I will try to make it short.

The immune system depends on something called MHC (major histocompatibility complex). MHC is responsible for marking all the cells of one's own body (so that they are not destroyed, marked as "own, ok") and for marking any invaders that might be in the organism, like bacteria, viruses etc. (so that can be destroyed by special cells, marked as "alien, danger!!!").

The problem is that any single cell, whose job is to mark own cells or invaders can recognize only very few similar paterns. And there are thousands and thousands of potential invaders to recognize, mark and destroy. That's why we have very, very many form of genes coding MHC complex. In humans we have a few hundreds (!) different alles for MHC complex, and every single individual has a unique combination of different forms.

Moreover, the genes for MHC are organized in very odd way, and the immune system cells are able to mix them and form different combinations of them, which enables marking more types of invaders. Because of that, if one part of the gene is lost, it means that many hundreds or thousands of possible invaders cannot be found, marked and fought.

As any individual has a unique set of MHC genes, it is quite unlikely that an important portion of possible combinations will be lost in random mating. Most individuals are hetorozygous for most genes in MHC complex, ie have one set from mother and another from father, being able to mark and fight the invaders of all the types. But inbreeding increases homozygocity. When mother's part is exactly the same as father's part, a puppy will have only half of the MHC genes it would have if the parents were unrelated (and have different sets of MHC genes).

That means, that probably it would be able to fight some of diseases quite well, but there will be some diseases it will be not able to fight at all, as it lacks cells able to mark the invader. This is exactly the situation observed in rats and mice strains in laboratories. Each strain is almost completely homozygous and very healthy itself (as all the lethal mutations were found and eradicated from the strain) but is prone to infections. That's why these animals have to be kept in very clean enviroment and not exposed to infections. Each strain is even labeled with the list of infections it's known to be unable to deal with!

The other, but related issue is that immune system markes not only alien cells, but own ones as well. If, by any chance, it's ability to recognize all types of own cells is compromised, some of the own cells may be marked as "alien, danger!!!" by mistake. That leads to autoimmune diseases. On the other hand, if MHC system's ability to mark own cells makes another mistake, cancer cells may be marked as "own, ok" and the cancer will develop without any problems. It's known that some strains os mice and rats are especially prone to certain types of cancer (well, they are breed to be prone).

Our purebred dogs have already lost some of MHC complex variability off the whole species just because they are pure bred and have only a part of all canine genes. But we shouldn't cause further elimination of these very important genes.

 

[BeeJay]

I would like to say that this is a very good topic. I would hate to see this useful and informative topic go like so many others have recently on this board and be removed for the rest of us to read simply because it has turned personal.

Many people have given their time to write informative, thought provoking posts and it would be a great shame if their efforts went to waste because it's easier to remove a topic than to moderate out some posts which might break forum rules. This is NOT meant to be a criticsm of the moderators because I know only too well how long it takes to delete and edit out parts of posts. It's just that several topics have simply disappeared (not in this forum) and for the people who have taken the time and effort to write it must seem a total waste and be very off putting for them to do it again. Most of the posts in this topic ARE worth reading and thinking about IMO.

 

[TC]

I would like to say that this is a very good topic.  I would hate to see this useful and informative topic go like so many others have recently on this board and be removed for the rest of us to read simply because it has turned personal.
Many people have given their time to write informative, thought provoking posts and it would be a great shame if their efforts went to waste because it's easier to remove a topic than to moderate out some posts which might break forum rules.  This is NOT meant to be a criticsm of the moderators because I know only too well how long it takes to delete and edit out parts of posts.  It's just that several topics have simply disappeared (not in this forum) and for the people who have taken the time and effort to write it must seem a total waste and be very off putting for them to do it again.   Most of the posts in this topic ARE worth reading and thinking about IMO.

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:thumbsup:

Pressed the wrong button lol!

I completely agree Barbara, it has been a faascinating read and the information and statistics are great, as well as the individual perceptions and ideas from different breeders and participants in the thread.

I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and followed it avidly, and would hate to see it deleted.

TCx