Do you think DNA profiling for ABS members dogs should be compulsory?
if you could just reply with yes or no that would helpful. Thanks.

No.

Yes

No

Polly why not set a poll up and then people can put the reasons why they say yes or no then you will have one page with the count of yes and no answers but more importantly the reason behind the votes.

No. I think being made to take notice of health test results, not just to DO them, would be far more valuable.  What's the point of knowing that your dog/bitch has a grade 2 or 3 elbow score and still breeding from him/her.

How do you do that?

OK found it... thanks LJS I had not realised we could add a poll.

> What's the point of knowing that your dog/bitch has a grade 2 or 3 elbow score and still breeding from him/her.

Surely though if all good breeders vote which dogs/bitches to use and choose not to use higher scoring stock that would limit this type of poor breeding decision?

No.

Profiling in itself is of little use unless if goes along with parentage verification, for the rtesulting puppies.

The biggest problem from a breeders perspective is that if they wish to use an overseas dog or one that isn't widely used or perhaps well bred but in a pet home it may be difficult to get the owner to go to the trouble for perhaps just one mating ever.

For example it is already a big risk for an owner of a male I might approach to ask them to do all the health testing and then possibly their dog won't have good results, or may fail to mate, this is yet another thing to do with no obvious benefit like health testing has.

In my breed all breeding stock is required to be health tested before breeding so they will all have permanent verifiable ID in the form of a Microchip or Tattoo.

Barbara how does that work then as how do you enforce that rule before anybody breeds ? If the DNA profiling is done on a wider and more regular basis it becomes the norm and would also become cheaper to do do why would you need to persuade people?

Well what advantage to the owner is shelling out for the DNA profile?  Their dog already has positive ID to take part in health testing schemes. 

The chances of a 'ringer' in the showring are pretty remote.  Would love to see someone putting down their KC fee and getting show staff to DNA swab an exhibit before it went home

You I can't use it to get the dog home if lost like scanning for a chip or reading a tattoo, well you could but it would take a while to test compare etc, is there even a central log, so the only time it is likely to be of use is should someone dispute a dogs identity?  How often is that likely to happen.

So the only use would be in parentage disputes, but how often is there a doubt/dispute?, a pet owner won't realise even if the identity was in doubt.

So unless all pups are DNA identified before registration and their samples compared to those of the purported parents then what is the use.  I'd rather spend the £20 on dog chews.

> Barbara how does that work then as how do you enforce that rule before anybody breeds ?

ABS breeders have to have health tested the dogs used, including proving the required tests done on dogs overseas.  I had to provide the OFA hip data for the stud I used even though the details are not included on pups reg records.

Well what advantage to the owner is shelling out for the DNA profile?  Their dog already has positive ID to take part in health testing schemes.

Exactly. It doesn't add anything vital but it gives us even more outlay than the BYBs have (and we already have more as we health test), and it may discourage more people from joining.

Adding on at the end here.. I've heard of certain breeders who say allow Bitch A to have a litter, however the litter is registered as Bitch B's. Unless people know these bitches inside and out who can stop this practice? I think DNA profiling will work if using UK dogs, i've not looked into it as to how it would work for foreign dogs, but with it only being a swab, depending on how quickly it needs to reach the lab probably many European countries and Ireland would be ok.

I think we should start putting these practices in place and being that its only £20, whats the harm knowing we can prove the parentage of dogs as time goes on..
Regardless of it being ABS breeders, I think all should look to adopt it imo.. There are many deceitful people out there who can't see beyond the pound signs, and i'm not talking just puppy farmers either!!

I think we should start putting these practices in place and being that its only £20, whats the harm knowing we can prove the parentage of dogs as time goes on..
Regardless of it being ABS breeders, I think all should look to adopt it imo.. There are many deceitful people out there who can't see beyond the pound signs, and i'm not talking just puppy farmers either!!

£20 PER DOG can add up quite considerably!! And the people who want to cheat will always cheat no matter what. There are always ways around it for those so inclined. Once again the responsible are supposed to pay for the irresponsible, some of which won't bother to start with -if they can't KC register the pups they won't care, they will sell them as "not KC registered, so healthy".....

I really don't think it's a bad thing whats £20 in the grand scheme of things? it only needs to be done if you are going to breed from the animal surely? When we think of the money spent on health tests this in itself is not a huge amount, also raises the standards that bit more.

I don't know if the type of person i've mentioned would go down the selling them unregistered. We are talking show breeders here.. Who knows..

> Once again the responsible are supposed to pay for the irresponsible

I see it as a sign of proving that we are better than those, we do this, this and this.. By going that extra bit in which we have the capacity to do so should maybe in time mean that KC reg dogs are the bee's knee's and make it mean something..

but having the parents DNA profiled proves nothing as who is likely to question if the pups belong to them (they could be an unregistered litter bought in even).  It is of no use unless the litters are shown to belong to the parents named.

Now if that happened it would be £20 extra for each puppy onto the cost of the litter, but would at least prove something.

DNA profiles for the parents really just give a false sense of security, where puppy owners will think in error that it proves something about the puppy they buy, which it doesn't.

So DNA profiles for the parents are of no practical use.

What standard does the dog or bitch having a DNA profile raise?  Mine already have two forms of positive ID.  Their DNA health tests are important, as are their clinical Hip and Eye tests.

> Now if that happened it would be £20 extra for each puppy onto the cost of the litter, but would at least prove something

I thought this was where we were going with it, Or I was at the very least, lol..

I think proving the parentage is a good thing, but alone as you mention its the same as m/c'ing or tattoo'ing which doesn't lead to anything, apart from if someone did dispute parentage then DNA could be taken from said parents to confirm or deny this.

> What standard does the dog or bitch having a DNA profile raise?

I would say that a dna profile guarantees the parentage of the dogs therefore you know the health history of the grandparents etc. If we encourage people to check not only the parents of their prospective pup but also hip scores etc further back it means nothing without proof of parentage :-)

Does any other country insist on DNA dog profiling for breeding ?

Not sure but as dna profiling becomes faster, cheaper and more common place maybe our KC should lead the way.

The International Silken Windhound Society insist on dna profiling before breeding.

tagging on the end here. Who takes the mouth swabs for the dna profiling?  Do you have to go to a vet and have them verify that the dog being swabbed is microchipped? Or is it a test you can do yourself? I know some breed dna tests the swabs can be done by the owner and sent off therefore there is no proof that the swab being sent is from the dog in question.
Unless the dna swabs are verified by a vet and then the resulting profile  used to verify the parentage of  litters there is absolutely no point in it at all.

ive had my dog ana profiled and you do the swabs and send them on to Kc.

It did take ages for the certificate

Nessa

edited to say i paid 25 pounds for dna profiling.

>Unless the dna swabs are verified by a vet and then the resulting profile  used to verify the parentage of  litters there is absolutely no point in it at all.

I agree; if it's to be of value then it must be done by an official unbiased person. DIY swabbing is no more secure against fraud than the current situation - it's done on trust.

> I would say that a dna profile guarantees the parentage of the dogs therefore you know the health history of the grandparents etc.

There you are you are proving my point.  DNA profiling of a dog does not prove it's parentage,it just provides ID and proves who the dog is.  It only proves parentage if DNA samples were also required from it's parents, who may not even be available to sample.  So it is giving a false sense of security if people believe it proves anything beyond being able to identify the individual dog.

The only way it could truly do what people mistakenly  think it already does, is to either have to submit parental DNA samples along with the dog or bitches, or if when the parents are DNA sampled all puppies also have to be DNA profiled before registration.

This may be what the KC hope to eventually do, (and will add to the breeders costs) but the halfway house of doing the individuals now is of no real benefit to anyone.  Also who will take DNA samples, if it is the breeder then the dishonest will still be able to cheat, and the honest ones won't but would have had no need to prove anything in the first place as they would not be falsifying in the first place.

From a practical point of view to reliably DNA sample puppies they need to be fully weaned and also separated from each other to avoid contamination of the samples.  If a third party has to sample it means taking the litter and paying the (I assume vet) to do the sampling.  Again even more costs for the good breeder, that need to be passed onto the puppy buyer in higher puppy prices.  See this thread: http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/board/topic/134952.html#fp

This can be quite impractical in a domestic situation, where we do not split bitches up from their puppies for long periods.  Then what happens if the samples are not good enough and the puppies have already gone to their new homes?

>There you are you are proving my point.  DNA profiling of a dog does not prove it's parentage,it just provides ID and proves who the dog is.  It only proves parentage if DNA samples were also required from it's parents, who may not even be available to sample.

No, you have to start somewhere, if you start now then in 5 generations you will know for absolute certainty that all dogs in your dogs pedigree are actually it's ancestors :-)

> No, you have to start somewhere, if you start now then in 5 generations you will know for absolute certainty that all dogs in your dogs pedigree are actually it's ancestors :-)

No you won't as the DNA profiles are not compared/cross referenced with it's ancestors, all you will have is 5 generations of individually identified dogs. 

To prove anything you would have to ask for the DNA samples of given individuals to be compared and a report made of whether they tally.

> To prove anything you would have to ask for the DNA samples of given individuals to be compared and a report made of whether they tally.

Well yes, one would assume that would happen, that's what the ISWS do.

I was thinking that if the adults are DNA profiled and that profile is held on record and any litter born to profiled parents is also profiled eventually we would be able to prove the entire pedigree is exactly what it claims to be.

It has helped in a case I know of where the bitch owner was accused of swapping a bitch for a health test. As she has all her stock DNA profiled she was able to prove this was false.

We did take some DNA for profiling at a breed club show. So all was matched up to ID already in place i.e. microchip or tattoo. Maybe this could be expanded and a cheaper rate offered as many dogs are being swabbed at the same time?

> It has helped in a case I know of where the bitch owner was accused of swapping a bitch for a health test. As she has all her stock DNA profiled she was able to prove this was false.

In such an instance DNA profiling can be carried out.  It has been done in the past. 
It seems a sledge hammer to crack a nut to suggest dogs are routinely profiled just in case an accusation is made.

Don't they do something along the same lines with thorough bred horses ?

> Don't they do something along the same lines with thorough bred horses ?

I don't know but there are a lot less of them :)

> In such an instance DNA profiling can be carried out.  It has been done in the past. 
> It seems a sledge hammer to crack a nut to suggest dogs are routinely profiled just in case an accusation is made.

exactly, as it stands there is no benefit to the dog, breeder or breed.  Regards wrong dog being presented for health tests that loop hole closed some years ago with the requirement that dogs presented for health schemes are positively identified by permanent means by chip or tattoo.

I certainly would leave the ABS if this becomes a requirement (unless of course it becomes a scheme to verify parentage for all registrations), as I have dogs with two forms of permanent ID already.

If anything it should be those breeders who are not on the ABS that should have to DNA profile and verify the parentage of their puppies, as many of those fail to health test, no-one sees their dogs at shows or trials etc, certainly all those to be deemed breeding commercially (five or more litters) who are required to be licensed.

>Don't they do something along the same lines with thorough bred horses ?

http://horseracing.about.com/od/breeding/a/aanameingtb.htm

It would seem so, but I'm pretty sure that the price of DNA testing and Identification is much more easily absorbed in the sale price of the horses.   After all prices start in 4 figures!

Can't see puppy buyers being impressed with higher prices for DNA ID pups - many won't even pay for a well bred, health tested one!    And those that do pay higher prices for a pup usually want something with 'extra cachet' such as 'rare T-Cup', 'rare colour' or 'rare breed' - so rare it's not even a breed!

Al of this smacks of making the responsible pay for the actions of the irresponsible, but as a strategy it has never worked and never will - those who want to will always avoid the 'rules' - and until they are specifically tackled then it's all just an exercise in pointless hoop-making for the rest of us to jump through.

ISWS has been profiling all dogs used for breeding since late 1990's.

In order to be able to register offspring both parents has to be DNA profilend ***and*** checked and verified against their parents.
You simply do not get the DNA profile certificate from the club unless that profile is checked and verified against the dogs parents.

This means we have a studbook that is entirely DNA verified since late 1990's, we started testing in 1999,  including all dogs alive at that time (born in 80's and forward) that had been used for breeding.
Lot's of Silkens born today have every single ancestor for a lot more than 5 generations that are DNA profiled and verified.

A Silken Windhound can be registered without a DNA profile of it's own as long as both parents have verified DNA profiles. But that dog can't register offspring until the dog itself has a verified DNA profile.

This also allow us to do dual sire breedings since the norm is that every single pup is DNA profiled and verified against it's parents anyway.