Maki, K. 2010.  Population structure and genetic diversity of worldwide Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever and Lancashire Heeler dog populations.  J Anim Breed Genet 127: 318-326.  (pdf) 

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For those that asked about other examples of the application of population genetics analyses to dog breeds, here is another excellent paper that does this for two uncommon breeds, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers and Lancashire Heelers.  Like Oliehoek did in his study of Icelandic Sheepdogs (see the previous posts beginning here), Maki gathered up the pedigree data for essentially the entire worldwide registered populations of these breeds back to founders – a total of almost 29,000 dogs for Tollers, and nearly 5,000 for Heelers.

For the Tollers, there were 22 original founder dogs and for Heelers 155 founders, but in both breeds only a fraction of the offspring were bred (13% of Tollers were bred, 25% of Heelers).   As a consequence, the average inbreeding coefficient of Tollers rose rapidly right at the start and reached 25% within 15 years of founding.  It has fluctuated slightly since, reaching as high as 30% at one point.  The average degree of inbreeding increased more slowly in the Heelers (remember, there were more founders, which will slow the rate of inbreeding) and appeared to have stabilized by the time of the study at about 10%.

The consequence of inbreeding is a reduction in the genetic diversity of the breed.  In both Tollers and Heelers, more than 90% of the genetic diversity present in the founders has been lost, leaving Tollers with genetic equivalent of only 2 dogs and only 6 for Heelers (“founder genome equivalents”).  The Lancashire Heelers are prone to eye problems but are otherwise generally healthy (http://www.lancashireheelers.org).  Tollers have a few disorders that are common in other breeds as well (hip dysplasia, progressive retinal atrophy), but more seriously there is now genetic evidence of a seriously compromised immune system resulting from loss of haplotype diversity (Hughes et al 2010; Wilbe et al 2009).  The immune system is the body’s defense against the world.  It’s job is to beat back all the harmful things nature can throw at an animal.  A compromised immune system leaves the animal defenseless against viruses, bacteria, parasites and other pathogens, and susceptible to a large array of potentially severe autoimmune disorders.  It’s a very complicated system, and to be broken even a little is very serious.

First, let me say that these genetic problems are certainly not unique to these breeds.  Many studies are finding similar problems in other breeds, but the papers I have commented on here are the most complete and are presented in a way that should be understandable to a dog breeder without advanced training in population genetics.

The loss of genetic diversity in both Tollers and Heelers is a result of several things, among them the relatively small founding populations and the use of some dogs more than others in breeding, both of which are common to many other breeds.  But I think the biggest problem has been that the kinds of information about population genetics that are presented in this paper have not been available to breeders.  The changes that occur in the genetics of the breed over time are a consequence of the activities of many individual and usually independent breeders.  Without the ability to coordinate breeding strategies, or oversee changes in the population genetics of the entire (world-wide) breed in real time, loss of genetic diversity can occur despite diligent efforts by the majority of breeders to use breeding strategies they feel are in the best interests of the health of their dogs and offspring.

As breed populations inevitably become more and more inbred, the need for current information about population genetics will become more urgent, but breeders have no way to know this and no way to get it.  I have found that for the few breeds I have looked into, complete pedigree records back to founders are simply not available.  But even if they were, the kinds of analyses used here would need to be performed by somebody familiar with the statistical techniques, and redone on a regular basis, something the average dog breeder simply can’t do.

I’ve been working with Dr Bob Lacy, an expert in population genetics and endangered species management, to perform analyses like this one on several breeds that are relatively small and for which we have a reasonable chance of gathering up all the pedigree data without a heroic effort.  I’ll be posting progress as these move forward so people that are interested can follow along.  I hope we will ultimately have some model analyses to show as examples, as well as some breeders that have learned enough by going through the process to continue to carry out the analyses on a regular basis for their own breed.

Watch this space…!

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Wilbe, M, P Jokinen, C Heranrud, LJ Kennedy, E Strandberg, H Hansson-Hamlin, H Lohi, & G Andersson.  MHC class II polymorphism is associated with a canine SLE-related disease complex.  Immunogenetics 61:557-564.

Hughes, AM, P Jokinen, DL Bannasch, H Lohi, & AM Oberbauer.  2010.  Association of a dog leukocyte antigen class II haplotype with hypoadrenocorticism in Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers.  Tissue Antigens 75: 684-690.

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If you’ve worked your way through the paper on Icelandic Sheepdogs (ISD) from previous posts (part 1 and part 2), you ran into a mathematical technique called cluster analysis.  It’s a little complicated, but basically it’s a way of grouping things by similarities in various traits.  In the ISD paper, cluster analysis was used to group dogs by genetic similarity.  It revealed that most of the dogs in the pedigree population clustered together in one large group, with the rest of the dogs being distributed over a number of  smaller groups.  These smaller groups represent little puddles of genetic diversity – dogs that are genetically slightly different than dogs in other groups – and theoretically at least, breeders could dip into these other populations as a source of genetic material to add to their breeding lines.

In a post on the ISD discussion, someone asked two very good questions.  1) Could there be differences in disease incidence between groups of dogs within a breed? – e.g., working dogs vs bench dogs, or even dogs from different breeding lines.  2) Can we have recognizible breeds and still maintain genetic diversity?

In answer to both of her questions, the data suggest “yes”.

A very interesting study was published some years ago in which researchers used cluster analysis to figure out how particular diseases are distributed in populations of dogs (1).  They paired pedigree databases with data for occurrence of specific disorders for three breeds: elbow dysplasia in Labradors, portosystemic shunts in Irish Wolfhounds, and copper toxicosis in Bedlington Terriers.  The Labrador data were for 252 dogs owned by the Royal Dutch Guide Dog for the Blind Association that were screened for clinical signs of fragmented coronoid process.  Seventeen percent of these dogs were found to be affected.  For the Wolfhounds, 613 dogs registered between 1985 and 1992 were screened for the presence of a congenital portosystemic shunt, which was found in 4% of this group.  For Bedlingtons, 155 dogs registered between 1977 and 1985 were screened for hepatic copper toxicosis by biopsy when the dogs were a year old, and 46% were found to be affected.

Cluster analysis allowed the researchers to isolate groups of dogs in each breed that were more closely related to each other (at least the 0.125 level of relatedness) than to dogs in other groups.  They could then look for patterns in the distribution of these disorders across these genetically distinct clusters.

In Labradors, there were 31 small clusters of dogs that had a relatedness within each cluster of at least 0.125, and were genetically distinct from the other clusters.  From the dendrogram of the clusters (these funny tree-like graphs as below), it was clear that the cases of elbow dysplasia were all found in only five groups of dogs that were closely related to each other.  In these 5 clusters, the incidence was greater than 27%, while for all the others it was zero.  (Remember, the overall frequency in the population was 17%.)

Cluster analysis of Labrador Retrievers in this study. The fraction of dogs with affected elbows is indicated by shading.

Likewise, the dendrogram for the Wolfhounds showed that they grouped into 14 clusters (also with relatedness within clusters of at least 0.125).  Portosystemic shunts occurred in only four clusters, but these groups were not clumped together in the dendrogram.  All other clusters were free of the disease.

Cluster analysis of Irish Wolfhounds. The fraction of dogs with a congenital portosystemic shunt is indicated by shading.

The Bedlington Terriers split into 12 clusters of related individuals, and copper toxicosis occurred in all of them.  The gene for this disorder appeared from this analysis to be widely distributed in the breed, and indeed, subsequent genetic studies revealed that to be the case.  Just about the time this paper was published, the gene was identified and a DNA test is now available (2).

Cluster analysis of Bedlington Terriers in this study. The fraction of dogs with copper toxicosis of the liver is indicated by shading.

The first sentence of the Discussion from this study sums it up well:

“This study has evaluated cluster analysis as a method for studying the relatedness of purebred dog populations, for resolving the complex structure of these populations to estimate their level of relatedness and genetic heterogeneity, and for assessing the genetic background of disease.”

What this study shows so clearly is the enormous amount of information that can be leveraged from just pedigrees and some data on occurrence of a particular trait or disease.  They were able to accomplish this using relatively small subpopulations of the entire breed, but they note that the most accurate estimations of genetic similarity among individuals would be obtained using pedigrees that extend back to founders.

“A knowledge of the distribution of an inherited disease among clusters of related animals may help to provide the means to select against disease, while maintaining the heterogeneity of the population.  The clusters of dogs at risk may also provide a basis for the selection of animals for molecular genetic studies to search for markers of the genes underlying the disease.”

With this kind of information, breeders can do a better job of eliminating deleterious genes from their breed without taking a huge toll on the overall genetic diversity.  What a powerful tool!

This paper was published in 1998.  Oliehoek made brilliant use of it in his study on Icelandic Sheepdogs to identify sources of genetic variability that could be incorporated into the breed population .  Why haven’t we seen many more studies like this??

The paper this discussion is based on (below) is not freely available online because of copyright restrictions.  If you would like to obtain a copy for your own educational purposes, contact me privately and I can supply a copy.

1)  Ubbink, GJ, HAW Hazewinkel, J Rothuizen, J van de Broek, & WTC Wolvekamp.  1998.  Cluster analysis of the genetic heterogeneity and disease distributions in purebred dog populations.  Veterinary Record 142: 209-213.

2) http://www.vetgen.com/canine-ct-deletion.html

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> I’ve moved my summary and some comments on the previous post to a new blog post here.  If you haven’t already, you might want to read my introduction to the reading group, and also my introduction to this paper and why it’s relevant to ALL breeds of dogs.  If you don’t have a copy of the paper, here’s a link to the download – <

Oliehoek, PA, P Bijma, & A van der Meijden.  2009.  History and structure of the closed pedigreed population of Icelandic Sheepdogs.  (PDF download)

Okay everybody, let’s see if we can make some progress on this. You should all have the beginnings of a list of jargon definitions and/or a copy of the paper I posted above, and you’ll be adding to it as we go. I think most of you will have at least a sense about what Pieter Oliehoek and his colleagues set out to do from your reading of the introduction and conclusions of the paper.

Let’s start with that. The Icelandic Sheepdog is like many other uncommon breeds -

1) It was founded with a relatively small number of dogs (36);

2) It became a registered breed fairly recently (~1955);

3) For much of its history as a registered breed the total population was small (< ~500 dogs until about 1990);

4) There has been a rapid increase in registrations in recent years as the breed has gained a following and been introduced to new countries (see Figure 1);

5) At the time of the study, the current population numbered about 2500 dogs, many times the size of the founding population.

Oliehoek knew that a small, closed population will inevitably suffer from inbreeding, resulting in inbreeding depression which is reflected in reduced resistence to disease, reproductive problems (reduced fertility, smaller offspring, smaller litter sizes, higher mortality, etc). Also, with loss of genetic diversity in breeding populations, there will likely be an increase in the incidence of inherited disorders, because it becomes more likely that an individual will just by chance be homozygous for a deleterious allele.

Knowing that breeding of Icelandic Sheepdogs had not been managed in any way as it grew in popularity, Oliehoek suspected that an analysis of the breed might reveal some evidence of significant inbreeding.

They gathered together the pedigrees for all the registered dogs in the world back to founders (a total of 4680 current and ancestor dogs) and subjected them to special analyses that were able to reveal things about the breed that would have been difficult or impossible to learn any other day.

They found that not only were the dogs were extremely inbred, but the situation of the breed was dire.

1) In just the first 10 years after registration, the breed lost more than 50% (!!!!) of its initial genetic diversity (Figure 2);

2) The astonishing decline in genetic diversity was a consequence of breeding practices that resulted in increasing levels of inbreeding over time;

3) At the time of the study, the entire worldwide population of 2554 dogs had the genetic diversity expected from only 2.2 founders;

4) The average coefficient of inbreeding of the existing dogs was about 25%; that is, the entire population was as closely related as siblings (Figure 3);

This is grim news. Starting with 36 unrelated dogs, inbreeding has reduced the breed to the genetic equivalent of about 2 individuals as closely related as siblings. To save the breed from potential extinction as a consequence of inbreeding, the genetic diversity in the population(s) of breeding dogs needs to increase.

Using a very clever analytical technique called “cluster analysis”, Oliehoek was able to sort the existing dogs into groups of individuals that were similar genetically. He was able to identify 8 groups, two large ones, four of modest size, and two that were very small. You can see these in Figure 6. Note that the longest bar is really 10 times longer than depicted so the graph would fit on the page. So it’s a VERY big group – in fact, 85% of the entire population. These groups also reflected the fact that dogs in different countries (so were geographically isolated) tended also to be genetically distinct (Figure 9).

What this means is that the breed population is not genetically homogeneous. That is, there are little subpopulations of animals in different countries that carry alleles not found in the other groups. In a carefully managed breeding program, these little puddles of diversity could be used to bring the genetic diversity in the breeding population from the equivalent of 2.2 founders up to as much as 4.7. But while it is possible to improve the situation of the breed somewhat, it was unlikely to happen without extraordinary cooperation among breeders, and at best the improvement would still leave the breed in dire straits.

So, this is my take on the general gist of this paper. As we go into the details, you’ll see that he identifies some specific things that happened right at the beginning to set the breed on a bad course, and why some things breeders did in the hopes of improving things had no positive effect at all.

Make no mistake – this paper is about Icelandic Sheepdogs, but there are no doubt dozens (maybe hundreds) of breeds in a similar situation, but without these types of analyses there is no way for breeders to know this.

Let’s hear your thoughts on this study, focusing on the general stuff and saving digging into the details of methods and results until we’re ready.

Also, please **** let’s not discuss other breeds yet – we have a lot to learn from this paper first, and we can expand the discussion at the end when we have this one under control.

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Oliehoek, PA, P Bijma, & A van der Meijden.  2009.  History and structure of the closed pedigreed population of Icelandic Sheepdogs.  (PDF download)

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I picked this paper to start with for a few reasons.

1)  The topic – genetics of purebred dogs – should seem immediately relevant and interesting.

2)  It will introduce most of you to a field – population genetics – that you probably know little about.  So it will be new to you, but for those that invest the time, the payoff will be huge.  Population genetics will open your eyes to an extremely powerful way of learning about the genetics of dog breeds, one that will enable you to learn things about the genetic structure of your breed that you could never get at any other way.

3)  The techniques used will be new to you and might at first be difficult to understand, but the research in this study is excellent, the paper is well written, and what you learn from this will provide a solid foundation for your understanding of population genetics and how it can be applied to problems in purebred dogs.

4)  Finally, this paper is so, so relevant now.  Genetic problems in purebred dogs seem to be spiraling out of control, and finding a solution to this problem will require an understanding of why this is happening.  This paper will be the start to that understanding.

If you are a dog breeder, I promise you - this will be the MOST IMPORTANT paper you will ever read about dogs.  Stick with it and it will start you on the road to understanding how to tackle the seemingly intractable genetic problems in your breed.

MY ADVICE – The techniques used in this study rely on mathematics and statistics.  You probably won’t have a clue what they’re talking about in the Methods section.  Don’t worry, for now you don’t need to.  We’ll work to understand the concepts, then the underlying methods will make more sense.

So for now, here’s what you should do:

- Read the Abstract and Background sections.

- Skip the Methods.

- Skip the Results and Discussion.

- Begin reading again at the Conclusion, which will summarize the findings of the study.  The authors will use some acronyms that you won’t recognize, and for now just skim past them.  Read the parts that are plain English and make sense to you.  Have a look at the Figures they refer to; some you will understand, and some you won’t at first.  That’s fine.  Skip the Table for now.

The goal on your first read is to understand what the study is about and what the authors found.  I think you will immediately see the relevance of this study to the breeder of pedigree dogs who is faced with declining genetic diversity in their breed.

When you feel comfortable with generalities of the paper, start reading again at Results and Discussion.  As you read, the authors will introduce some specific terms used in population biology (e.g., genetic diversity, potential diversity, average mean kinship, etc).  As you come to these, make a list on a separate piece of paper with the abbreviation and the name of the term; this way, when they are used again later in the paper you can refer to your list to remember what they are (believe me, that’s what I do!).  Read slowly, but don’t labor.  If you don’t understand something after thinking about it for a few minutes, leave it and you will come back later.

WARNING - I expect you will find this paper difficult to read.  I did, and I’ve read it many times now and learn something new each time.  But this is the paper that opened my eyes to the absolute importance of understanding population genetics if we are ever to be successful in dealing with the health problems of dogs.  We will work together to understand it as we discuss it together here.

SCHEDULE - After you download the paper, you can start reading.  Read the beginning and end (as above) at least twice.  Before you go on, you can come here to ask questions.  If you don’t understand what the paper is about, getting through the details will be deadly.  Mark your paper up with highlighter.  Make notes on the graphs.  Write questions in the margins, then come here if you can’t answer them.

There are no stupid questions.  We will all help each other.

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The purpose of this reading club is to read and discuss recent research into dog genetics that might be of interest to dog breeders and anyone else interested in the biology of dogs.  We can modify the format as necessary as we go along to suit the needs of the participants, but to begin we will all read a paper then reconvene here to critique, discuss, ask questions, and review any aspect of the study of interest.  This kind of reading group is common in academic settings like graduate school because it’s a great way to keep up with current research, hone critical thinking skills, and interact with others that share an interest.  Critical questions are encouraged; personal attacks will not be tolerated.  This is a place for communication and learning.  It should be fun, challenging, and interesting.   What you get out of it will depend on what you put into it.  My hope is that over time we will develop a community that will include both the dog fanciers wrestling with breeding decisions and the researchers who are working to understand all aspects of dog genetics.

We will read papers that might focus on a particular breed, but this discussion will not be breed-specific.  Instead, I will try to choose papers that will present research questions that are relevant to any breed and that will be interesting and useful for anyone interested in the genetics of dogs.

I am not a geneticist by training.  My background is in vertebrate physiology, but I know I can master a discipline with time and hard work, and so can you.  Genetics has jargon, unfamiliar techniques, lots of mysterious looking acronyms, and focuses on tiny little bits of stuff that you will never actually see.  But I’m learning, and so will you.  Persist here and a new world will open to you.

Please limit your posts here to comments relevant to the paper we are reading.  If you have suggestions, comments, or any other general feedback, please send directly to me by email so we don’t clutter up the thread about a paper with stuff that’s not relevant.

So, if you think you’re ready, check out the first paper we’re going to read.

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Most dog photography is of dogs in “pet” mode.  The photographer is using a relatively short lens and is interacting directly with the dog while shooting, often keeping the dog’s attention by waving a yummy treat in front of his face.  This results in a photo with the dog looking towards the camera with total love and devotion, eyes large and tongue lolling as he tries to figure out what cute thing he needs to do to be rewarded with the bait.  This is the dog in total pet mode, which is the only way many people ever see their dog.

There’s another way to photograph dogs.  Under the veneer of domestication is the original canine beast, with its instincts and desires largely intact but suppressed when interacting with people.  Releasing and photographing that inner dog is often no harder than putting a long lens on the camera, taking off the leash, and shooting whatever happens.  This is the kind of photography that I really enjoy.

I live on the west coast and frequently take advantage of a beautiful beach as a shoot location.  Most dogs love to run, but none more than whippets.  They are lean, mean running machines, with long legs, well-muscled thighs, the leanest possible body, and everything streamlined from nose to the tip of the tail.  Take off the leash, give them room to run, and the show can be spectacular.

This is once again the lovely whippet Chanel, whom I have photographed many times.   She’s one of my favorite subjects because, despite being a top-ranked show dog, her inner canine soul is very much intact and wonderful fun to photograph.  We had her one afternoon on a beach in Southern California shooting some posed photos for her show career, and when we were done let her play on the beach until well after sundown.  She could have taken off down the beach and been hopelessly out of sight in minutes (a real danger with most sighthounds), but she’s as loyal as a retriever and ran up and down the beach at top speed in front of us until all she could do was collapse on the cold sand with a huge smile of satisfaction on her face.

I got many wonderful shoots from that shoot, but this one to me is the essence of whippet.  Sprinting flat out with all her energy, mental and physical, directed intensely forward, she is still the picture of grace and effortless elegance.  It’s breathtaking to watch.  It’s a whippet being a whippet.

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This handsome and elegant Smooth Fox Terrier is Dodger (CH J’Cobe Vigilante Justice), who swept the dog world off its feet in 2010 and retired from his American show career as the top dog in the country as well as the top-winning Smooth Fox Terrier of all time.  Still very much in his prime, he then went to Brazil for a year and blew the competition away there as well.

He was already topping the charts in June 2010 when I caught him while he was on the west coast at the Great Western Terrier show in Long Beach, CA.  Handler Amy Booth asked if I would take some photos and I jumped at the chance.  We were at a park right on the water, adjacent to the berth for the retired cruise ship, RMS Queen Mary.

I wanted a clean shot of the dog with blue sky and an uncomplicated coastline, but we let him move around a bit and he wandered over to a spot where the Queen Mary was going to be in the background.  I really didn’t want a big white (distracting) boat behind the dog.  I kept trying to adjust my position to get a better angle without success.  I wasn’t going to get that boat out of the background without moving the dog.  Then, Dodger turned his head and front towards the camera, leaving a sliver of blue sky between his body and the ship, and that was the money shot.

Dodger won Best In Show at the terrier specialty not only that day but the next.  When I look at this shot, I can’t help but think that this spectacular dog found his own place in the presence of royalty.

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In the photo for Quiz 2, most people thought it looked like the dogs were having a less-than-friendly encounter, more like fight than fun.

The nature of the interaction becomes very clear when you can see the rest of the encounter.  Below are about 50 photos shot over about 4 minutes, in sequence with the shot I posted in Quiz 2.

The shot I pulled out for the quiz is very dramatic, but these dogs are clearly having a wonderful time.  The Jack seems quite welcome to join in, despite his preference for sneak attacks on the achilles.  So, were there enough clues in the quiz photo to indicate that the dogs were playing, and what were they?  How can we learn to see them?

On the suggestion of dog trainer friend, I’ve spent some time with Brenda Aloff’s excellent book, “Canine Body Language: A Photographic Guide“, which goes into great detail about the nuances of posture and facial expression in dogs.  Certainly you are aware that your own sometimes subtle facial expressions and posture are revealing – raised eyebrows, squinting, a twitch in the corner of the mouth, dilated pupils, blinking, looking away, lowering the head, etc are all part of our non-verbal language.  Similarly, tiny changes in ear position, a slightly lifted paw, staring, squinting, or wide open eyes, the tension in the lips, carriage of the tail, and so many other things are used by dogs to communicate with each other and reveal their emotional state.

It takes practice to see these (often fleeting) signals in dogs, and these photos certainly have convinced me that I’ve been missing most of what dogs were saying to each other.  I highly recommend Brenda Aloff’s book, and after some study I think you’ll start to see many things in these photos that you missed before.

Please let me know what you think about this “Fun or Fight” series, and I welcome any suggestions.

If you haven’t already, have a look at Quiz 3.

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The Chesapeake Bay Retriever is the quintessential water dog among the sporting breeds.  It’s a sturdy dog with an even sturdier coat, and a non-nonsense approach to the task at hand.  This is an American breed, developed to be masterful in the hunt of waterfowl.

This is Coupe (GCh Quailridge’s Coupe De Ville), photographed at one of my favorite places, the lovely beach in Ventura, California.  He is a fine example of the breed, with the unique and unmistakable silhouette of a Chessie.  The color and texture of his coat look magnificant in this late afternoon light, and his keen expression suggests a dog of intelligence and determination that would be ready to hunt on a moment’s notice.  This was shot just moments before sundown when the last of the lingering light illuminated his beautiful head and glowing eye.

Coupe was the top Chesapeake in the country in 2011.

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Please leave your thoughts below.

Most people thought the dogs were playing based on body position and balance, tail carriage, the lack of tension in the face of the brown dog (no wrinkling on the muzzle), and the non-aggressive face of the dane and the fact that she’s not in a defensive posture.

So, to answer the question, here are some more photos of the interaction -

From these, you can clearly see that this is play, even though the brown dog has grabbed a bit of skin in the second shot.  The Dane, who is a bitch about 15 mo old, has her teeth carefully protected by her lips, and neither dog is trying to get away from the interaction.  Actually, it looks very much like a dance, with the brown dog taking the role of the friendly aggressor and the Dane as the “prey”, dodging and jumping in response to the other dog’s moves.

Here’s where I need to give a disclaimer.  I’m a dog photographer, not a professionally trained canine behaviorist (although I am a PhD biologist).  When I started taking photos at the local dog park just for fun, I was amazed to see the behavior of the dogs that had happened too quickly for me to follow by eye.  There were lots of teeth, bulging eyes, and athletic moves that were really fascinating for me to see.  It seemed to me that there was lots of information in these photos and that it would be useful to share them in some way.  That’s how I came to start this “Fun or Fight” series.

If people find this interesting and useful, I’ll continue to develop it.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

You can subscribe to these posts either by email or RSS using the tools in the sidebar.  And please do share this with your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

You can leave more comments on this series of photos below.  And check out Quiz 2!

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PHOTO 2

What about this one?  Fun or Fight?  Leave your thoughts below…

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See the rest of the photos at Fun or Fight?  Quiz 2 Redeaux!

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PHOTO 1

Welcome to the first “FUN OR FIGHT?” Quiz!  (If you missed the Introduction to these quizzes, you can read it here.)

These quizzes are going to test your understanding of dog behavior and communication.  Below is a photo taken at a dog park.  Decide whether the dogs are playing or fighting (or thinking about playing or fighting), and identify the clues you used to come to this conclusion.  You can enter your responses in the Comments box below the post, and you can also comment on other posts (maybe you disagree and why).  Everybody is welcome – the pet owner as well as the professional trainer.  The more people participating, the more we can learn.

I’m hoping there will be some lively discussion and a useful learning experience.  After a few days for comments, I can also post additional photos from a particular interaction if necessary to provide more information.

Have fun!

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To see the followup, click here.

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How well do your understand dog behavior?   Understanding what your dog is thinking, feeling, and trying to communicate can be harder than you think.

If you don’t know what to look for in your dog’s behavior and body language, you might not be able to tell the difference between fun and a fight, or whether that dog is saying “Nice to meet you” or “I’m about to kill you.”

See how well you can read dog behavior. Put on your dog hat and check out QUIZ 1.

The Herding Group is a hodgepodge of flashy breeds with charisma and coat (e.g., Bearded Collie, Rough Collie, Old English  Sheepdog, Sheltie, German Shepherd), and “the rest” – understated, workmanlike, low-profile (in both senses of the term) breeds like the Australian Cattle Dog, Corgis, and Vallhunds.  Among the latter, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Cardigan Corgi.  The Pembroke always seems to have a mischievous twinkle in the eye, like he’s hiding a secret or has the inside on a joke that he’ll tell you if you lean in close.  To me, the Cardigan seems like the shy cousin who is just as clever as the Pembroke but doesn’t care if you know it; who knows his job and loves his people, but responds to praise with “Aw, shucks”.  I especially love the sincerity in the Cardigan Corgi’s face, and the warm, soft eyes that reflect self-confidence without arrogance.

Harvey (GCH CH Mariel’s Harvest Moon) has been among the top-ranked Cardigans this year, with a Best In Show ribbon on his wall and many group placements.  When I was asked to photograph him, I wanted to capture all the qualities of the breed that I admire – intelligence, sincerity, loyalty, and understated confidence – as well as Harvey’s exceptionally handsome head and sweet expression.  The perfect backdrop turned out to be the outside wall of a building painted a complimentary shade of tan.  Pulling him away from the wall left it out of focus and put some of the rich green grass in the bottom of the shot for a punch of color.

This is the shot that was the winner for me.  A lovely but no-frills – almost old-fashioned – portrait, perfect for this kindly, sincere, but businesslike gentleman.  It’s all Harvey.

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We think of photography as capturing “a moment in time”, but how long is a moment?

With a fast enough shutter speed you can freeze action without blur, and the resulting photos can allow us to see events that happen too quickly to see with the eye.  But the camera can also record events happening over time in a way that we also cannot see.  By reducing shutter speed you can capture that fourth dimension, and the resulting photos can be magical.

If you want to have some fun, experiment with different shutter speeds and you’ll be amazed at the new perspective this can add to your photography.  And even better, slow shutter speeds will allow you to shoot after dark.  I captured both of these images after dark.  In the first one, I’ve caught an Australian Shepherd looking back over his shoulder while running.  In the second one, my English Springer Spaniel is being chased by a Jack Russell Terrier, and the image captures both their speed and their playful interaction.

It’s great fun to shoot at really slow shutter speeds because you never know what you’ll get and the results can be really amazing.  When the light is fading and you think it’s time to pack it up for the day, try slowing down the shutter and maybe you’ll capture something magical.

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Through the end of the year, you can get my 2012 Calendar at 50% off the regular price of $14.99 through Lulu.  Use this Promo code when you check out:

HOLIDAYSUPERSAVINGS355

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My new 2012 Dog Calendar is hot off the press, featuring photos that will appear in my forthcoming book, DOGSPLAY: The Joy of Being A Dog (due out any day as well).

These are wonderful photos of dogs having fun that I think you’ll really enjoy looking at over the next 12 months.

You can have a look and order a copy here!

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Dog – Black Russian Terrier – MOSKVORECHIE YASON – World Winner, Crufts Winner, Interchampion, Champion of 34 Countries, 5x BIS, 40xCACIB, IPO-1
Russian Handlers 2012 Calendar – “Gothic and Lolita“.  Photographs by Oleg Bochkov

I first met the Russian dog photographer Oleg Bochkov at the AKC/Eukanuba show several years ago, and since then he’s been a regular at that show and Westminster.  He’s the Editor of the Russian dog show magazine HotDog, which covers shows all over the continent.  Oleg’s latest creation is his annual calendar of Russian dog handlers, and this year he knocked it out of the park.  These aren’t stuffy handler-with-dog photos.  The theme of this year’s calendar is “Gothic and Lolita“, and to pull it off he assembled a creative team in his studio for makeup, hair styling, clothing, props, and lighting.  The result is a collection of stunning images of show dogs and their handlers unlike anything you’ve ever seen.  The calendar will be available at all the big shows in Europe in 2012, and Oleg will also have them at Westminster.  If you want a copy and won’t be at a show where they’re available, drop Oleg a note and I’m sure he can work out how to get a copy to you.  Check out his  calendars from previous years at 2009, 2010, and 2011.

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Becoming good at anything requires time and effort.  You might be born with natural talent, and that might allow you to get better faster and achieve a higher level of competence, but the path will still be uphill.  Musicians and singers, painters and poets, all that achieve success got there by making a significant investment in honing their skills.

So, how much effort does it take to become really good at something?  Hours?  Absolutely.  Months, yes.  Years, actually.  There’s a rule of thumb kicking around (popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Outliers: the Story of Success) that mastering something takes about 10,000 hours.  If you have the typical full time job (40 hr week with some vacation time), you’ll spend about 2,000 hours a year at it.  So, according to the 10,000 hour rule, mastering something will take about 5 years of full time effort.  That’s a long time.

These days, anybody can pick up a nice little digital camera and take decent photos.  But this doesn’t make you a photographer any more than being able to pick out a tune on an accordion makes you a musician.   The digital camera has made it easy for anybody to take that first step into photography.  But whether photography is your hobby or your profession, it is a craft and getting really good at it is going to take work and time.  Certainly years.

Whether you want to become a professional dog photographer, or you just want to get better at dog photography as a hobby, make the best of time you invest by focusing on a few key things.

1)  Shoot a lot of photos.  How many?  Thousands a months, at least.  Try to aim for 1,000 a week.  The goal here is not to shoot perfect pictures (because most certainly will not be), but to shoot mindfully.  That is, pay attention to what you’re doing.  Don’t be afraid to experiment.  Go ahead and deliberately shoot some bad ones.  Put the camera in manual or one of the creative program modes (aperture or shutter priority) and play around with settings.  See how changing a setting affects the image.  This is how you will learn.

2)  Shoot a lot of the same thing.  If you want to learn how to photograph dogs, find some place with a lot of dogs and go shooting.  Look at the photos you take and analyze them.  What makes the good ones good?   What makes the duds uninteresting?  Good photographers don’t shoot great photos, they create them.  You need to learn how to  identify the things that will give you the best chance of getting a great photo – the setting, the light and weather, the best camera and lens to use, the handling of the dog – all the things that need to come together to give you the best chance of creating a great image.  You won’t get a beautifully lit photo if you go out at noon on a sunny day with no way to modify the light.  You won’t have a handsome-looking dog to photograph if it’s 87 degrees outside and the dog’s tongue is dangling from the corner of its mouth.

3)  Shoot a lot of different things.  A lot of what you will learn about photography you will stumble upon by accident.  If you only photograph dogs during nice light in the daytime, you’ll miss some really great lessons to be learned by shooting other types of things.  Shoot at a high school football game at night under lights.  Photograph flowers.  Shoot some cars.  Volunteer to do some shooting at a friend’s wedding.  These all require different skills, and you will find that you need to learn new stuff if you want to get the kinds of photos you want.  Spend time outside your familiar box.

4)  Look at your photos.  This seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people try to learn photography by shooting a bunch of photos that they never really look at.  Digital cameras allow you to get some idea of what you’re getting from the viewer on the camera, but you need to look carefully at what you’re producing.  Look at the meta data from the camera on the settings you were using while you study the images.  Figure out what you like and don’t like in the photos you create.  Look at composition.  Evaluate the quality of the digital file – the amount of luminance and color noise, whether you’ve lost image information due to under- or over-exposure, whether the image is focused and sharp (or not, if you’re trying to produce a creative effect), and so on.  Shooting 1,000 photos will take some time, but if you’re going to get anything out of your effort, you need to invest some serious time looking through them.

5)  Train your eye.  It took me a while to figure out that I needed to do this.  I would go out and shoot a bunch of photos, only to find that they didn’t look nearly as good as I thought they were going to be when I shot them.  I needed to learn that the camera doesn’t see the world the same way my eyes do.  Cameras see contrast very differently than the human eye.  What looked to me like a good photo through the viewfinder actually had ugly shadows, blown out highlights, and washed out colors when I looked at it on my computer.  Similarly, the lens you use will change the composition of the shot (e.g., wide-angle vs telephoto), the settings you choose will affect the appearance of the image (e.g., aperture affects depth of field, shutter speed affects freezing or blurring motion).  You will need to train your eye to see the way your camera does if you want to be able to create photos that look the way you want them to.

6)  Master your camera.  This also seems obvious, but you’d be surprised at the number of “professional” photographers who shoot in full program mode.  The “P” mode doesn’t stand for “professional”.  It means the camera is making all of what should be your decisions.  These “P” for professional photographers might be able to get by because the modern digital camera can do a decent job of controlling settings to produce a properly-exposed, in-focus, photo – most of the time – but these photographers will never be great because there is no craft in their work.  Go read my post SHOOT THE DOG: Fundamental tools, as well as the others in this series.  If you’re too lazy to read the manual and to invest the time learning the fundamentals, you will never be more than an average photographer.  Don’t try to convince yourself that natural talent will make up for not knowing how to use your tool.  I promise you, it won’t.  If this was so easy, everybody would be really good at it.

7)  Use technology to your advantage.  Cameras these days are amazing gadgets, a computer in a box actually.  They can do some wonderful things – predictive and tracking autofocus, evaluative and centered metering, ISO’s unimaginable in the film days, meta data storage, ETTL flash – so many really cool things!  Plus, most advanced hobby and professional cameras have a bunch of custom settings that allow you to control lots of very specific things to make your camera function exactly how you want.  If you don’t know about this stuff, you can’t use it to your advantage.  Take the time to really study these things in depth.

8)  Become photography and computer literate.  Gone are the days when a photographer could shoot a bunch of rolls of film, drop them at the lab in the evening, and pick up the processed photos in the morning.  With digital photography, YOU are the lab.  You need Photoshop, a computer powerful enough to use it, and you need to learn how to use both.  You will never master Photoshop, not just because it’s a huge piece of software, but also because the technology for processing digital files is improving all the time.  Photoshop comes out in a new edition every couple of years, with amazing new abilities that can allow you do things that you never dreamed of (CS5′s content-aware fill is truly remarkable!).  Plus, there are dozens of companies producing third party plug-ins and stand-alone programs that provide even more tricks and functionalities.  You’re going to have to invest time learning and keeping up with this stuff.  The best way to do this is to follow the magazines and websites that keep up with the latest, and read their evaluations, watch their tutorial videos, read the user forums, and whatever else you feel provides you good value for time invested.  You will have to do this forever.  Likewise with cameras.  They get better and better, with amazing new capabilities.  If you’re going to make good use of the gear available, you need to know about it.  You will have to do this forever, too.

9)  Look at good photos and follow the work of the best photographers.   One thing I was surprised to discover is that the world of the professional photographer really isn’t all that big.  As I started digging around, the names of the same people kept coming up over and over.  There are millions of photographers out there, and when you’re just getting started in photography you can learn a lot from most of them.  But as you get better, they will have less and less to offer you, and following the work of the ones at the top will be what helps motivate you to stay on the learning curve.  I follow the websites of photojournalists, as well as photographers specializing in wedding, fashion, wildlife, sports, and studio photography.  Interestingly, the best of these know and follow the work of the others, creating a little community at the top of the pile that is a huge resource for the rest of us through their websites and blogs.  I want to be able to shoot like them.  I want to be able to create any image I can imagine.  I can’t do either right now, but I’m going to learn everything I can from these people.  Best part?  It’s free.

10)  Never stop learning.  Realize that you will never master photography.  You might view this as a source of frustration (“Damn, I’ll never figure out how to do this”).  Or, you can realize that you will never, ever get bored with photography, no matter how much you learn and how long you’ve been shooting.  There will always be more.  There will always be something that can be done that nobody has tried to do before.  If you love to learn, if you love to be mentally and creatively stimulated, there is no horizon.  What could be more fun than that?

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The difference between a good photograph and a great one is often the little “tricks” used in the setup and camera work.  I wanted to get a shot of Gavin (GCH CH Lakota’s Hitman Of Cantar) gaiting that would knock your socks off, and since we were near the beautiful beach in Ventura, CA I decided to head to the water to come up with something interesting.

We were shooting in the late afternoon, and the sun was dropping below the horizon, so it would be a sunset shot.  The tide was way out, leaving a large, nearly level beach of wet sand.  My instructions to handler JR Alcantara were to run the dog in a straight line just above the line of the tide.   I positioned myself far enough away up the beach to allow me to shoot with a telephoto.  I did this for two reasons.

- First, it would keep the dog in front of me and more or less perpendicular to the water line for a longer time; that is, the dog’s speed relative to the background would be slower.  This gives me more chances to catch the right part of the stride as the dog trots by in front of me.

- The other reason for a telephoto is that it would compress the background, and I wanted to use this to produce a special effect.  At the beach, this would cause the breaking waves in the background to appear closer to the dog than they really were.  Then, if shot with my camera as low to the ground as possible, the waves in the background would appear huge relative to the size of the dog.  (I was shooting with my Canon EOS 1D Mark III at ISO 200 and 1/200 sec, and my EF 70-200 mm f/2.8L IS USM at f/6.3.)

When everything was ready, I laid down flat on the beach with my camera just above the wet film on the sand.  JR gaited the dog perfectly in front of me, and we got this dramatic shot.  The dog stands out from the waves in the background that look both large and close, like they’re about to overwhelm him.  There’s enough light left from the sunset to provide a bit of backlighting that highlights the fur on his legs and tail and catches the bits of water and wet sand coming off the bottom of his feet.  The wet beach produces a shimmery reflection and mirrors the color of the sky into the foreground, so the dog stands out against the blue water behind him.

To be fair, this isn’t a perfect shot.  The German Shepherd is known for its “flying trot”, with all four feet off the ground in the middle of the stride.  I wanted to catch the dog completely airborne, and I missed it by a few milliseconds.  But everything else about the shot is so dramatic that it was the easy winner among the other shots from the day.

Getting this great photo took some planning and an understanding of both optics and perspective.  Just knowing the body and lens I used wouldn’t be enough information to allow you to go out and create a similar image yourself.  The “tricks” are in how I used the gear and set up the shot.

You can read about how I got this shot, but if you really want to gain the skills to create images that will stand out from the rest, you need to experiment yourself.  Go out and shoot with long and short lenses, from a standing position to flat on the ground.  Study these shots and you will discover that you can produce very different looking images from some simple changes in how you shoot.

Knowing how to create the shot you envision in your mind is what will make you a photographer and not just somebody with a camera!

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I was digging through old photos looking for a particular image and I came across this one, shot almost exactly a year ago.  This is Tawny (GCh Sporting Fields Bahama Sands) bred by Debbie Butt, and who was on the west coast for a show with her handler (and Debbie’s daughter) Amanda Giles.  I love photographing whippets and had never done a portrait of this dog, so I grabbed Tawny and Amanda and scouted the showgrounds for a place to shoot.  Tawny and Amanda were waiting to go into the ring, so we had perhaps only 10 minutes to get the shot.

We were at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Southern California, and like most fairgrounds it was a lovely place for a fair but didn’t provide any easy options for photographing a dog.  My options for backgrounds were handler RV’s and dog trucks, cars in a parking lot, the white walls of the various buildings, and some dark-colored buildings on a hillside surrounded by white fencing.  I always try to find a background that adds some subtle color to the photo without being distracting, so of the options available the buildings on the hillside seemed to be the best option.

I wanted a shot that would show off the classic curves of this breed, and that would also pull the viewer into Tawny’s dark, soft eyes and sweet expression.  To blur the background and manage depth of field (DOF), I put the background far in the distance and shot with a telephoto lens at a large aperture (Canon 5D II at ISO 400, and Canon EF 70-200mm, f/2.8 L IS USM, at 1/320 at f/4.5).  These settings allowed me a fast shutter speed to freeze any movement, and a shallow depth of field (DOF) that would leave the dog’s head in focus and everything else in soft focus or blurred.

With the focus point on the dog’s near eye, DOF was enough to keep both the far eye and the tip of the nose looking sharp, but the far ear a tiny bit soft.  Your eyes are drawn directly to her eyes, then explore her face – the nose, the ears – then take in the curves of her neck and the symmetrical curves of her topline and underline, then are drawn back to the whiteness and detail of her face.  You can see the tiny whiskers on her chin, the soft fur on the edges of her ears, and the soft dimples on the black of her nose.  It was late enough that the sun was behind the hillside, so we didn’t need to cope with inconvenient shadows and the background was mostly dark.  Some lighter, softly colored areas fell conveniently behind her head, and the white fence at the bottom of the frame isn’t distracting when the shot is cropped close.

When I photograph a dog, the features of the head are critical to get right.  A soft eye, blurry nose, or lack detail in the fur on the head will make an otherwise lovely photo uncompelling.  When you look at Tawny’s portrait, you want to know her, and you want to be moved by her beauty.  If the details aren’t there, this just can’t happen.

This year there have been two lovely whippets ranking among the best hounds in the country.  The other one is Chanel, GCh Starline’s Chanel, who is currently #1 hound, with Tawny right on her tail at #3.  (You can see one of my portraits of Chanel here.)  For whippet lovers it’s been a great year, and at the prestigious shows coming up in the next few months the whippet ring promises to provide a feast for the eyes.

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Sally, my English Springer Spaniel (12.5 yrs), with a new friend (3 yrs?) she met at the local dog park.

I’ve been away from my blog for awhile.  Blogging takes creative energy, focus, and steady commitment, and I’ve been lacking all three.  In my last post, I was so excited to announce what I thought would be the appearance of my first book of photographs, in the form of an eBook.  Then my computer died, and so did the momentum.  At the same time, my recovery from shoulder replacement surgery last July took a turn, the result of getting decked by a bulldog at the local dog park (how ironic!).  The metal implant fractured my upper arm bone and yanked my still-healing shoulder muscles, and I’ve been in pain ever since.  It’s been a real bummer.

I finally have my new computer.  And this Saturday I will have a second operation to get my shoulder back on track.  My rehab starts over from the beginning, so 6 weeks in a sling, 6 weeks out of sling but no lifting anything heavier than a coffee cup, then physical therapy starting with a one pound weight.  I won’t be at the AKC/Eukanuba show, and if I’m at Westminster it will be without a camera.  Bummer, bummer.

But I will be back to blogging, because it’s one of the few things I can do with both hands that doesn’t entail lifting anything.  Once I’m past the week or so of post-surgery pain, I’ll be able to type.  So I’ll be focused like a laser on doing this book, and it will be a real, printed-on-paper book, with a version also available as an eBook that anybody can afford.  ($0.99! No shipping!).  I’ll also get back to my Shoot The Dog posts for those interested in the “how-to” behind getting great photographs of dogs.

I won’t be taking any photographs for a few months, and since that’s how I make my living, I’m going to have to come up with some new, creative ways to make a living from the thousands of photographs I’ve already taken.  Necessity is the mother of invention, and in addition to a book or two I have a few other ideas that I’ll explore.  And I welcome your ideas, too – ordinary, wacky, outlandish, whatever.  I’m all ears.

Today, I am so grateful for my wonderful friends, who have enriched my life in so many ways.  I wish all of you the happiest Thanksgiving holiday and a wonderful feast with your friends and family.

I’m so excited to announce my first eBook of photography, DOGPLAY: The Amazing Ways Dogs Play, which will become available on 1 November on Amazon for (only!) $0.99.

These are astonishing images – of teeth, tugs, nips, and bulging eyeballs (but especially TEETH!) – of dogs in their own world playing as dogs do, in the rough and tumble of mock battle and having more fun than pigs in a mud wallow.

I’ve photographed thousands of dogs over the years, and I’ve seen lots of photos of dogs, but these are the most extraordinary images I’ve ever taken, and the most amazing photos of dogs I’ve ever seen.   If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you’ve seen a few of these in my HOW DOGS PLAY posts.

For DOGPLAY, I’ve compiled a collection of about 30 of my favorite photos as an eBook that you can view in stunning color on your iPad, iPhone, Android, Amazon’s new color KindleFire, or any other devices running the iBook or Kindle apps or Adobe Acrobat (pdf).

DOGPLAY will be available on Amazon on 1 November for only $0.99.  Why am I selling it for only $0.99?  Because I want it to be affordable to anybody who loves dogs, anywhere in the world.

If you don’t want to wait until November to order, you can preorder a copy now from my website and DOGPLAY will be sent to you automatically the instant it becomes available.

PREORDER NOW!

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Beware the heel nippers.

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Somehow, this doesn’t seem fair.

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Know when to say Uncle.

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…ever so gently.

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