Margaret C
Well-known member
So very heartening
I do not pretend to be a good note taker, if I have got anything wrong I am more than willing to correct these notes.
I will just say how heartening I found two meetings that I attended last week
The KC at their Q & A evening at Exeter was promoting their proposed Breed Mate scheme as the solution to all ills. The whole feel of the evening was different, they had stopped being defensive and denying there were health problems in pure bred dogs. They had stopped making excuses, at least on that particular evening, and were talking about solutions, and the audience of breeders on the whole were accepting of the idea that breeding practices must change
Bill Lambert told me by 2011 they would have a requirement that ABS breeders must take the results of health testing into account when breeding their dogs.
The Griffon Symposium sent me home with a smile on my face. Clare gave a very interesting and informative talk as usual, despite a poorly voice, and gave the news that the Canadian geneticists are putting all of their resources into identifying the gene at this point (and it is a race to the finish line) which is just so encouraging.
I did not take any notes on Clare' talk. There were others there that I thought were doing that, and of course it was a Griffon Seminar, but I did jot down quite a few notes on Jeff Sampson's talk.
..."Inbreeding is an issue"......" Linebreeding is inbreeding"..... "Dog breeds are De Facto like species ( of animals ) because of closed populations and many would be considered endangered species by WWF"
Effective Population Size for a variety of breeds chosen by Imperial College and using the KC database...........
Akita - 45
Boxer - 45
Bulldog 48
chow chow - 50
Rough collie - 33
Golden Ret - 67
GSD - 76
Labrador - 114
ESS -72
The WWF considers under 100 EPS means a species is endangered.
( I understand Cavaliers EPS is somewhere around 65-70 )
Popular Sires......."Fewer than 20% of dogs become parents in their own right, 80% of genetic variation lost each generation"........ "If not addressed will be calamitous for many breeds"......... "sooner or later breeds will lose fertility through breeding depression"...... "We must manage this risk and that inevitably means changing breeding practices"..............."If we don't do anything there is a guarantee that breeds will disappear"
He said how some overseas populations could be a source of some fresh genetic material as they would have developed in different ways and would be a different subset of population ( I doubt whether that is particularly true of cavaliers when so many UK stud dogs have recently been imported worldwide, but I do wonder if some battery farmed dogs may not be free of SM? )
Jeff described how 100 pairs of mice had been bred brother to sister for generations. 90% became infertile and died out. Less than 10% were still okay.
He then went on to give a very enthusiastic presentation of Breed Mate, or is it Mate Select? ( I have written both two names down and I am not sure if there is a difference or they are one and the same thing?)
This, as I understood it, is a scheme which will consider not only the health of the puppies but also the impact of the proposed mating on the breed population. It is proposed that it will automatically incorporate health information from official KC/BVA schemes, information from DNA tests will be added by the end of the year and health information from Club schemes, and health information fed in by owners or breeders ( with vet verification ) will also eventually be added.
Jeff said he hopes it will be no more than 12 months before breeders can input health information via KC website.
All this health test information will "sit beside" the name of a particular dog or bitch together with the other registered details.
Someone wishing to mate their bitch would be able chose likely stud dogs, submit 3-4 names and receive back a report which will show 'traffic lights' that indicate how suitable each dog will be for various categories.
This information will be on an open register, so puppy buyers will be encouraged, by information on the KC website, to go and check if there are any red traffic lights before they buy a puppy from any mating. They would only need the full name of the parents to access this information on the KC website.
At some point there was a mention of encouraging good breeders to join the ABS, so there would, in effect, be a move back to a two tier system of registration. Jeff said the KC like to start with voluntary schemes and the ABS is the route to start, but I got the impression that ABS breeders would definitely be expected, if not actually required, to use this system.
Of course this is the Kennel Club speaking and what they say & what they do can sometimes be very different.
The first release of Mate Select information, which will be the inbreeding coefficient for puppies only, for any breeder of any breed, will be at the end of this year and at Crufts 2011 they will have terminals for breeders to try out the scheme.
The health info. will be added later.
He then went on to EBVs that are for complex diseases such as HD, where there is a mixture of inherited & environmental causes.. The environmental
components are removed. This has proved to be more successful with Labradors (I think he meant than with CKCS) because of the amount of information they already have stored. They have done EBVs for five breeds with HD.
Only 20% of breeders register more than 5 litters a year
SM in CKCS IS a serious problem - Jeff Sampson had heard 60% even 80% of the breed were affected.
A last quote........." In the past we had been reactive, waiting for breed clubs to approach the KC, we are now being proactive and approaching the breed clubs for health information"
I do not pretend to be a good note taker, if I have got anything wrong I am more than willing to correct these notes.
I will just say how heartening I found two meetings that I attended last week
The KC at their Q & A evening at Exeter was promoting their proposed Breed Mate scheme as the solution to all ills. The whole feel of the evening was different, they had stopped being defensive and denying there were health problems in pure bred dogs. They had stopped making excuses, at least on that particular evening, and were talking about solutions, and the audience of breeders on the whole were accepting of the idea that breeding practices must change
Bill Lambert told me by 2011 they would have a requirement that ABS breeders must take the results of health testing into account when breeding their dogs.
The Griffon Symposium sent me home with a smile on my face. Clare gave a very interesting and informative talk as usual, despite a poorly voice, and gave the news that the Canadian geneticists are putting all of their resources into identifying the gene at this point (and it is a race to the finish line) which is just so encouraging.
I did not take any notes on Clare' talk. There were others there that I thought were doing that, and of course it was a Griffon Seminar, but I did jot down quite a few notes on Jeff Sampson's talk.
..."Inbreeding is an issue"......" Linebreeding is inbreeding"..... "Dog breeds are De Facto like species ( of animals ) because of closed populations and many would be considered endangered species by WWF"
Effective Population Size for a variety of breeds chosen by Imperial College and using the KC database...........
Akita - 45
Boxer - 45
Bulldog 48
chow chow - 50
Rough collie - 33
Golden Ret - 67
GSD - 76
Labrador - 114
ESS -72
The WWF considers under 100 EPS means a species is endangered.
( I understand Cavaliers EPS is somewhere around 65-70 )
Popular Sires......."Fewer than 20% of dogs become parents in their own right, 80% of genetic variation lost each generation"........ "If not addressed will be calamitous for many breeds"......... "sooner or later breeds will lose fertility through breeding depression"...... "We must manage this risk and that inevitably means changing breeding practices"..............."If we don't do anything there is a guarantee that breeds will disappear"
He said how some overseas populations could be a source of some fresh genetic material as they would have developed in different ways and would be a different subset of population ( I doubt whether that is particularly true of cavaliers when so many UK stud dogs have recently been imported worldwide, but I do wonder if some battery farmed dogs may not be free of SM? )
Jeff described how 100 pairs of mice had been bred brother to sister for generations. 90% became infertile and died out. Less than 10% were still okay.
He then went on to give a very enthusiastic presentation of Breed Mate, or is it Mate Select? ( I have written both two names down and I am not sure if there is a difference or they are one and the same thing?)
This, as I understood it, is a scheme which will consider not only the health of the puppies but also the impact of the proposed mating on the breed population. It is proposed that it will automatically incorporate health information from official KC/BVA schemes, information from DNA tests will be added by the end of the year and health information from Club schemes, and health information fed in by owners or breeders ( with vet verification ) will also eventually be added.
Jeff said he hopes it will be no more than 12 months before breeders can input health information via KC website.
All this health test information will "sit beside" the name of a particular dog or bitch together with the other registered details.
Someone wishing to mate their bitch would be able chose likely stud dogs, submit 3-4 names and receive back a report which will show 'traffic lights' that indicate how suitable each dog will be for various categories.
This information will be on an open register, so puppy buyers will be encouraged, by information on the KC website, to go and check if there are any red traffic lights before they buy a puppy from any mating. They would only need the full name of the parents to access this information on the KC website.
At some point there was a mention of encouraging good breeders to join the ABS, so there would, in effect, be a move back to a two tier system of registration. Jeff said the KC like to start with voluntary schemes and the ABS is the route to start, but I got the impression that ABS breeders would definitely be expected, if not actually required, to use this system.
Of course this is the Kennel Club speaking and what they say & what they do can sometimes be very different.
The first release of Mate Select information, which will be the inbreeding coefficient for puppies only, for any breeder of any breed, will be at the end of this year and at Crufts 2011 they will have terminals for breeders to try out the scheme.
The health info. will be added later.
He then went on to EBVs that are for complex diseases such as HD, where there is a mixture of inherited & environmental causes.. The environmental
components are removed. This has proved to be more successful with Labradors (I think he meant than with CKCS) because of the amount of information they already have stored. They have done EBVs for five breeds with HD.
Only 20% of breeders register more than 5 litters a year
SM in CKCS IS a serious problem - Jeff Sampson had heard 60% even 80% of the breed were affected.
A last quote........." In the past we had been reactive, waiting for breed clubs to approach the KC, we are now being proactive and approaching the breed clubs for health information"
