How do you ask?

[Irena]

Inherited health and temperament (or, rather, problems thereof) are two questions that have been bothering me for a long time now. This topic is more focused on health (because of how serious it is and because of the VARIETY of problems) but the same applies for temperament too.

The way I see it, a way to go is either learning about any possible problems in the lines that interest you (not very realistic, especially for an ordinary person who just wants a healthy puppy of this breed), or finding a breeder that KNOWS what s/he is doing and who you can TRUST.

My question #1 however is this: for example, you go to someone's website and see that they are planning a litter. HOW, and WHAT questions do you ask, if any, to determine how knowledgeable the breeder is (*means well but is not aware of many problems, *breeds only for titles and is not aware or interested in problems, *is aware of problems but breeds to succeed in the ring anyway) How and what do you ask to determine if you will hopefully get a genetically healthy puppy? (Edited to add: "hopefully" because ALL breeders may have problems at some point and NOBODY is protected against them, even if we mean well and do the research)

Question #2: You go to someone's website that you don't know, or meet someone at a show with a stud that interests you because of the looks, pedigree, working ability etc. HOW and WHAT questions do you ask to determine if you will not end up with problems if you breed your bitch to this stud?
Is making sure that they don't have common ancestors really a safe and easy way to determine it? If not, how DO you find out about it?

[Weims]

Hi Irena,

I would ask to see a copy of the intended litters pedigree. I would ask how many litters the bitch has had. I would ask if I could contact puppy owners of any previous litters. Find out how long the person has had the breed, if they are members of a breed club. What do the breeders know about the parents and grandparents and great grandparents of the litter. A decent breeder should be prepared to tell you if they have had any problems in their lines although many wont

I am currently looking for a stud dog. I have seen a couple of dogs at shows that I like the look of. I have a copy of their pedigrees, one is a well known SH CH and he has sired a few litters. I have been to see a litter sired by him and the bitch was from similar lines to my own bitch so it gave me an idea of what to expect. The other dog I dont think has been used a lot, in fact I think it may only be once. But behind this dog are some nice dogs and Ihave spoken to people who have had the breed for much longer than I have and have asked what the dogs back in his pedigree were like and the temperament. There doesnt appear to be health or temperament problems but one never knows, when doing total outcrosses, whether the lines will gel or fall apart. Not having any/very few comman ancestors can be as problematic as line breeding.

Breeding is a matter of trial and error. Doing your research and most important of all is talking to people who have had the breed for many many years and who remember dogs of old.

Here in the UK we have seminars on breeding, studding, genetics and I am attending as many as I can in order to learn as much as possible.

To answer your questions in a black and white manner isnt possible, everything depends on what you are looking to improve in your bitch and how honest breeders are willing to be with you. Seeing dogs at shows and how it reacts with the other dogs and people can give an indication of temperament but the genetic makeup can only be found out with research.

Hope I havent waffled on too much ..

Lynn

[Sylvia]

Well, there are not special questions I can say that I ask before.

By buying Vidar we had already the bad luck that we bought Shena who has an overbite. We came in contact with the breedes of Vidar. We have talked with them a lot of times. I asked them questions about all kind of things, about their own breed dogs, about other breeders their dogs.. Health questions, I asked them questions about thing I already did know, to look what kind of answer there would come. Well a very tricky manner ;D But I founded out that they are very honoust about everything... About their breed dogs, about dogs of other kennels. They give their opinion how they look at it.

With Felicia the same before we even said (we did the same with Vidar) to buy a puppy I already looked into the bloodlines she uses for breeding, I already talked a lot with her. And the same as above, the honousty of her. Her opinion how she thinks.

Well. I am really happy with our little boy Vidar and how it is going with Felicia already right now I am very happy with her too.

The first stud we used was a dog breed by the breeders of Vidar, so if you read about buying Vidar. You know already what I did know, I know almost everything about their bloodlines, their breed and where they work on.
For Felicia I am already look around now for a stud, what I want I don't know yet..... But at the time we maybe can breed with her I know enough already.

A nice philosofy which the breeder of Felicia has on her site
"It is not a shame that there is something wrong with onces dog.
But it is a shame to try to hide it!"
Well I think that is the most important

[marjolein]

Being open is indeed the most important thing when it comes to breeding. Unfortunately, a lot of breeders/stud dog owneras aren't open at all. Sometimes I even think they just breed for the money instead of trying to breed a litter which is better than both parents.
When I ask questions to a stud owner, of course I ask about health, about hunting abilities, character/behaviour towards people and other dogs. I ask for show results too. I'm also curious about their future plans. Are they willing to use him on every bitch that comes by or just a selected group?
I also try to contact the owner of the stud dogs mom and the stud dogs dad. If it's possible, I'll speak to owners of littermates too and/or other relatives.
But in the end, you can't be sure what to expect from a litter. Breeding is gambling, although you can rule out many things.

[christina]

***** HOW, and WHAT questions do you ask, if any, to determine how knowledgeable the breeder is ....


There is no easy answer. I guess, in order to get some idea about how knowledgeable a breeder is, you'd first need to gain a good understanding of which diseases are about and what their clinical symptoms are. This will help you to judge for yourself if a breeder is talking off the top of his/her head or if he/she has got proper knowledge. This is relatively easy with all the well known genetic diseases like HD, ingrown eyelashes and all the other illnesses that good breeders routinely check their breeding stock for. The difficult questions to ask are the ones about immune mediated disorders. And the combination of many breeders "not wanting to know", or genuinely not knowing, does not make it any easier.

Knowing what I know now, before committing to a puppy, I would very carefully look at a 5 generation pedigree of both parents. Personally I feel very strongly about inbreeding and linebreeding. If there were any inbreeding in the pedigree, I would (NOW) leave well alone. Linebreeding (distant cousins etc), I suppose, is unavoidable, but any doubling up and I would be out of there. This is my personal view, and I understand that many people will feel differently. There are good arguments in favour of linebreeding - type, temperament et al. But the flaw with this kind of breeding is that when you "fix the trait", you double up and fix both, the good and the bad, and every time you linebreed, you weaken the immune system further.... and, given time, this will lead to auto-immune diseases. To my mind, anybody doing linebreeding should first do their homework and study at least the basics of genealogy. I know that some breeders are educating themselves, but there are many who don't. I found a very interesting article that IMO every dog person, but breeders in particular, should read and more to the point - understand and consider. The website is
www.ashgi.org/articles/immune_rising_storm.htm

This article is excellent, mind boggling.... and it is very long. My advice to anybody - don't glance at it when you are in a rush. Settle down with a cuppa, gather your dogs at your feet and then start reading.

I said above 'learn the clinical signs for immune mediated diseases' .... this is not an easy task. But a good way to start would be to learn and read about the most common of all - Hypothyroidism. HypoT is probably as complex as it gets, has got over 50 clinical symptoms, yet many dogs display only one or two of them in the beginning of the disease. <which is why I keep shouting "check the thyroids" whenever I hear about sudden aggression, recurrent skin infections, yeast probs, eye probs, coat loss, limping, seizures.... you name it !> So yes, that would be an important question to add to the list of enquires for the breeder. Are both parents regularly checked for Hypothyroidism..... and does the breeder know what to look for in the test results. This is not as daft as it sounds, because unfortunately many vets are not quite as versed on the subject as one would hope. The goal posts on interpreting Hypothyroidism have been shifted, and opinions are still divided. Personally I follow Dr. Jean Dodds lead. She is (and not only to my mind) *the* world's greatest expert on immune mediated diseases.... she is brilliant!

I could go on for hours, but there is only so much one can say before everybody gets fed up reading ..... so I better finish here.

Christina

[Sylvia]

christina said:

[color=BlueThere are good arguments in favour of linebreeding - type, temperament et al. But the flaw with this kind of breeding is that when you "fix the trait", you double up and fix both, the good and the bad, and every time you linebreed, you weaken the immune system further.... and, given time, this will lead to auto-immune diseases.

Christina, I can only agree with you, you think exactly the same as me. But the most people don't (will not) see it.

[smokeybear]

Unfortunately the fact that dogs do not present with any clinical signs of any immune related disorders does not mean that they do not have any; they may present sub clinically and they may not have been exposed to the triggers that will reveal the predisposition/weakness they already possess in their genetic make up.

Fortunately there are enough dogs about to be able to find out about the full background of many ancestors for those in the know, it is, however, much more difficult for those who are not able/willing to access unbiased and clinical viewpoints.

Doubling up on dogs does not inevitably lead to auto immune diseases, if it did then we would see a much greater incidence and to take this view is, IMHO, a rather simplistic approach.

One has to be skilled as well to be able to accurately identify whether or not a dog's temperament is PURELY down to genetics, whether it has been aggravated by the environment/handling etc or whether it is actually CAUSED by the owner etc.

Nature v nurture, hmmm, this debate is as old as time and there are no clear cut answers as yet!

There are flaws in any permutations and choices of breeding, whether it be line breeding or complete out crosses and each decision must be weighed up to see if the potential pros may or may not outweight the cons.

I count myself extremely lucky to have intimate knowledge of several generations on both sides of my present and previous bitches and that information has proved, over several years, to be an accurate predictor of health, temperament and working ability.

Unfortunately not everyone is able to be that lucky.