The staff here at BorderWars diligently monitoring the airwaves.
There’s nothing more rewarding as a blogger than to have a reader use your blog as a resource to add intelligently to a discussion elsewhere on the Internet. BorderWars reader JackieD recently posted a link back here that started a good discussion on the UK’s Dog Rescue Pages.
Here are some of the comments and my thoughts on each:
misty11 – 3rd Oct 2011, 7:37 pm
The problem is there are so many people doing research into the breed that everyone picks up on it! Toller breeders are very open about everything and all info is shared worldwide. Tollers are very healthy compared to other breeds, but it’s easy to find out about any health problems because we are so open it is all easily available.
The ‘only’ health problem in tollers is auto-immune disease. How many health problems do, for example, golden retrievers, border collies, GSD’s have?
and tollers are long lived, many live to over 14.
Here misty11 is parroting Claire Wade in a knee jerk response to any Toller analysis: we’re just being picked on because we’re so open! This is nonsense. Tollers are being looked at because all breeds are being looked at and in Tollers we have a few studies and not a lot of consensus on what’s going on in the breed and what the best path forward is, most notably the scientist vs. scientist war of letters regarding out-crossing.
This issue is being hashed out on several dog blogs right now, most notably on Jemima Harrison’s Pedigree Dogs Exposed blog in three posts so far:
More on this from me soon.
jackied – 4th Oct 2011, 8:26 am
He’s done articles on how astonishingly inbred Border Collies are
Yes, two of the articles worth checking out are:
Boo’smum – 4th Oct 2011, 1:02 pm
Surprised to hear BCs are so inbred! Guess I just assumed that, with there being so many of them (and so variable), therefore, I’d thought, they’d have a pretty wide gene pool? Clearly not! (Goes to show what I know… which isn’t much, admittedly!)
One small quibble though: “inbred” is a term I’d use for an individual and not for a breed per se, unless like Tollers, nearly every member of the breed is highly inbred. Being inbred, as one might measure with a COI calculation, really only looks at the genetic diversity of an individual, which for most genes can carry only 2 possible copies (alleles). But in populations, we might have dozens and dozens of variations of any gene or certain loci might be fixed with just one allele. This sort of mechanism can work independently of any individual’s level of inbreeding.
So, for Border Collies, the problem is not just that some individuals are highly inbred, it’s more that the overall levels of diversity in the gene pool are dropping like almost every other breed. Inbreeding is like broiling one piece of meat… cooking it quickly, but loss of genetic diversity is like turning up the temperature in every oven just a few degrees. Inbreeding is fast and localized as to how it throws away genetic diversity. Genetic drift and patterns of selection are slower and more spread out, but they also remove genetic diversity (intentionally and unintentionally) from an essentially closed population.
Inbreeding can be undone with one outcross. Loss of genetic diversity would require many individual insertions of new DNA (or restoration of lost DNA) over time and all over the breed’s gene pool.
The two processes ARE related. You can’t turn up all the ovens and not expect to burn some steak, nor can you broil a lot of beef without shifting the average meal from medium rare to well done. A breed like Border Collies is mostly a slow burn save for a few popular sires who more than make up for their small number by their significant impact on the breed. In Tollers or Cavaliers, you also have the issue of extreme population effects trumping recent breeding patterns: too few founders make inbreeding unavoidable even though breeders on the whole aren’t trying to close breed individual litters.
jackied – 4th Oct 2011, 8:26 am
The problem with Border Collies is that just a few champion sires were used so extensively for breeding that their genes came to dominate the entire breed, even though there are so many Border Collies registered. Detailed analysis of the ISDS studbook reveals that genetically the foundation stock of Border Collies is equivalent to just 8 dogs, worse than many ‘rare’ breeds.
Probably the only redeeming feature is that in the past the emphasis on performance over appearance in BCs has been stronger than in some other breeds.
Yes! But it’s important to note that the 8 genomes is not the original founding population, rather the breed has been pared down from the original founders and their theoretical genomes down to just 8 today. Many rare breeds (and some quite popular breeds) have the problem of having a founding population that is quite small.
Border Collies have around 1000 nominal “founders,” and in the ISDS there are just under 650 that still have any influence on the current population. As you can see from the following chart, there are several means of looking at genetic variability in a breed and like-sounding terms are not always directly comparable.
The effective number of unique Border Collie genomes across the entire extant ISDS population is only 8.3 individuals worth of information.
So I don’t know how BCs compare to rare breeds without being able to look directly at the same information, but the message I think this data is telling is that BCs are not special in regards to the general trend in all closed populations to lose genetic information over time, often quickly.
mum24dog – 4th Oct 2011, 8:26 am
But then most BCs/WSDs won’t be ISDS registered so who knows what has gone into their genetic make up?
And just because a dog is ISDS registered doesn’t mean that it only has BC genes – google Turnbull’s Blue – a Beardie whose line still throws up hairy faced dogs today. (I assume we’re ignoring the KC version and discussing the real thing.)It would be a major error to draw conclusions about a breed as whole from only registered dogs of a working type breed – a clear case of selection bias. There must be 1000s of dogs that warrant the description of BC out there going about their daily job that pass right under the ISDS radar.
And of course we can’t ignore the culling factor. Many dogs don’t reach an age to test their genetics for one reason or another.
But at least the ISDS stud book isn’t closed like that of any breed unfortunate enough to have caught the eye of the KC. Dogs still can obtain registration on merit.
The ISDS population is special and significant in all Border Collies. This is the founding population and every single border collie on the planet can be traced back to ISDS registered dogs and I’d venture to say that the vast majority of BC genetics worldwide are from ISDS registered stock originally. One cannot claim to understand the genetics of the breed without knowing the ISDS studbook.
Remember that the BC is NOT foremost a working breed, it is a breed formed around the SPORT of sheep trials. This is the reason for the stud books, the name, the society, and the requirements for registration on merit. The working sheep dog, while related in both purpose and genetics, is a more nebulous concept that we have much less solid genetic information on. There are, of course, WSDs that are from pure registered BC stock, but there are also mixes and dogs that have been off the books for decades or centuries.
My own Border Collie stock has been breed to an unpapered “Border Collie,” both working on a cattle ranch, and their offspring have gone on to work on that ranch and others, all without papers, all joining the greater WSD landrace, but all off the books and not easily studied by pedigree research.
In general this is a one way trip, as very few WSDs make their way back into the papered registries and even fewer go on to have a significant genetic impact there.
If you have an unpapered WSD, you probably don’t have a lot to worry about since you can always breed it to whatever you want, you obviously don’t care a lot about pedigree papers. But if you have a Border Collie, don’t pretend that you get all the benefits of the collie landrace when your dog probably hasn’t had the benefits of that model for more than 100 years and 30 generations.
This isn’t selection bias at all! It’s looking at known quantities with specific names and definitions.
Despite claims by BC elitists like Eileen Stein, BCs are NOT being bred like sled dogs (as in, a richly diverse landrace with new blood entering all the time and all over the gene pool).
mum24dog – 5th Oct 2011, 10:45 am
And yet with the BC we have a breed that is used worldwide to perform a multitude of tasks, most requiring great physical fitness. Clearly any loss of genetic diversity is not a huge problem for the success of the breed.
Popularity and genetic variability are really two different issues! Trying to downplay one because the other is thriving is not really good analysis.
Bananas are incredibly popular worldwide, but that doesn’t change the fact that the superior Gros Michel banana is now all but extinct and we are left to eat the smaller, less tasty, and more fragile Cavendish banana today.
Similarily, the great personality, intelligence and dexterity of the Border Collie have made it an incredibly popular dog worldwide. This does not mean, however, that they are healthier today than they were 50 years ago or a century ago. This does not mean that we are taking the right steps to preserve them for another 50 or 100 years.
Genetic diversity isn’t a “huge” problem… until it is. TNS wasn’t a problem in Border Collies until BOOM, suddenly it was a problem, mostly because it didn’t have a name, a clear diagnosis, and any breed wide awareness. It was always there, but no one put the pieces together.
Uric acid problems in Dalmatians were always there, it just wasn’t until there was a DNA test and people found out that there wasn’t a single genetically normal dog in the entire breed.
Epilepsy is a problem in Border Collies. But we have no solutions, so it doesn’t get a lot of air time. When we get a test, a firm diagnosis, a means of inheritance, and eventually a study that shows just how prevalent it is within the breed, we’ll get more openness and admission.
mum24dog – 5th Oct 2011, 3:31 pm
In any breed a list of potential defects needs to include the level of incidence so far as it can be measured, along with a breakdown of sub groups within the breed where there are distinct populations such as the BC so the likely risk can be assessed.
This! This! A million times this! Why is it so hard for dog people to understand that the NUMBER of diseases seen in a breed is not nearly as important as the INCIDENCE of disease across all diseases.
If Dalmatians only had 1 disease, high uric acid levels, they’d still be worse off than a breed that had 100 listed diseases but where only 10% of those dogs had one or more of those diseases, because ALL Dalmatians have high uric acid levels.
If we wanted to think like an engineer, we could actually perform a calculation like this to really compare breeds in a relevant and fair manner:
For every dog and every disease add up [% dogs with the disease] * [severity of that disease].
Wouldn’t you agree that having more sick dogs is worse than fewer dogs? And wouldn’t you agree that a painful and untreatable disease is worse than a mostly benign condition that doesn’t cause much pain or other problems?
Also, the entire tactic of comparing your breed against other breeds is suspect in the manner many breed apologists are doing it. NO ONE WANTS COMPARATIVE HEALTH! We want actual health. It’s not any comfort that your breed has 2% less cancer than another breed when you’re both above 50% cancer rates.
No one should care that some online website lists 5 diseases for your breed and 9 for another and so you think you can ignore what you’re doing and sit on a high perch. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man might be king, but that sucker still doesn’t have depth perception! Come on people, don’t accept early deaths, smaller litter sizes, poor quality of life and many other problems simply because you can find one breed that’s worse off.
That’s settling for mediocrity simply because something else is atrocious. Mediocrity is WORSE when it allows you to be complacent instead of taking action to solve the problems when they’re minor or before they are a crisis. We’ve spend the better part of the last decade dealing with bursting bubbles: the dot com crisis, the housing crisis, the banking crisis; do we REALLY need to keep suffering the damage of explosive bubbles when long standing problems come to a head or will we finally realize that the time to act and to change our ways is BEFORE permanent and extensive harm is done? An ounce of prevention and all…. or were you too busy getting foreclosed and watching your 401k languish to worry about the problems that might blow up in our faces next year or the year after that?
* * *
Comments and disagreements are welcome, but be sure to read the Comment Policy. If this post made you think and you'd like to read more like it, consider a donation to my 4 Border Collies' Treat and Toy Fund. They'll be glad you did. You can subscribe to the feed or enter your e-mail in the field on the left to receive notice of new content. You can also like BorderWars on Facebook for more frequent musings and curiosities.
* * *
Anton
Christopher
Lawrence Dillard
Lech
Stephanie
Essere
Don’t be stupid. There’s nothing wrong with our dogs, it’s all the toxins in vaccines and dog kibbles that is killing them and making them sick.
Jess recently posted..Random Doggage: Caged Heat
Yes the only reason they break out is because you let them play with rubber toys or other such nonsense. They must have gotten something under the kitchen sink, or got into the garbage. Oh, it is only like teenage breakout, it will pass. Kathy
How about go take a pill, or parnoid or some other mental disorder being labeled. Take the police coming to your home because one of these dingbats state your threaten to come over with a shotgun and kill her and her dogs. How about sitting somewhere in the woods and taking aim at your dogs legs. I had three shot in the leg…all on different days. How about loading crates of possibly 100 cats in horrible condition and dumping them on your property. How about shooting baby deer and a fox and dumping them on your property.
You bet Jana there is only one thing to do now…find like minded folks and use our tested collies. Breed for a healthy conformationally sound collie. How do you like smooths. Got a friend that has some humdingers.
Kathy
Here’s some words of advice to anyone getting into dogs:
Question every authority. Many of these people are full of shit, but they are so well-respected that you don’t see anyone calling them out.
Call them out.
If it sounds wrong to you, say it.
It’s the only way things are going to change.
You cannot get yourself caught up in the game of doing what everyone else does.
How do you think civilization advanced?
By everyone listening to their elders?
If everyone had that attitude, we’d be stuck in the Dark Ages right now.
“The reasonable man* adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man*.”
–George Bernard Shaw.
*Or woman.
There is too much groupthink in the dog world. There is too much acquiescence to dubious authority.
You’re better off failing on your own merits than succeeding at something that is ultimately based upon nothing more than the ego-stroking and the self-aggrandizement of so-called leaders and experts of both the past and present.
Sometimes, there is nothing more liberating than saying “I don’t care what you think of me.”
We need to learn to say this more.
For the sake of the dogs.
retrieverman recently posted..Tortoise sex
Excellent post Retrieverman. I agree 10,000%. 🙂
Kate
Kate: Honestly my friend who has been breeding 50 years called me two years ago when a dead puppy was born. Tears in her voice this is Monica on this post. Once we got it straight on new methods of dealing with Lethal Gray now that there was a marker. Wish it had been there when I got sued for breeding unhealthy collies by then the District Director of Maryland.
We fought blindly a three year court battle. It was not until we had PRA in the first champion not Brittany (remember no markers) That this champion’s outcrossed son a tri Male named Matthew a normal eyed, OFA excellent male we bred to a Candian Champion to a sable and white we purchased at a very heavy price, Jackie. This mating produced only one tri bitch Maggie. Jackie we loved but the mother from hell. She drop that puppy with the whites of her eyes showing like she produced an alien did not want anything to do with it. Maybe it was her instinct ..never Matthew or Jackie ( she was graded basically a go normal)were ever bred again.
We were black balled at every Vet save one in Maryland. We then began to travel all the way to Pennsylvania to Dr. Brown who is a Professor there for the more difficult diagnosis and treatments of varies issues.
So all things considered took what we believed was to be a more peacefully environment with all our collies to Missouri. We now realize should have not sought Peace and left our home state. The nature was beautiful, wild turkeys, and lots and lots of deer. There within just a day or so notice Maggie was not judging steps correctly and quite clumpsy. My daughter made an immediate appointment for an eye re-examine and health check.
I was busy so she went alone for this appointment. I can still see her face as she studdered and could hardly speak…when the letters came out she shouted was loud P R A!!! Catching her breath with the diagnosis in her hand…AND SHE SHOUTED she has Pituary diseasse. The eye doctor we had used on the East Coast was having an eye clinic in Nebraska. I called him with this news. We hauled 13 collies to this clinic from Missouri to Nebraska. I brough Grandmother along since this seemed the logical order. She had been CERF’d normal eyed two or three times. She was the last to be checked, when he gave the diagnosis of PRA we were speakless. My dear little Nat had taken a major at this location, and she wanted to go to the exact ring. A CCA member said, what is wrong you both look like you just seen a ghost or lost your best friend? Speachless just handed the document, not remembering or realizing similar breedings were in her pedigree and another one in Missouri.(I might add a born again—run don’t walk to the nearest exit.
I hope this partial story will catch you up as well. Oh according to Dr.Brown Brittany did not have Lethal gray…we do realize she might have been a carrier. Denise Gray good people told my daughter she had experienced it with the same breeder. So the witch hunt did alot of damage …all of damage to the peace and harmony of our lives. Honestly, saw a little rescued Border Collie last evening. She is not bred quality, but sure would like to have something like her in my home. The scars are deep but they have healed. Kathy
You bet it is and it comes from the heart.
Monica is the only collie breeder that I know who never bred a coloboma or a double dilute, let someone else be the scapegoat to take the blame if things got to close to them. I remember finding out through documents going back and forth through attorneys a statement made by then VP of CCA whom she said considers my daughter hers as well. Just love her to death. Well believe the death part. My daughter bred to her tri. She came to see the puppies (only two?)from way up north.
During the trouble period she also served as Ethics Board Chairperson. Seems the Maryland District Director had taken us up on charges of Ethics. We did not find out about this until litigation had been filed and then maybe a year and half into the proceedings. It seems the stolen or so called misplaced Vet files on my dogs were in her hands from the statements made to the court. A court order was filed for their return. She admitted they had been sent to her by the Complainant but she had burned them after determining she did not have a leg to stand on Ethics charges.
I called her and said, We would have much rather answered those charges.
Why were we not told and notified as members of the CCA?
I went into other points of law regarding American non for profit regulations to no avail.
Did I go to the Veterinary Board of Maryland …yes I did…too no avail.
Later she said, “I guess you and your husband think I am a terrible person?” My answer was…”indeed we do”…she then said, “But you do not understand they are my entire social circle”.. I said, “time to get some new friends because friends like this one does not need any enemies.”
We were accused of forging someone else’s signature on our applications. Until Brittany won at the Nationals. They could not have the top winning female owners not be in the CCA. So basically I wanted them to take their membership and stick it where the sun does not shine. My lovely naive daughter who use to always have a sweet hello for everyone…no more..Please Mom this can be an outlet and you know how much you love collies. We did have some good times her and I together.
She started a tough hide when they would whisper…who the hell do you think you are bringing a dog in here that finished in God knows where Nebraska? Her reply, you mean Steve Fields Parader country. Where you need three times the entry as the shows you go to with lower entries required?
The day one of our homebred nearly took first place with a great movement judge against the top Belgium Malnois in the country. Except a group stood outside the ring doing the can-can pushing themselves every which way I moved. He saw that and moved. You see it takes no instinct or brains to stand four square. Kathy
Be aware that if choose to become an iconoclast, you are letting yourself in for a bunch of trouble.
You will be reviled on breed mailing lists, message boards, and magazines. You will never be able to talk about what you are doing except among friends, or you will be attacked.
You will be put on multiple “Don’t sell a dog/puppy to this person” lists, making it difficult to buy breeding stock or obtain stud services.
People who do sell you dogs will be attacked as well. Other people, even though they may agree with you, will not sell you dogs because they fear being attacked.
You will spend the time when your puppies are young, a time which should be joyful, defending yourself from attacks on your dogs and yourself, as each new litter will become an excuse to renew opposition to you by your detractors.
People will lie continually about you, so that if you do wish to participate in, say, a mailing list, you will be constantly defending yourself.
You may be putting your dogs in actual physical danger from people who have no sense of perspective, and who will willingly hurt your dogs to hurt you, for example, by making false police or animal control reports.
It is not a decision to make lightly.
Jess recently posted..Random Doggage: Caged Heat
“I welcome their hatred” :
I’ve been called every name already.
Retrieverman recently posted..Cuban hairless dogs
It’s a different story when you have a breeding program. There are liabilities all over the place. As Jess said, getting stock, limiting the number of people who will help you expand your program by using your stock or becoming associate breeders, the lies and distortions, and the black balling.
And the fear from like minded people who don’t want to take the heat.
Plus your dogs become targets for bogus calls to animal control and even death.
You aren’t a breeder. Don’t trivialize the very real, psychotic hatred these people have. I have had people hit my blog that were searching for MY ADDRESS. They weren’t planning on sending me a nice present.
Not fitting the description of your typical make some cash crossbreeder infuriates people. That article in the SGHC Saluki magazine that printed my e-mail address? An international Don’t Sell to This Person post.
Jess recently posted..Random Doggage: Caged Heat
Yes, with some breeds, there is some leeway for antics– Scottie doesn’t have to face that with his Retrievers. However, I feel sorry for those who loved their dogs and must stand in unison to get access to others’ breeding stocks.
Look at how trialists villianized Chris. One would think they would be on his side!
Dave recently posted..Odd Photograph
The breding stock issue is solved when you discover that there are tons of people using the breed of choice as a crossbreeding venture.
In your case, it’s different.
It’s very unlikely that the GRCA would track down anyone who was crossbreeding, because to do that, they would have to have a full-time hit squad.
Plus, the truth of the matter is that in goldens, the best dogs don’t come from established breeders. If you really want a good one, look in the classified ads of the paper.
In your breed it’s different, you have to deal with them.
I bet there aren’t ten people worldwide who are crossbreeding KC salukis and Afghan hounds.
But how many goldendoodle breeders are there?
Retrieverman recently posted..The Sunset Limited
Collies are the same as goldens–the best ones are most definitely not in the hands of the show breeders! And while I am not crossbreeding personally, I am definitely not breeding show dogs (am I a *back yard breeder* who does extensive health testing and will take their dogs back at any time? I am difficult to pin down LOL!) and I have never gotten any flak from anyone. It is common to cross collies with English shepherds and I have loaned out my stud dog for just such a litter. No one cared. Now I guess if I went on the collie Yahoo list and started trumpeting about it, I might be able to stir up some outrage, but still I doubt it would be anything like what Jess has experienced with the Saluki people. Sorry Jess!!
I think this may be why the breed clubs all want popular breeds to become less popular.
Lower popularity means that they have more control over the gene pools.
retrieverman recently posted..The evolution of bone-crushing in hyenas and Borophagine dogs
“Keeping the dogs out of the wrong hands.”
I’ve heard of entire litters being bought for that reason.
Jess recently posted..Random Doggage: Punk Rock Girl
Yes indeed you have it right call them out, but it can be very risky to the peace and harmony of your home and yours animals. Kathy
^THIS. All of it.
Anna recently posted..RokGallery Template Integration
Anna all I get is down for maintenance?
My attitude is basically “If you want to kill me, kill me.”
I just don’t give a damn anymore.
Retrieverman recently posted..The Sunset Limited
Well they tired once and damn near did. Will they do it and finish the job this time? Kathy
It’s better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees.
–Attributed to Emiliano Zapata
Plus, if someone kills you after threatening you for doing what you’re doing, that person will have a much harder life than you will, even if he or she doesn’t get caught. You’re better off doing what you’re doing and not becoming a prisoner to someone else. Because they don’t really have the trump card. You do.
Retrieverman recently posted..The Sunset Limited
Well I survived and it took finding this group to prove to my daugher and family that I might be a little bent, but damn it I am not broken. Kathy
Bit boggled to find myself quoted on here! Just to say that I do understand the difference between inbreeding and population genetic diversity, but I was trying not to make my post too technical. It’s also worth noting that on that particular forum a lot of people are against dog breeding full stop, because they spend their lives trying to rehome rescue dogs. Which is a completely different ethical issue.
Indeed it is differnt issues when you regard the individuals who get “burn out”. I remember the first collie seminar I attended. At our table was a woman, who was so burned out from cleaning up after the breeders. I went home and added to sale contract: “If you decided for any reason that you will not keep this collie in your home at any time: Please contact us first before placing this collie in a shelter or any type of rescue program.” The Penalty for not fulling this stipulation of ownership will be three times the purchase price that check in the amount __________will be without any legal recourse to that program. Kathy