Maybe we don't need to "cure" cancer; maybe we need to prevent it.
And how can we do that?
Simple: End the Kennel Club's closed registry system.
The fact cross-bred dogs are healthier than pedigree dogs is memorialized in most dog health insurance rates. For a table making that point, click here.
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5 comments:
We have to be a little careful when looking at purebred dog data from the UK and Europe. It doesn't necessarily translate to the rest of the world because a lot of damage was done to the diversity of a wide variety of breeds by two world wars followed by strict barriers to imports due to rabies quarantines.
In my breed, it's well documented that major kennels (meaning people and dogs, not buildings) and entire bloodlines in the UK were wiped out during the Blitz. So much damage was done to the "Manchester Terrier" that the KC opened the studbook and allowed cross-breeding with the English Toy Terrier (it's on breed with two varieties in US) and a few limited imports from the US. If you look at health data on the breed(s) collected in the UK compared to the 2002 Health Survey conducted in North America, you'll note many of findings are quite different.
The 6 month quarantine requirement for dogs seriously discouraged imports up until just recently. Since the implementation of the "Pet Passport" scheme, a number of dogs have been imported from the US into the UK, Europe, and Australia. It will be interesting to see if that makes and impact on the health problems reported over the next 10 years.
This is nonsense Carolyn.
Let's start with the simple: WWII ended more than 64 years ago, and it lasted all of 5 years, and Britain was never invaded. The Blitz did not drop bombs all over the UK -- it was centered on London (more than half of all human deaths), and no British breed that was not on the edge already was pushed over the edge by the war.
Your smooth-coated breed, the Manchester terrier, is a dog that serves no purpose other than has a pet, and it has never been very popular (not now, and not in the past). It was not among the first dogs brought into the Kennel Club, and as late as the 1950s the standard Manchester Terrier had no breed club at all in the U.S. Today, it has fewer registered dogs than the "Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever."
The Manchester terrier in the UK got down to 11 or 12 dogs in 1945, but they are not that much higher in number now, are they? No they are not -- as of 2008, there were only 113 in the entire country! See >> http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/big-question/the-big-question-why-are-so-many-british-dog-breeds-in-danger-of-extinction-773073.html
This is simply a very unpopular dog. I cannot explain why, other than to note that its coat is unsuited for outdoor, the dog is not as attractive to most people as other breeds are, and black dogs in general are rarely as popular as colored ones.
Did WWII create genetic bottle necks for a few breeds? Yes -- but very few breeds, most of them rare regional breeds (often poorly differentiated) in heavily occupied countries such as Belgium and Holland.
The Manchester was on its knees well before WWII and it has never gotten up off it knees since.
As for American canine cancer rates, I think we can hold our own with anyone in the world! Are our Great Danes living longer? No! Our Scotties? No! Our Flat Coated Retrievers? No!
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I discovered a high amount of inbreeding in the bloodline that includes the ancestors of the golden and flat-coated retrievers, breeds I love very much.
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/moonstones-secret/
Lots of brother-sister matings and mother-son matings.
The flat-coat and golden derive from a dog called a wavy-coat. It was standardized largely by Sewallis Shirley, the founding president of the Kennel Club.
This inbreeding really hurt the flat-coat when its numbers dropped in the Interwar Period. At the same time, the golden became a separate breed. The golden's diversity held on a bit longer because the golden represented the strains that had setter closer in in its pedigree.
But now, the centuries of closed registry breeding have really taken their toll in both breeds.
Open up the registries today!
I got a bit curious as to what happened to the Manchester, and looked it up. After all, we still have black and tan hunting terriers (in the field with a Patterdale on Friday) and smooth coated terriers (also in the field with one on Friday)
The answer is that very early on the Manchester Terrier was crossed, reduced, and ruined. As John Walsh (Stonehenge) writes:
"Unfortunately, in the early part of this century, in order to increase his elegance, recourse was had to the Italian greyhound, producing cross intermediate between the two in shape but maintaining the delicacy of constitution and the cowardice of the greyhound to such an extent as to make the dog unfit for the purpose to which young men generally put their pets. This little dog was then generally known as the spider-terrier, but he is now altogether out of fashion, the ladies, who greatly admired him at first, having discarded him in favour of the fox-terrier which is certainly more in accordance with their ulster coats than the poor little trembling animal who formerly shared their caresses with his foreign parent, the pug of the Blenheim spaniel. Whether or not show English terriers of the present time still go back to the Italian, it is admitted that they are not so hardy and courageous as the fox-terrier, the Bedlington or the Dandie, and consequently there may be some reason for the neglect of the breed by the public at large. Still, as a house dog pure and simple he is not to be surpassed, being clean in his habits, free from skin smell (though he is apt to have foul breath if not carefully fed), and easily taught tricks ; but, on the other hand, he is apt to be jealous of rivals, whether canine or human, and is not very particular in his attacks on his foes, whether he dos injury with his teeth or not. His bark also is shrill and loud, and not very readily stopped, occasioning some considerable annoyance to visitors entering the room where he is. It may, therefore, be gathered that in my opinion the Manchester and white English terriers are not such desirable companions as several of the breeds that have supplanted them." http://www.canadamt.com/education/read/history/stonehenge6.htm
This last line is a reference to the so-called "English White" terrier which was similarly wrecked at about this time, and which is not gone from this earth (thank God, as it was often deaf as well as useless).
P.
The Flat-coat is thought to have had a very similar thing happen to it, although I can't find any smoking guns. I have no proof for this, but I have read it many times. The flat-coat was crossed with the borzoi to make its head narrower and muzzle long and thin. If you see some European show flatties, they really do have this anteater type head. Most American flat-coats have more golden-type heads, but if you've seen one, you'll be shocked. They aren't that common.
The dogs were believed to not have the tractability that their ancestors once had, and when that reputation became well-established, the Labrador became the top working retriever.
As far as I know this happened only to certain show strains of flat-coat in Europe. It did not happen to the golden or the strains of flat-coat that were primarily used as gun dogs.
Of course, you can breed narrow heads and long muzzles with nary a drop of sight hound blood. It's what happens when you breed for looks alone and start to blood from dogs that don't have the same utility as your breed. They eventually get a bad reputation, even if it's not true.
I wish I could get some conformation on this rumor of borzoi blood in the flat-coat. I've read it more than once.
Interestingly, I knew a rat terrier that could pass for a toy Manchester. She was an excellent squirrel dog,and produced several litters of good feists for her owner.
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