Merle dogs have something to smile about today.

The Kennel Club has announced today that 2012 will be the last year the club will register the offspring from two merle parents.

Bravo, Kennel Club, bravo!

If you’re curious why breeding merle to merle mating strategies are unethical and worthy of a ban, check out the following posts:

• Lethal Semi-Dominant: Merle
• The Unfortunate Case of the Wild Australian Shepherd
• Something is Rotten in Harlequin Danes
• The Burden of Blindness
• The Deaf Mute Blind and Lame Sheltie
• Parasite Breeders
• Odds of a Double Merle Puppy

This issue is obviously not limited to dogs in the UK, which I’ve documented extensively in this series of posts:

• Who’s Your Double Merle Daddy?
• Double Merle Breeders Don’t Want You to See This
• Double Merle Breeders: In Their Own Words 1
• Double Merle Breeders: In Their Own Words 2
• If thy Collie Eye offends thee
• £10,000 Pounds Sterling
• Sheer Force of Will
• Double Merle Progeny at Westminster
• Westminster Rewards Cruelty
• The Blind Collies of Westminster
• Westminster’s Double Merle Sheltie BOB
• AKC Gazette: Merle Dilemma

As perhaps the most vocal online advocate for ethical merle breeding, today is a victory and gives me hope that kennel clubs in America will soon follow the lead of the KC and curb this dangerous and unnecessarily cruel practice.

Are you listening, AKC? It’s time you ended the merle without mercy practices of your membership too.

Merle to merle mating in dogs

Following a recommendation from the Dog Health Group, the General Committee has agreed that, with effect from 1st January 2013, the Kennel Club will no longer accept the registration of any puppies for any breed that are produced as a result of mating two merle (dapple) coloured parents together.

The merle mutation is a dominant mutation that causes the characteristic merle or dapple colour pattern in a number of breeds. It is also known that there can be associated health risks in those dogs that have the merle mutation.

Many breeds have lived with the merle gene in their population and have avoided merle to merle matings for many years. Some breeds have successfully requested formal banning of such matings and the Kennel Club will not now accept any litter for registration where both parents are merle for Shetland Sheepdogs, Dachshunds (all varieties) and Beaucerons (although these are called tricolour).

In the breeds where merle is proven to not occur naturally, the Kennel Club will not register any dogs that are merle coloured – these include Chihuahuas (Long and Smooth), Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Bull Terriers and Bull Terriers (Miniature). In addition, the Kennel Club will not register litters from Chihuahuas where one parent is merle coloured.

Merle patterning, patches of lighter colour appearing in the coat, is the result of the M gene in the dog. There are two alleles of this gene: MM (merle) and M+ (non-merle), with merle (MM) being dominant to non-merle (M+). In some breeds, the effect of the merle allele (MM) is termed ‘dapple’.

Unfortunately, the effects of the merle allele (MM) are not confined to coat patterning and we know that there can be an increased risk of impaired hearing and sight associated with it, particularly in dogs that are homozygous for MM (dogs that carry two copies of the MM allele).

Due to the associated health concerns, it is not believed that serious breeders would intentionally mate a merle to merle but the commencement of this restriction in January 2013 allows breeders time to readjust any planned breeding programmes.

Despite a long afternoon of work on the schedule, the other ranch chores couldn’t wait for a day so we were out feeding as soon as the sun came up.  When we took the first bale of hay we saw a cow on the ground in distress.  She was a heifer–yet to birth a calf–and she was lying on the ground trying to birth a too large calf.  I sat on her back to keep her calm and down while Kara and Roe used a tow rope to try and extract the calf past the shoulders.  The calf was already gone and when the placenta came out with the calf it was a sign that it must have detached hours before in the middle of the night.

Kara and Roe assist in the difficult delivery. Blood, sweat and tears all before breakfast.

It was a hard start to the day, but it wasn’t the last dead calf…

After Kara and Roe successfully birthed the calf, they moved its lifeless body around to Heifer #205′s front so that she could process and come to terms with what had happened, returning her more expeditiously to a healthy state of mind and body.  It was a mournful moment and I could feel the air of exhaustion, sorrow, and defeat radiating from Heifer #205.

Heifer #205 and her stillborn calf a year ago.

Wyoming breeds hearty stock and no setbacks are impossible to overcome with the right mindset and determination.

Heifer #205 got a new name and a new avocation this week with the successful delivery of a healthy bull calf.

Cow #205 and her healthy bull calf today.

Heifers become cows with the birth of their second calf, and now Cow #205 also gets to enjoy the blessings of motherhood.

The little bull will also get to enjoy his blessings for another month until I travel up to Wyoming and help liberate his testicles and brand his hide. Enjoy them while you can little maverick.

So happy.

25 brand new Frisbees just arrived and the dogs are as high as toddlers at Christmas.  Dublin spent the first night bringing them to me one by one from the other room where I had stashed them.  This is the inherent problem with hiding things from dogs, they can sniff them out.

The great Frisbee order of 2012 was delayed a few weeks by a printing backlog at the manufacturer, but I got in on the Colorado Disc Dogs group order and scored a great price on some quality Frisbees and didn’t have to pay for shipping:  15 x $ 1.85 for Hero Air 235 discs which normally sell for $4 and 10 x $2.90 for Hero Extra 235 discs which sell for $5.  I also traded a Hero for a Jawz Déjà Flew disc which normally sells for $17. I ended up with 25 new discs that cost $120+ for only $57.

Mercury is pretty happy too.

Here’s some video of Mercury enjoying his new discs:

..

What the CDD bulk order looks like. Boxes and boxes of Frisbees.

I had planned on getting 30 super cheapo misprints for $1.80 a piece [goal of $48], but the CDD discount was too good to pass up, so I’ve updated the fund goal to $57 to cover the final actual cost.

Thanks to the awesome readers who donated to the Buy Dublin A Frisbee fund, $48.80 of that has already been covered and the season hasn’t even started yet. Thank you all for the generous donations, it does mean a lot to my dogs, just look at their faces.

The difference between the discs is rather striking when you subject them to four ravenous dogs who sometimes forget that plastic is not food.  Two brand new discs are on the left and three discs with about 2 days worth of use are on the right.  You can see how the more expensive discs hold up longer and the “Ultra-Tough” Jawz disc has no real visible wear.

You can also see what happens when the dogs make an exuberant catch and puncture the disc with their teeth. This starts to deform the inner rim, but as long as the thick outer ring remains intact, the disc will mostly fly true.

Once the dogs break the rim and the Frisbee loses structural integrity, the discs are done for throwing because they dump air too soon out the gap and they don’t hold the force of the trow well either (if you’ve ever split a Dixie cup you know just how little tension it will hold once the rim is broken).

I think the broken rims also feel funny or have a propensity to pinch the dog’s mouth, as Dublin hates broken discs.  When one does break, Dublin decides that he’s going to “fix” the disc by surgically removing what’s left of the rim with his teeth. He’ll sit down and diligently chew off the rough broken rim until it’s fully removed, just like a can opener working his way around a tin can.  His precision handiwork can be seen in the image above; the black disc with red imprint has had the entire rim removed by Dublin.

You can see why discs get punctured rather quickly with teeth like that.

Dublin is usually quite gentle with discs and so most of the punctures come from Mercury or when Celeste and Gemma also get into the act and fight over the discs after they’ve been caught.  I take the dogs out to the park separately to avoid too much disc carnage, but when we play in the backyard the Jawz comes in handy.

If you’d like to contribute to the 2012 Frisbee Fund, now is a good time. Thanks again to all you who have already given some Frisbees to my dogs, they’re enjoying them every nice day this spring.

Heterozygoats. Just allele uneven.

The grass is always greener in rings around my poo.

Erma Bombeck, humor columnist and author of books like “The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank,” published the following column in 1971. I imagine this is how my non-Border Collie owning friends feel when I play the proud papa and brag about my dogs.  It’s also amazing how little things have changed in this regard in 40 years with dressed up dogs as fashion accessories and child replacements.

My dog, Harry, has a problem. He is the only dog in our block who is a dog.

All his other canine friends are next-to-humans who wear little sweaters, watch their weight and are literally members of families.

They have high IQs and do extraordinary things. This is making my dog neurotic.

The other day at card club I watched him sadly as the women discussed their favorite topic: Super Dogs.

“Did you read where a dog in Michigan walked 300 miles through snowcovered roads to get back to his original owners?” asked a woman. (I cringed. Only last week Harry cut through a hedge to go to the bathroom on our neighbor’s lawn and had to have the police bring him home.)

“My Flossie is smarter than that,” said her companion. “She wants outside the supermarket and directs the carry-out boy to our car WITH THE KEYS IN HER MOUTH FOR THE TRUNK.”

“It’s the same with Gus,” said a tall blonde. “Believe me, I couldn’t hold down a job if Gus couldn’t unlock the sliding glass door and let himself out every day at 1:30.”

“And miss ‘As the World Turns?’” piped another voice, “Why, my Miriam wouldn’t miss it. That little cutie sits there and watches TV like she understands everything that is going on.”

“I’ve got something cuter than that.” interrupted another proud mother. “Do you remember the Lassie episode where Lassie puts out a forest fire, saves a herd of sheep, rescues a small boy from a mountain lion and saves a town by putting a rope around it and dragging it away from a landslide?

“Well, our Chip is the one who barked and alerted Lassie to the danger.”

“Tell me,” said Flossie’s mother, “What do you do when your dog won’t eat bones? I can’t get Flossie to eat anything except strawberry parfait and baked lasagna. Is that wild?”

“Which reminds me,” said another volunteer, “I’m giving a birthday party next week for Gus. I think he suspects. He heard me talking on the phone.”

There was a pause then, “Tell us about Harry. What does he do?”

I looked at Harry sitting in a fetal position by the door, a minibrain with tangled fur and bad breath and said, “Yesterday, he caught a mole and ate it.”

“How disgusting,” said a woman. “That sounds so . . . animal!”

I had the feeling that I just blew another birthday party for Harry.

ARMY BREEDS 'SUPERDOGS' -- Bob Bishoff, civilian employee at the Edgewood, N.J., Arsenal, leads a troop of candidates for the Army's "super-dog" program across the grass at the base. German Shepherds are groomed in the special breeding and testing program that the Army says will result in the "world's smartest dogs" in about 10 years. (AP Wirephoto) June 18, 1971

Hat tip to Cynoanarchist.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed as a man of understanding. Proverbs 17:28

Instead of taking the 2012 Crufts Vet Checks as a wake-up call that the KC was no longer going to pay mere lip-service to their pledge to reform dog breeding, remaining silent and waiting to assess the true fallout from the event before deciding on the way forward, and purposefully getting to work improving their breeds in the right way, many in the fancy have come out in hysterical levels of protest. In doing so, they have removed all doubt regarding their foolishness.

I think dog shows are a farce, but if I’m wrong and there is actually some value to shows in forwarding the goal of improving breeds, then it must be concluded that all of that value lies in the breed competition and that group and best in show are rather irrelevant.

After your dog is found to be the best in breed, how can winning a group or best in show ribbon provide any more information about that dog as a member of its breed?  It can’t and frankly the entire concept of a group and best in show round lacks any scientific integrity: this beagle is a better beagle than that retriever is a retriever? Nonsense.

Group and Best in Show are clearly platforms for fame seeking. The dogs are not being judged against their standards, they are being judged against each other just like politicians, athletes, and pop stars compete for the attention of the public. Some might excel in their fields before competing for fame, but others lack talent and merit but are amazing self promoters.

Let’s realize one thing: the Crufts checks were a minor little hurdle and the consequences of failure were also pathetically minor. The vets could only look for that small set of conditions that are apparent from a cursory exam and the result of failing was only that the dogs could not advance to the group competition at that one show.

How pathetic is that?

The only requirement is that your dog isn’t suffering from some blatantly obvious disease and the only consequence is being denied a chance at another ribbon at one show. But this pathetically low bar is too high to hurdle for some decrepit breeds like the Pug.

Here is the histrionic statement made by one of the UK Pug breeders who chickened out of the vet checks at the first show following Crufts:

Dog showing is my hobby and now my hobby is turning into a nightmare. I prefer it if we all stand united; we want something done for every breed, not just toys. We say enough is enough.

- Aileen Welham, exhibitor of Barryann Trick or Treat

A nightmare? Enough is enough? Remember that Pugs are a genetic mess of three different types of dwarfism and they are one of the most expensive dogs to insure due to their high risk profile for numerous expensive diseases. Yet someone who is supposed to be the pinnacle of Pug breeders, deeply concerned with the health and welfare of the breed, thinks that it’s an atrocity that she be asked to show her dog to a vet before she gets to compete for more ribbons.

Pug Health Concerns:

Apparently this breeder is just fine with the pathetic state of this breed and the decades of complacency and dysfunction which has been intentionally bred into these wheezing toadstools, but one denied chance at a group placement at one dog show for the first time in history is a nightmare and worthy of “enough is enough.”

Here are highlights from a statement by the owner of Palacegarden Bianca, the Pekingese that was failed at Crufts:

I feel a combination of emotions including anger, sadness, disappointment, sympathy and frustration, I feel that the 15 breeds that the Kennel Club consider to be at risk, have been dreadfully let down by the Kennel Club in the way in which they have implemented the health checks on these breeds.
…
it is time that the Kennel Club stopped pandering to animal extremists, whose sole intention is to discredit and destroy the sport of exhibiting pedigree dogs
…
This procedure must have been very uncomfortable for the dog. It was uncomfortable just to watch.
…
He started writing on the form and he said ‘I’m failing her’. Words can’t describe the full horror of those words. I was in a living nightmare. I said something like ‘do you realise what you are doing? Reporters are waiting outside that door’ Very coldly and sternly he said ‘I am doing my DUTY. The Kennel Club have asked me to do this’
…
‘I knew that this was not just my own complete public humiliation but the worst possible outcome for the breed. I was in shock. The KC representative asked me if I would like him to take me back to my bench. This was kind because I was in a daze and would never have been able to find my way. I was whimpering like an idiot, saying ‘what will I say – what will I say‘.

This is the language of ego.  It’s clear that to these people it’s about self-promotion, judge-shopping, and performance art.  The dogs are incidental and anything that stands in the way of the social payoff of group and BIS wins is unpalatable and must be vehemently opposed.

If it wasn’t obvious before, the response to 2012 Crufts has removed all doubt: these people are fools.

Dogs do SCIENCE! (Now with Comic Sans and Lens Flare!)

I’m a big fan of canine research and I actively seek out participation opportunities for all sorts of dog studies.  My dogs have participated in a bundle of studies that required blood and DNA samples, comprehensive measurements, and lengthy surveys.  Although most studies do not release individual results for your dogs when they do participate, as a breeder and enthusiast it’s important to improve the understanding and tools we have to assess the health and behavior of our dogs now and in the future.

This request for participation in a new study came across my desk this morning and I encourage you to participate. It’s very easy, just a simple online survey that you can complete on your lunch break or during the commercials for your favorite show. Blind and deaf dogs are an issue I write extensively about on this blog and you can see from the many comments and viral nature of those posts that people care deeply about their welfare. Here is an opportunity for scientists to discern just how deeply blindness and deafness can change a dog’s behavior.

We all can’t adopt a special needs dog or fund the rescues who do, but we all can find 15 minutes to improve the data of this study.

Valeri Farmer-Dougan
vfdouga@ilstu.edu

Dear Border Wars,

I am a research professor from the Canine Cognition Laboratory here at Illinois State University. Our laboratory is currently investigating and identifying canine behavioral problems as well as positive behaviors, in dogs with and without disabilities. To do this, we are using a modified version of the questionnaire known as the C-BARQ (Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire). This is a diagnostic tool for identifying canine behavior problems. The C-BARQ has been extensively tested for reliability (how well it gets the same results for the same dog) and validity (how accurately it detects behavioral problems).

We have posted our online version of the C-BARQ (link will be inserted), and are seeking help to increase the number of dogs in our database. We are very interested in having dogs that are blind, have low vision, are deaf, have hearing loss, or both. We are also interested in having normal dogs of the same breed, so we can compare behavioral traits across dogs with and without disabilities.

http://tinyurl.com/deafblinddogs

The questionnaire takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete.

Participants will then be able to click on a separate link to enter their name into a database of individuals to contact once the results have been analyzed. We will not provide individual dog’s scores, as we are interested in the behavior of dogs across the different groups and not an individual dog. We, of course, are willing to provide the results of our study to your site as well.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact me via email at vfdouga@ilstu.edu.

Please feel free to share and cross-post this information.

Thank you.

Valeri Farmer-Dougan, Ph.D.
Canine Cognition Laboratory
Department of Psychology
Illinois State University
vfdouga@ilstu.edu
309-438-4554

If "the best" breeders are willing to tell unsupportable lies in front of the world, what do you think they are willing to tell ignorant puppy buyers in private?

The recent Crufts dust-up is a perfect example of the Health Testing charade that I discussed previously in my Limits of “Health” Testing post.  There has been so much misinformation and deception being put out by the breeders/owners/exhibitors of the dogs that failed and their sympathizers that nearly everyone involved has felt the need to issue an official statement.

Let me distill the public battle of words for you in a simulated conversation:

Crufts Judge: “This Clumber Spaniel is Best of Breed at Crufts 2012.”

Crufts Vet: “This Clumber Spaniel has failed the health check.”

KC: “This Clumber Spaniel can not compete in the Gun Dog Group.”

Exhibitor: “She is super healthy dog. Her eye has conjunctivitis because it had to run for so long in the ring that was hot. There was no ectropion.”

DogWorldTV: “This dog has had every health check, it seems to me. Almost every health check.”

Exhibitor: “Totally healthy bitch because she is born in Denmark. Eye check, hips, elbows, PDP, everything else is clear with her.   Maybe the problem is that I’m not English or that this breed is Clumber Spaniel. This is shame, shame! Don’t come to Crufts.”

Breeder: “Passed IPO + hunting test, HD: A/A, Elbow: o/o, Patella: free, Eye: clear, PDP1: clear, DCM: —”

Crufts Vet: “This dog has ectropion of both eyes, especially pronounced in the right eye. Conjuctivitis and an ear infection secondary to the ectropion are present.”

Exhibitor: “I’ve had this dog re-tested and it has passed.”

Ophtalomologist (sic): “No conjunctivitis, no pathological or degenerative changes.”

Fancy: “Other dogs have passed their eye checks and been failed at Crufts.”

British Veterinary Association: “The BVA/KC/ISDS eye scheme does not certify adnexal problems such as entropion, ectropion, distichiasis. Gonioscopy is not standard, but may be tested for separately. Entropion and Ectropion are very common in some breeds. Poor eyelid conformation is a source of pain and chronic low grade misery for affected dogs.”

So we have a perfect example of the owner of the dog making huge claims about how healthy this dog is because the breeder did all of 5 tests which looked at 3 joints (hips, elbows, knee cap), a limited survey of the eye, and one DNA exam for Exercised Induced Collapse.

The owner then gets caught at Crufts with a dog that has ectropion. Instead of admitting that the dog has this condition, as do many Clumber Spaniels, they lie and say that it does not have ectropion and that they have an exam result to prove it. But they are lying through omission.

Both the breeder eye test and the “ophtalomologist” test [this is how it's spelled on the form they released!] in no way speak against the Crufts Vet’s finding of ectropion, but the owner has both lied about the existence of ectropion and claimed that both of these tests are proof against the dog having this disorder.

At the highest level of the sport under the greatest scrutiny you can imagine, a top flight breeder will still LIE through her teeth about what those health tests mean to deceive the public.  Ectropion is not a joke, but neither is it a deeply held shameful secret.  It’s widespread in several breeds and it’s easily diagnosed just from looking at most dogs with it.  If the best of the best don’t have the stones to say “it’s epidemic in the breed and we’re willing to work on it, so what if we don’t win a ribbon for a few years while we try” then what can we expect them to say about the diseases which aren’t so superficial, aren’t so easy to diagnose by the public without benefit of breeder disclosure, and aren’t known to be so present in so many lines.

What about all the other diseases and conditions that have no test? That’s the vast majority of them.  Will we still believe that the dogs these people breed are healthy when we have no data one way or another?  Will we still accept their dangerous breeding practices, the ones that increase disease expression, when they claim to have healthy dogs because they have some results for a half dozen tests or less?

If they are willing to pretend that a simple eye exam clears their dogs of conditions which they know their dog does have but which the test does not actually cover, what other diseases will they knowingly cover up with such claims.

Don’t fall for the lies.  There is not a single breed that has enough tests to even begin to make a blanket statement about health.  Testing schemes are very limited and often fail to identify the most prevalent and costly issues in breeds.  There is not a single breeder who can give you a guarantee in good faith knowing that their dogs will never develop genetic disorders.

There is no amount of experience, knowledge, or years breeding that can eliminate this uncertainty.

There is no battery of tests that can tell you your dog is healthy and will remain so.

For the vast majority of diseases that will affect our dogs, we don’t even know what we don’t know.

We are in a state of ignorance and we do ourselves no service by pretending that money back guarantees and puppy contracts are worth any more than the paper they’re written on.  Claiming our dogs are healthy because we’ve put them through 2 or 3 DNA tests, one or two x-rays, and had a doctor shine a light in their eyes once or twice is madness.

No one can make these assurances to you and you’ve seen just how they will use your own desire for an easy answer to a tough question against you.  They will ease your mind, tell you it’s all going to be ok, that you’re never going to have to bury a dog young, that they’ve done everything that needs to be done, but it’s all a big lie.

To claim universal health when we have a wholly inadequate toolbox to assess that is arrogance and stupidity.  But what do you expect from the fancy? They think you can assess just about everything of import in a dog by watching it trot around a ring.

Guaranteeing "health" in the absence of comprehensive documentation is simply false advertising and there are no comprehensive tests.

One of the enduring talking points of the fancy is that “health testing” means that their dogs are healthy.  Breeders will trot out two, maybe three tests and declare total and absolute health. They’ll offer money back guarantees! And they hold that this makes them superior breeders and their dogs superior stock.

The truth is that you can not test for health. You can only test for disease, and only some diseases at that.  Very, very few in fact.  Health is defined by the absence of injury or illness, and thus it is an illusive and measured quality.

The menu of tests currently offered to breeders is simply too sparse to make any great claims about their ability to certify healthy dogs. For example, let’s look at the DNA tests currently offered for Border Collies:

Collie Eye Anomaly (Chorodial Hypoplasia) [CEA/CH]
Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis [NCL]
Trapped Neutrophil Syndrome [TNS]

CEA affects less than 2% of Border Collies and among those affected the disease ranges from minor expression to serious impaired vision. There is no treatment.  It’s great there is a test and that most BC breeders have not given up the desire to work it out of their lines like most have in Rough and Smooth Collies where the gene is much more prevalent.

Rough and Smooth Collie breeders will tell you that CEA and the other eye disorders in their breed, despite being at near saturation levels, are not of much concern and there is little political will in that breed to do anything about it.  Basically, if the vast majority of your stock is going to fail the test, just stop taking the test, appears to be their plan of action.  Some have gone so far as to demonize the clear dogs in those breeds.

TNS is fleetingly rare and of more concern to breeders than to puppy buyers given that TNS puppies are ill from birth and rarely live to the age of placement as the disease effectively leaves the puppies without an immune system.  There is no  treatment.  It’s smart for breeders to test for TNS and to avoid line-breeding on kennels known to carry the genes, but this is an issue that is never likely to affect a single placed puppy, let alone confer the greater quality of health to a breeding program.

NCL doesn’t affect dogs as soon after birth as TNS, but it is likewise a self-limiting disease as most affected dogs are symptomatic by one year old and dead or euthanized by two.  The disease attacks the brain leading to blindness, seizures and brain death and there is no treatment.  Clearly a horrible disease that has the potential to burn a puppy buyer, but no American Border Collie has been documented affected or carrier via the DNA test.

Outside of the paltry 3 DNA tests available to Border Collies (and at 3 tests Border Collies have a larger menu of tests than most other breeds), we have the more generalized diagnostics for hearing, vision, hips and elbows.

Taken together, these tests look at only a small fraction of the actual conditions known to affect Border Collies and there are no early tests for conditions like epilepsy, cancer, kidney disease, exercised induced collapse, osteochondritis dissecans, panosteitis, arthritis, cryptorchidism, or any behavioral issues like light and noise phobias, separation anxiety, aggression, or obsessive compulsive disorders.

No tests means no prior knowledge which means ignorance. And how often have you heard “I don’t know and have no good way of knowing save the worst case scenario happening” from a breeder?  These breeders would rather offer “health guarantees” than to admit this ignorance.  See, ignorance doesn’t make for a good sales pitch, but unwavering confidence does.  This is why scam artists always have an answer to every question and well practiced lines that sound great but fail to address the truth.

You’ll often hear that experienced breeders can trump this ignorance with decades of experience and knowing their lines well enough.  No amount of experience can tell you about what disorders your dogs carry that are not expressed, and few breeders treat their kennels like scientific experiments, taking detailed observations, applying randomness,  and tracking every puppy they produce from birth to death.  There are probably few breeders in any breed that could even produce enough dogs themselves to make statistically relevant observations for the more rare conditions.

Pedigree analysis and research also has its limits given how little health information is contained on most pedigrees (usually none) and how reticent breeders are to share negative health outcomes.  I’ve called every living breeder on my dogs’ pedigrees and not a single one had a single issue to report.  The odds of this being an accurate reflection of all those dogs and their offspring and relatives is remote at best.

Given the divisive and competitive climate most breeders find themselves in, full disclosure of extant issues is rare.  It’s estimated that 3 in 4 Collies are affected by CEA, but you’ll be hard pressed to find top flight breeders who advertise this.  Good luck finding a Dalmatian breeder that advertises that all of their stock is affected by a predisposition for high uric acid levels and kidney/bladder stones.  How many Shar Pei breeders can you find that will admit that the characteristic folds of skin come at the price of a fever disorder?

Testing for disease is clearly a benefit and more information is almost always superior to less information.  Despite the many advances science is making in this area, the current diagnostic tools available to breeders are few and growing very slowly.  Treatments and successful breeding strategies are even more illusive.  While it’s easier to say “health tested” and “money back guarantee” than it is to say “I don’t know, and not for a lack of desire or effort,” it’s time breeders had a bit more humility about the actual state of affairs in dog breeding.  More honesty, less sales pitch.  Fewer guarantees and more disclosures.