- UK report calls for tougher dog breeding standards (AP via The Washingon Post)
- UK inquiry urges changes to pedigree dog breeding (Reuters)
- Dog lovers must reform breeding industry themselves, report finds (London Times)
- Pedigree Dog Breeders Face Industry Shake-Up (Sky News)
- Inquiry calls for better care in pedigree dog breeding (BBC News)
- 'Long way to go' after dog inquiry (Jemima Harrison /BBC essay)
- Mutations in pedigree dogs 'must be bred out' (The Independent)
- Pedigree dogs - timeline of controversy (Independent)
- Leading Vet Charity Supports Change of Culture in Dog Breeding (K-9 Magazine)
- Dog breeding report: the facts (Telegraph)
- Every dog to be microchipped to reduce canine deformities, report rules (Daily Mail)
Hypocritical Kennel Club Complains Bateson Report “Not Enough” (K-9 Magazine) - RSPCA Responds to Bateson Report “The World has Woken Up” (K-9 Magazine)
- BBC: “Bateson Report a Kennel Club Own Goal” (K-9 Magazine)
- Vets Respond to Bateson Report (K-9 Magazine)
- Dog breeding concerns highlighted in Britain (AFP)
- All puppies to be microchipped according to new recommendations to Defra (Telegraph)
"The time has surely come for society as a whole to take a firm grip on the welfare issues that evidently arise in dog breeding."
-- Cambridge University professor emeritus Patrick Bateson
4 comments:
Here's a link to the Kennel Club's response http://www.dogmagazine.net/archives/4734/kennel-club-responds-to-bateson-report/
One thing I like that the KC is proposing which differs from Bateson's recommendation - "The [KC] database will go further than the report’s recommendation, as the data will be attributable to specific dogs, rather than being anonymous, and will give us a better picture of the health of pedigrees and crossbreeds." Bateson seems to believe that establishing (anonymous) prevalence of specific diseases within breeds will go a long way toward convincing breeders they must change their ways, which is probably true. But, IMHO, it's at least as important to have accessible, specific knowledge about disease in individual dogs. The Poodle Health Registry is an attempt to do this - but it receives absolutely no support from the national breed club (no surprise there - it's a closed, highly inbred circle). Contrast that with the Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier Club of America's open health registry (http://www.scwtca.org/openregistry/index.htm).
Maybe there is some hope afterall....
The KC offer sounds nice, but it's meaningless unless the health tests are obligatory (and the KC will oppose that).
What happens now is breeders have 10 dogs, know that 4 have bad hips, are worried about 2 others, and so they test the four dogs with good hips, and then post on their web site that "our dogs are tested" when in fact that's (mostly) not true. All the dogs may be bred, of course.
And will the KC refuse to register or revoke registration if a dog's scores are bad? They do not do that now. In the KC's Accredited Breeders Scheme (which is a standing joke by the way), dogs with broken hips are scored and still mated and still registered.
Finally, it should be noted that the testing being done here is for different purposes. Assigning a score to a specific dog is useful if you are thinking of buying a puppy out of (or off) of that dog.
"Herd health," however, is what Bateson is getting at. If you know that 85% of Cavalier King Charles spaniels have bad hearts, that tells you you need to shoot dead all the dogs in the registry and start all again. Ditto if 85% of English Bulldogs are ceasarian. You cannot "repair" a house that has fallen into its basement. Track "herd health" within a breed (as Bateson is suggesting), and you will at least have an early warning system in place for a few major health problems that are rising within the herd. Then you would change your breeding (and testing) regime accordingly. Keeping all the breeding in a close registry, of course, would have to be jettisoned in cases of breeds with small numbers and/or real endemic problems. You cannot "dig your way out" of a hole!
Patrick
The database I'm referring to (and I assume the KC is proposing be improved upon) is Bateson's recommendation for "the creation of a computer-based system for the collection of anonymised diagnoses from veterinary surgeries in order to provide statistically significant prevalence data for each breed." (pg. 45 in the pdf) As I interpret this, the database isn't about test results provided by breeders, but, instead, diagnoses done by vets - and reported by the same vets to whatever body maintains the thing.
As noted in the report, there are very few true "genetic" tests for most inherited diseases - e.g., there are, IIRC, only three genetic tests for standard poodles, and not one of these is for a disease/health problem that seems to be fairly prevalent in the breed (e.g., bloat, hd, Addison's, etc). And you are absolutely correct that a only "good" results for what tests that do exist are ever reported. (Peruse the CHIC/OFA database if you want to be amused - looks like all breeds are darned near perfect!)
I understand Bateson's recommendation to be about "herd health" - but I don't understand how one can breed away from the major problems in a breed if one doesn't know what's out there - who has it and who doesn't; who has produced it and who hasn't. This is especially true for the vast majority of diseases where the mode of inheritance is unknown.
Of course none of this matters if kennel/breed clubs won't let go of the myth of breed "purity," eh?
If kennel/breed clubs can't/won't employ a "stick" to enforce sane breeding strategies, then perhaps (as you have pointed out) the rise of the Internet and a more educated consumer base with access to verified health information will.
Time for me to stop - I'm not comfortable being optimistic. ;-)
As Patrick has indicated, there is a real problem with honesty from breeders concerning prevalence of health issues. For example, in breeds where deafness is common, many breeders simply put down deaf puppies and pretend they were never born. The same breeders will tout their hearing statistics. (Culling covers up a lot of data) In one way or another not reporting is the rule for many health problems. Many never see the vet about these problems. Breeders learn a lot about vet medicine and only go to the vet where intervention is required, and not always then. Pet owners will spend a lot to save a dog, breeders not generally.
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