> Note also that a few of the shortest-lived breeds (Miniature Bull Terrier, Bulldog,  and Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever) are medium-sized dogs."
>
>

I don't know about Bull Terriers and Bulldogs but the data for Tollers is seriously skewed. They are not a short-lived breed, 12-14 seems to be the average. A small number have died young from meningitis (which the breed club is funding research for) and there have been a few with cancer but the vast majority stay healthy until teens.

Same with most stats, i wish i could remember where i saw a paper on statistics stating that a very high % of statistics were statisticlly wrong lol.

If no-one want to own a breed because of issues in some how can breeders breed them out when there are no homes for the pups. 

Same with the non purebred, who is going to own the breeding interim stock and pups produced until you again have the type and health of dog you want?

> From her DLR 'pedigree'[if it is to be believed], she is not far from 'the right side of the blanket' as her parents and grand-parents are >
> known in the breed.

And that is hw9 godo lines get rubbished by bad breeders.  My friend and mentor would be turning in her grave to know how many pups have Ch Anton Av Eskamere behind them, thank God he was such a fine dog in character and so sound physically.  He was a personal freind of mine and stayed with me, also the sire fo my first litter.

Also the breed is not misclassifed in the Hound group as they are most definely a sporting/hunting breed. 

They can't go in with Gundogs as they do not retrieve, nor are they a Terrier.

Also the breed is not misclassifed in the Hound group as they are most definely a sporting/hunting breed.


Always thought the ElkHOUND part was a dead give away lol.

> Always thought the ElkHOUND part was a dead give away lol.

Ah that part is a mistranslation as Elghund should actually be elk dog. ;)

To be fair I would prefer to be under the FCI group structure with all Spitz in the same group, but they are in the right group based on our group structure.

Ah that part is a mistranslation as Elghund should actually be elk dog. ;-)

Haha my bad, thinking about it i remember my friend who shows hers telling me that and also that of a october he calls alot as he should be out hunting.

Completely off topic but this has to be the longest thread in CD history, my poor printer would die if I printed it off LOL

Was thinking same earlier :) will make a good read on a quiet day lol

You know what is said " There are lies, damn lies and statistics". 
Statistics are a very useful tool for analysing and interpreting data, but the provenance of the data must first be validated - 'muck in - muck out' so to speak!
Whilst this data and its interpretation is interesting, it proves nothing.  To be really serious about analysing longevity through statistics the population surveyed needs to be a far greater representation of each breed, type and size,  and authenticated to be a random sample of each population [that is representative of all types of ownership  - care, feeding, exercise, vet treatment etc;  breeding - puppy farmed, bred for health..; working or non-working] the list and variables go on. 
As has already been pointed out by other posters, the data supplied is already flawed by its origin [eg insured animals] and the originators of the survey; it could also well be restricted to KC reg'd dogs and/or owners' perception of what their breed actually is, plus vets are not always familiar with or expert in judging a dog's breed.  Additionally, without going to much in-depth about statistics, the median has been used which can skew the results by inclusion of extreme values [or outliers].; a line graph showing all data and the correlation [or not] between the variables would convince me more.

Furthermore, the maximum age stipulated for any dog in any group is 14.6 years - I have personally owned 2 dogs who have lived longer than that who were in groups with much shorter life-spans, and hopefully have another well on her way to surpassing this age.  I also am aware of dogs in 'my' breed living far beyond this age.  a breed that has no data given.
Could this be because these pedigree dogs are healthy and long lived?

I was thinking more about Pearl than Anton

Re the classification - I'm sure you''l correct me if I'm wrong - I thought that Elkies were and sometimes also still used as herders/guards/companions etc.  I believe the Norwegian gov't has rights on their usage in national emergencies.
Having read your later post I agree that a Spitz category would suit best, but still feel that Elkhounds suit working better than hound group.  They may not be the 'super' trainable type, but are still extremely adaptable to all kinds of work and activities and challenges.

> Ah that part is a mistranslation as Elghund should actually be elk dog.

It should actually be Moose dog:)

I don't know about Bull Terriers and Bulldogs but the data for Tollers is seriously skewed. They are not a short-lived breed, 12-14 seems to be the average. A small number have died young from meningitis (which the breed club is funding research for) and there have been a few with cancer but the vast majority stay healthy until teens.

Well, it wasn't a huge sample but there were more than the number of dogs in the KC health survey of Tollers (98). The KC found a median age of death of 8 - so a little higher than the international survey, but low for a gundog breed.  Where are you getting the 12-14 figure from?

And I'm afraid I don't share your view that the Toller is healthy. The breed has very little genetic diversity (every Toller is as related to each other as full siblings). At least one geneticist is calling for an outcross (to another breed) as a matter of urgency:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20646119

As can happen with breeds with little diveristy, the Toller suffers from auto-immune disease - SMRA (meningitis), SLE-related disease comprising immune-mediated rheumatic disease (IMRD) as well as Addison's disease.  Cancer, too, is immune-mediated.

Jemima

> It should actually be Moose dog:)

Well not quite Elk is the translation for European species of the animal the Americans call Moose. 

What the Americans call Elk is a Wapiti a large species of Red Deer .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose
The moose (North America) or Eurasian elk (Europe) (Alces alces) is the largest extant species in the deer family. .........

The animal bearing the scientific name Alces alces is known in Britain as the elk,[2] and in North America as the moose.............

Cool...so if Norwegian Elkhounds hadn't first been bred in Norway, but instead had been developed as a native hunting breed in America for what is more or less the same prey animal, they would be American (or Canadian perhaps?) Moosehounds!

nearly 'moosedogs' and should really be elkdogs in UK and they are Elghunds in Norway (though more precisely Norsk Elghund (Gra)

Really good post Heidi.  (Re: the statistics).

No, it's a European elk - alces alces.  Not a moose. :-)  They're not quite the same - a different subspecies.

I can't find out what the latin name for the North American moose is?
Most places define it as Alces alces also..... ?

There are several different subspecies in America.  For example, alces alces americana, alces alces shirasi and alces alces gigas.  The European elk is sometimes called alces alces alces, but is frequently just called alces alces. There are differences in size between the subspecies, and markings in some cases, and apparently, chromosomal differences too.  Not the same animal at all.

> I think the reference to retrievers being crossed as recently as WWII and in the years immediately after is a bit misleading, I thought that was done because of lack of numbers of some retriever breeds, not as a health concern?

It is misleading, it was not done because of a health concern it was done because of lack of numbers.

...and the absolute realisation that you couldn't boost numbers simply by inbreeding on just a handful of related dogs.

A lesson that has been forgotten by too many.

Jemima

>
> Well, it wasn't a huge sample but there were more than the number of dogs in the KC health survey of Tollers (98). The KC found a median age of death of 8 - so a little higher than the international survey, but low for a gundog breed.  Where are you getting the 12-14 figure from?
>
> And I'm afraid I don't share your view that the Toller is healthy. The breed has very little genetic diversity (every Toller is as related to each other as full siblings). At least one geneticist is calling for an outcross (to another breed) as a matter of urgency:
>
> [url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20646119" rel=nofollow]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20646119[/url]
>
> As can happen with breeds with little diveristy, the Toller suffers from auto-immune disease - SMRA (meningitis), SLE-related disease comprising immune-mediated rheumatic disease (IMRD) as well as Addison's disease.  Cancer, too, is immune-mediated.
>
> Jemima

Of course you don't think they're healthy - they're pedigree, how can they be healthy ;-)

The 12-14 figure comes from people who actually own the breed and obviously weren't represented in the survey - being a close knit breed we tend to know just about everyone and saying the expected lifespan is only 8 years old just doesn't make sense. Yes they have their health problems - but in the main these are juvenile health problems and they usually recover. My own 10 year old is still very healthy (nobody believes he's 10, usual guess is about 6), all his litter brothers and sisters are still here, and all his older brothers and sisters at 11.5 years old are all still here, and all still active and healthy, some still doing full size agility or cani-X. They're not an anomaly - we expect them to go into their teens.

As for the outcrossing to another breed - this is being proposed by a very new German club, and hasn't even said what breed that would be (regardless of what additional health problems that breed would bring!)

Anyone breeding to boost numbers is doing it for the wrong reason, surely? 

Like many of the other posters, although I agree with some of your principles, I disagree vehemently with what you've done with the PDE programme, to the reputation of those who choose to breed pedigree dogs, and go about it ethically.  What the programme did overnight was to prove to the vast majority of the public, who are (for the most part) ignorant about health testing and breeding, that pedigree dogs are all inbred and unhealthy.  Like many others, I have come across the arguments again and again, that pups/dogs are healthier because they aren't pedigree/KC registered, with absolutely no evidence to back that claim up, but many refer to PDE.  Only yesterday I posted in response on another forum to someone who queried from a photograph whether their pup was a pure staffordshire bull terrier or not, and did it matter in any case if it wasn't KC registered.  The answer is YES, it does matter, look at the amount of dogs in rescue and being put to sleep daily, a huge proportion of which are SBT's and SBT crosses, and even if they are pedigree, most don't bother registering them!!!  What PDE did with the way the material was presented about the health of a few pedigree breeds, was to give a licence to all those byb's and puppy farmers to claim their dogs are healthier, and churn even more of them out for the puppy buying public. 

The PDE backlash is still going on, and the dogs are the victims :(

> The PDE backlash is still going on, and the dogs are the victims :-(

Agree with every word and that is my issue.  it has set back education about good dog breeding years.

Scholarly articles and pressure to deal with given problems within the knowledgeable canine world would have been useful but tabloid journalism aimed at the 'dog ignorant' General Public has been very harmful.

At the end of the day Jemima, you can sprout all the figures and statistics you like... and lets face it as with everything else out of your mouth you will only use the ones that make you feel or look good....
The long and short of it is... that yes, things did need to change within the KC and pedigree dogs and most good breeders were doing this.. like everything else that requires change it is a slow process with ongoing work and research. BUT using sensationalism and frightening the general public half to death wasn't the way to do it.... and you CAN'T SEEM TO (OR SHOULD I SAY DON'T WANT TO, UNDERSTAND THIS)...so it seems to be YOU who has her fingers in her ears....

Our breed clubs (for our breed) brought health testing in LONG before you got up one morning and decided that you felt like being important... What has happened now? I sit here as a puppy co-ordinator with breeders who test for CEA/PRA, hips, elbows, HSF4, MDR1 and some also for cobolamine malabsorption and pelger huet who sometimes struggle to sell some puppies in their litters.... The puppy farmers in the breed? Well, they don't have a problem selling their dogs that may produce any of the above, but that is ok... because Jemima ridiculed pedigree dogs... so now what do we do, well we cross them with Border Collies, Cocker Spaniels etc etc.... making a working/herding dog even more wound up than it was... and placing them in family homes..... but that is ok, because now it is a cross breed.... And don't sprout that you are telling people that crossbreeds wouldn't have health issues... you should have done this in great detail on your programme..

You have set back good breeding and educating the public, years and years now... but I suspect you know that and are quite pleased because again it has made you feel important....  I don't know why people bother answering your questions to be honest, because you will only use comments that make you look like you know what you are doing....

Dogs best interests at heart..... pull the other one, it has bells on it... This is about YOU.... Try making a programme on the effect that YOU and your merry band of followers have had on the puppy farming world... you may find you would EARN some respect from people who genuinally care about their dogs.....

Me, I will just carry on as I always have...promoting health tested dogs, whilst also doing breed rescue and picking up the results of your misguided advice.....

Gabrielle

Excellent post Gabrielle.
Jemima seems completely unable to comprehend the damage she has done to dogs in the UK with her sensationalist mockumentary. She should be deeply ashamed, not proud of herself. Those of us working in breed rescue deal with the negative results of PDE every day.

I think that you speak for just about all, except for perhaps 3 people on this board, Gabrielle. :)  Well said.

> Anyone breeding to boost numbers is doing it for the wrong reason, surely?

Labradors and flatcoats originally came from the same root stock, the golden was a later offshoot. Flatcoats were well established before WWI in the UK and the Labrador was not so when they started appearing here they were crossed with flatcoats to boost their numbers, than bythe end of WWII the situation was the other way round we had more labradors than flatcoats. All retrievers for a long time after that were considered one breed with several types and frequently interbred. Dogs were registered as the type they most resembled, so from one litter you could have one registered as a labrador and another registered as a flatcoat. A dog from a flatcoat litter is behind most labradors today.

Early flatcoats were called wavy coated retrievers and some had colours and marking from their original breeds which made them up so you might find a brindle coloured flatcoat (a throw back to the St Johns Labrador, a breed behind labs and flatcoats) or with tan eye brows and feet like the gordon setter, and you can get white flashes on the chest from the collie or white on the tip of the tail or a paw. Even today some golden puppies are born with black hairs and flatcoats with white hairs. We have even had puppies who are silver grey at birth but turn black as they change their coats.

To get back to the point though we really did not have enough dogs left after WWII to keep the breed going, but as the two breeds had been inter bred before the war they shared a lot of common genetic material anyway. Some older breeders will tell you that the lab with a wave in it's hair down it's back get that from it's flatcoat ancestors.

Since diversion of the types into breeds oddly enough the flatcoat has less identified health problems than are identified for either goldens or labradors who have many more dogs in their gene pools than the flatcoat has.

Thanks Polly, I was sort of aware of that, but thanks for taking the time to put it down here.  My point was, if ever the case for outcrossing to a different, but closely related breed comes about, it's not simply to boost numbers, but to try and preserve a breed, and also do it in a way that retains breed type and importantly, keeps the gene pool healthy, ie doesn't introduce health issues that weren't previously associated as a problem within that breed. 

Am I right in thinking introducing genetic diversity with some breeds, has actually been disastrous in the past.  I'm thinking (although not entirely sure) that a boxer imported from the US introduced heart problems into the UK stock?  Could be way off the mark there but I'm sure I did read that somewhere a while ago. 

> Am I right in thinking introducing genetic diversity with some breeds, has actually been disastrous in the past.  I'm thinking (although not entirely sure) that a boxer imported from the US introduced heart problems into the UK stock?  Could be way off the mark there but I'm sure I did read that somewhere a while ago.

Completely correct.

We were just cracking AS, had all but wiped out Progressive Axonopathy and then along came BCM.....from the US.

>> Am I right in thinking introducing genetic diversity with some breeds, has actually been disastrous in the past.  I'm thinking (although not entirely sure) that a boxer imported from the US introduced heart problems into the UK stock?<

Yes there have been cases in several breeds, but this is also a popular sire syndrome problem too, because the dog is a new line, if breeders want to improve and introduce new lines many breeders will use the import, until such a time that the imported lines are as common as the ones already established. Another problem is caused when a kennel has a dominant position worldwide and all breeders choose to use dogs from this kennel which will have a similar outcome because most dogs from the dominant kennel will have common ancestors. An example of the dominant kennel problem was clearly evident when talking to an Italian breeder whose dog had gone BOB and was competing in the hound group at Crufts. He said the problem with the British breeders was that they would keep using sires from various kennels within the UK and rarely used Kennel 'X's dogs (a European kennel) which everyone else worldwide were going to because they were good sound dogs and won regularly. Having gone over Kennel 'X's dogs I would not say they merited the praise heaped upon them, but their influence worldwide will have a deleterious effect in the long term.

Going back to gundogs though if you compare for example the known eye diseases for labradors, goldens and flatcoats it is interesting that the two breeds which went on to have larger gene pools to play with have more eye problems.
Schedule A
Retriever (Flat Coated) - G
Retriever (Golden) - HC, CPRA, GPRA, MRD
Retriever (Labrador) - HC, CPRA, GPRA, TRD, MR

Schedule B Conditions under investigation
Retriever (Flat Coated) - GPRA
Retriever ( Golden) - MOD, CHC, G
Retriever (Labrador) - AP

Equally interesting is that the flatcoat has never been popular like both the labrador and golden, so the latter two breeds have been over bred by puppy farmers, bybs and other unethical breeders with little or no regard for health. In flatcoats when a health problem has been identified we do tackle it head but do it in a way that we are sure we are doing the right thing, everybody in the breed Societies know what is going on. When a dog went blind in 1980 the owner published the fact in the breed newsletter and so everybody was able to get their dogs tested, we had no further cases for ten years then suddenly it popped back up again, since then we have a failure every so often but by far and away the majority will now pass an eye test.

As flatcoats still are not as popular as pets due to their very boisterous nature we still have the ability to decide what we would like to get our dogs tested for and the majority of breeders will follow this guidance. The GPRA under investigation has been added at the request of the breed club as we have heard that some dogs overseas have GPRA although the cause is not clear, since it seems to be appearing in clusters. The other way a disease is added to the investigations list is if the eye experts find a significant number of dogs in that breed with a condition. The dogs remain on the under investigation list until it can be determined whether or not the condition is established as a problem then the condition listing is changed to Schedule A. If a breed has no cases found when on the schedule B it will be removed and likewise a condition on schedule A can also be moved to the B schedule. Schedule B examination results are not published but all schedule A results are published in the BRS and can be seen on the KC health database.

Jemima seems completely unable to comprehend the damage she has done to dogs in the UK with her sensationalist mockumentary.

The damage was being done to dogs long before the PDE programme and research and reports were already well documented pre 2004 highlighting the problem!  It was a poster on this forum that first posted links to the reports that I read!!.

It isn't JH that has damaged dogs - she just happens to be the whistle blower.  But like all whistle blowers, they're the ones the get the flack when the time is called on the real perpetrators which is so unfair.  How could JH have exposed problems that weren't there.  All the issues that were raised in PDE were very real problems and often quite prevelant and she was absolutely right to higlight them because it is only negative feedback that makes changes.  If all people hear is that 'everything is OK' then nothing changes and obviously, things were not OK!

Excellent post Polly and some excellent research, but feel the following should be added regarding the eye testing and Schedule 'A' 

Schedule A is a list for breeds where there is
considered enough scientific information to show that an eye condition is inherited.

Until then dogs in the UK are not added to the KC's Open Database (i.e. results are not published) until the above criteria applies, if they were on an Open database before the scienfitic evidence considered the condition is inherited then possibly good bitches/studs would be eliminated from breeding and thus decreasing the gene pool, this in turn would allow other, possibly more deleterious conditions to come to the fore.

Flatcoats were only put on Schedule A for G in 1997 - since then the number of Flatcoats diagosed with G has steadily decreased and this is only because the owners/breeders are health conscious and are encouraged to have their dogs tested at each generation, great progress has been made especially by those who were unfortunate enough in the early days to have dogs in their kennels fail the G test, and this has been accomplished without having to narrow the gene pool.   As yet there is not a DNA test available for G as it is considered to be polygenic.

Jemima seems completely unable to comprehend the damage she has done to dogs in the UK with her sensationalist mockumentary. She should be deeply ashamed, not proud of herself. Those of us working in breed rescue deal with the negative results of PDE every day.

Mick, she knows EXACTLY what she has done.... but the aftermath isn't her problem is it... it is the passionate, caring and loyal breed people picking up the pieces while she has fun with her 'facts and figures'....

Gabrielle

Thanks for making this clear. It just goes to prove that taking breeding decisions is not as easy or as black and white as people including Jemima believe.

Going back to the worldwide view which does have an impact on UK breeders. Another breed have the problem that some dogs were introduced which were bred from unregistered stock, and many dogs bred in the UK have these dogs behind, unfortunately overseas breeders will not buy this stock neither will they allow their dogs to be used for breeding with this stock. Even though the KCs of each country have reciprocal agreements regarding registration some overseas KCs will not register the progeny from this breed with the unregistered dogs in the pedigree which is why the overseas breeders will not use the stock with the unregistered stock behind them.

It just goes to prove that taking breeding decisions is not as easy or as black and white as people including Jemima believe.
I think that those who make all the noise would better direct their efforts if they tried to do what they keep talking about and breed some perfect dogs.  Then they'd find that genetics is about probabilities and not black and white facts that they think they are quoting.  I don't think that any of them are actually trying to improve any breed are they?  Just complaining about those who are - that's the easy bit! 
And for every expert that you quote, there will be another expert who thinks exactly the opposite.

What's the old saying "Empty vessels make the most noise"???

> Thanks for making this clear. It just goes to prove that taking breeding decisions is not as easy or as black and white as people including Jemima believe.
>
>

Yes Polly breeding decisions are at times very difficult to make, and all the tests that are available are only tools to be used in helping one to breed better stock, there are so many variables, and one has to look at the whole dog, and how she/he can benefit a breed or how much damage can be done, it is definitely not black and white and sometimes there are grey areas.   And we all know that there are areas that require improvement, but only by going about it in the correct fashion will change be brought about, owners/breeders have to be educated and encouraged and allowed time to make the changes that are needed without having to decimate their kennel.

Your next paragraph made me smile, it would seem then that the problem would be world wide.

> What's the old saying "Empty vessels make the most noise"???

Too true! lol

> Your next paragraph made me smile, it would seem then that the problem would be world wide.

Writing for the canine press you get to see and hear a lot of different information that many other owners and breeders would not as it does not affect their breeds, you get to meet a lot of people in other groups apart from gundogs. Not everything we get told is published either as sometimes a breed club will request that the article is with held from publication until they have sorted things out others never come to much and are not published.

What damage though suzieque?  Yes, I can understand and agree with the point of view that some of the ethics of the breeders that were highlighted were abismal, to knowingly use dogs that will pass on a condition that could prove painful, and/or fatal.  Parts of the programme made me squirm, and let's face it, that's what it was out to do, shock tactics. 

But, what the programme didn't do, was give a balanced view, it didn't highlight all the health testing that was already being carried out and used towards good breeding practices, nor give examples of good, ethical breeders with healthy animals.  So the impression that left with the general public, was that this was a representation of all breeders and pedigree breeds.  I understand Labradors were possibly going to be one of the breeds highlighted in the programme originally, I'd be interested to know what particular health issue would have been shown. 

When I think back to the first Labrador I knew and loved, a big yellow dog called Bracken, he was old when I first met him, riddled with arthritis and had cloudy eyes, and spent his days wandering off around the loch where my Aunt used to live.  That was in the early 80's, long before health testing of any kind was common place, or even heard of, dogs got lame and blind as they grew old, pretty much as we do, it was expected.  Nowadays, I fear the opposite is the case, some feel that we need to have a breed that suffers from nothing, and yet these are animals and all animals have health problems.  I think it will be very interesting indeed when we have ten or more health tests for a breed, and have no choice but to breed dogs that have the propensity to develop something within their life time, or not to breed at all (not that I have yet, but still am fascinated by it all). 

Jemima seems completely unable to comprehend the damage she has done to dogs in the UK with her sensationalist mockumentary

Jemima has not done the damage, people who breed dogs with terrible deformities who are unable to enjoy a normal dogs life have done the damage.

If breeders were not breeding dogs like this; there would be no PDE, there would of been no need for it.
If you are a breeder who is breeding healthy dogs, don't you want to expose the ones who are'nt? Or do you only care about your own breed?
PDE didnt come a moment to soon, this viel prastice has been going on to long.

I have noticed some poster refering to dogs as 'Stock' how awful, they are not cattle or things in a shop. They are our best friends and such be given the respect they deserve. 

>If you are a breeder who is breeding healthy dogs, don't you want to expose the ones who are'nt?

Of course - and how much more effective to also show just how bad these practices are by also showing the breeders who do things the right way? Instead the programme lumped all breeders of pedigree dogs together (with the ones who show their dogs being the worst of all), and turned people straight to the breeders who don't register puppies or make sure the parents are good eamples of their breed. How on earth has that helped?

It's like saying that everyone who attends a football match is a hooligan who'll fight and riot at the drop of a hat. Yes, there are football hooligans, but they're a very small minority. Tarring everyone with the same brush is at best misleading and at worst a total lie; and that's not good journalism.

> I have noticed some poster refering to dogs as 'Stock' how awful, they are not cattle or things in a shop

That was me, but if you are going to misinterpret the post in which appeared like this then it is obvious that you are here to cause trouble rather than to discuss in an adult fashion. To discuss something means to listen as well and think about what the other people opinions are, not pick imagined faults in a post. Even the talk about breeding has caused the topic to stray, however I have gone along with it as I had obviously misguidedly thought I might be able to point out that dog breeding is not a "black and white situation" as some people think it is. Clearly for you I have completely been wasting my time. I shall therefore not say any more as you clearly do not want to listen.

I have also used the term 'breeding stock' it is not just Polly, I wonder why you think that it is a derogatory term, I cannot see anywhere that it has been used in such a way.

Below is a link for you:

http://www.dogsey.com/dog-breeders.htm

which uses the term stock when referring to dogs, it is also a useful link as it covers byb, puppy farmers etc.,

I sincerely hope that Polly continues to give out her balanced and informative facts.

I think that those who make all the noise would better direct their efforts if they tried to do what they keep talking about and breed some perfect dogs.  Then they'd find that genetics is about probabilities and not black and white facts that they think they are quoting.  I don't think that any of them are actually trying to improve any breed are they?  Just complaining about those who are - that's the easy bit! 

...yep that's my feelings as well - if we're doing such a bad job then let our detractors have a go - let them 'save' the pedigree dog world by producing heathy well constructed dogs of excellent temperaments who look like their breed - perhaps if they can show us how 'easy' it is to do we might have a bit more respect for their opinions !

Yvonne

Since diversion of the types into breeds oddly enough the flatcoat has less identified health problems than are identified for either goldens or labradors who have many more dogs in their gene pools than the flatcoat has.

It isn't the amount of health problems that are the real issue - it's their prevalence. It is the case that flatcoats are healthier in terms of eyes (and hips too) and this is undoubtedly testament to very vigilant breeders who have embraced testing and the breed not being as popular as goldies and labs. Unfortunately, as of course you know, the biggest problem in flatcoats is something you can't test for: cancer, particularly soft-tissue sarcoma, which kills too many flatties too young.  Over 50 per cent lost to cancer in the cohort study done by the Cambridge team so I think one has to be careful about making claims re flatcoat health.

There's also juvenile renal dysplasia being investigated, following some worrying puppy deaths,  and after testing at the Champ Show last year revealed a frighteningly high rate of flatcoats carrying the JRD gene. As it happens, I am not sure the current panic about this is justified as there is a question mark over the validity of the test being offered. Given the small gene pool (every flatcoat in the Cambridge study went back to a single common ancestor), monitoring the situation rather than culling would appear to be the most sensible approach. What's the latest on this, Polly?

Jemima

Suzieque wrote " The damage was being done to dogs long before the PDE programme and research and reports were already well documented pre 2004 highlighting the problem!  It was a poster on this forum that first posted links to the reports that I read!!.

It isn't JH that has damaged dogs - she just happens to be the whistle blower.  But like all whistle blowers, they're the ones the get the flack when the time is called on the real perpetrators which is so unfair.  How could JH have exposed problems that weren't there.  All the issues that were raised in PDE were very real problems and often quite prevelant and she was absolutely right to higlight them because it is only negative feedback that makes changes.  If all people hear is that 'everything is OK' then nothing changes and obviously, things were not OK!"

No-one here is denying that there are serious problems in a tiny minority of breeds. Similarly, no-one here is claiming that everything is 100% rosy in the world of pedigree dogs in general. What we are incensed about is that the programme targeted all pedigree dogs, not just those few breeds with real issues, and by doing so damaged the reputation of thousands of ethical and caring breeders, while giving succour to the worst type of opportunist commercial breeder whose interest in dogs begins and ends in their bank account. Aided and abetted by the moronic RSPCA (ex) Chief Vet, Mark Evans and his "parade of mutants" comment, this has caused immense damage to the cause of healthy dogs in the UK.

Completely off topic but this has to be the longest thread in CD history, my poor printer would die if I printed it off LOL

Proving, I guess, that you can have a discussion with some people.

Jemima

> one has to be careful about making claims re flatcoat health.

I was not making a claim about flatcoat health I was simply using the publically available data on eye conditions which everyone can check to show how since the divergence of the breeds how flatcoats have remained by comparison less affected by eye conditions than their cousins the golden retrievers and labrador retrievers, despite having the smaller gene pool. The big difference being that flatcoats are less popular and have not been taken up by so many back yard breeders and puppy farmers than the golden or labrador retrievers have been unfortunately. They have the larger gene pool but apparently according to the British Veterinary Association figures have more eye problems.

Flatcoat owners and breeders have never denied we have other health problems and have for many many years supplied tissue, including getting our dogs who have passed away to a vet for autopsy, which is not helped when people who have a dog die unexpectedly do not have an autopsy done, but then simply assume it was cancer or some other problem and even go so far as to tell everyone it has died of cancer when they have not had the dog autopsied nor supplied Cambridge with tissue samples. Not only that but flatcoat owners and breeders have been funding research for many many years.

Regarding the JRD issue we are following the guidance and advice of our breed club health committee who are very wisely proceeding with caution and making information known to members at each step along the process.