Following the discussion on another thread, where it started going slightly off topic, I thought I'd start a new thread.  And in response to the questions asked on the last post in a reply, no, I'm not a geneticist, I have a limited understanding of the whole subject, but what I am very concerned about is losing genetic diversity for the sake of excluding dogs which, other than being an affected status for a condition (which they may never actually develop), are otherwise good examples of a breed.  When you see plenty of breeders who don't do half the health tests available for a breed, or any, but are merrily producing litters without the knowledge of the status of their pups, even with known statuses for things like hips, I've seen people breeding on from incredibly high scores, and yet people seem reluctant to breed on from carriers or even affected status dogs.  I haven't had to face the decision with genetic tests, although I chose not to breed on from a bitch because her elbow grades were too high (again, see plenty of breeders ignore these as well), if I had a fantastic dog that happened to be affected status for something like PRA, I have no issue with trying to breed clear.  In my breed, it's thought to be a late onset condition if they ever develop it at all, with a condition such as EIC I would be less willing to breed on, as the trigger isn't understood properly.  But to me, the genetic tests are there to allow us to make those sort of decisions, not to exclude dogs from breeding on, but to make informed choices. 

Thoughts?

If this is the right thread for my thoughts - I suggested that in my opinion, breeding affected to clear which would produce all carrier, is not what the average gene pool in any breed needs.    Eventually it will at best (?) mean carrier to carrier will produce 25% only clear but 50% carrier and 25% affected.  Clear to carrier will produce 50% clear and 50% carrier.

This is where knowledge of the individual dogs in a pedigree helps - the breeder would know where affected dogs have appeared in a bloodline, and that breeder should stay away from those lines.

I do agree however, that throwing the baby out with the bathwater, ruling out an otherwise great animal, for one fault, would be a pity, depending on what the fault is!

I think it very much depends on the popularity of the breed, the existing state of it's gene pool and the disease itself. You can't/shouldn't have blanket rulings.

I would say that a labrador affected with PRA should NEVER be bred from, there are a lot of Labrador litters every year, and a lot of them are fully health checked, and have good results. To purposefully breed dogs that could go blind is crazy. If bred to a clear then percentages say half of the litter could be affected and the rest carriers, but nature doesn't always play by the rules, it's possible all the litter could be affected.

There are some diseases where I wouldn't mind using a carrier, like MDR1. While the whole point of testing is surely to breed out these faults, as you rightly said it shouldn't be at the detriment of gene diversity. In breeds with a relatively small gene pool I wouldn't discount an animal for being a carrier of a disease that won't affect it in it's lifetime. MDR1 carriers as long as you avoid certain drugs have no problems.

I wouldn't want to breed from an affected or even a carrier of a disease that is life limiting, even if it's a disease of older age like DM. The problem even with using carrier to clear is that half the litter are carriers and you have to trust that their owners will only breed them to clear animals and so on, and so on.

I totally agree with you. There are very few breeds which have a closed gene pool (all the KC recognised breeds!) that can afford to narrow the available gene pool even further by totally discarding otherwise excellent dogs for one single condition, when there's a way to avoid producing any offspring affected by that condition. To me this is the value of genetic testing; it tells you which animals you can mate an animal to, not that you can't breed from it at all. With a simple recessive gene it's safe to mate any individual (clear, carrier or affected) to a 'clear' because none of the offspring will be affected; at worst the whole litter will be carriers. In turn they can also be mated to clears, and the next generation also will be unaffected, but there will be more 'clears'. But they might also be perpetuating a gene for longevity or some other very desirable trait.

If you breed a normal to an affected ALL the puppies would be carriers, none would be affected, but none would be normal either.

The ISDS will register puppies from a normal to a carrier for CEA(CH), however ALL the puppies have to be tested before they are registered. Pity the KC don't apply the same rules.

I have seen a TNS carrier bred to a normal stud twice. However todate none of the pups have been tested, which means if they are bred from they risk spreading the mutation if they are not tested & I'd guess at least 90% of the puppy owners don't even know what TNS is & sadly the owners of these pups are in a group that does minimal testing. The bitch was only tested to pass the criteria to be in the full breed KC register.

BTW not ALL KC breeds have a closed gene pool & of course there is the option of having a dog of unknown or unregistered parentage having health tests done & assessed by two CC judges registered on the full breed register. Allowable to open up gene pools

I wouldn't breed from a carrier to clear which could lead to more carrier of a genetic condition that is a killer.
No matter how well you vet people if they decide to breed then there is diddly squat we can do to stop it. Yes take them to court but unlikely to stop the pregnancy
So if that dog is a carrier but not tested and put to another dog which is a carrier known or not and then affected pups in my breed are born then they will be dead before a year in usual terms. I would not even begin to imagine dealing with that so I will have zero part in continuing that.

How can it affect any KC registered breed if you endorse pups and have proof you have explained endorsements?

In breeds where there are less than 100 registered each year any reduction of the gene pool is a large step nearer breed extinction. As long as the breeders are careful not to produce affected pups (by mating two carriers together, or carrier and affected) then the use of carriers in a breeding programme can be extremely useful.

How can it affect any KC registered breed if you endorse pups and have proof you have explained endorsements?

Doesn't stop the carriers being bred from to untested dogs & affected pups being produced. Just means they won't be registered with KC on the full register.

They could be activities registered with no parentage details recorded & sold as KC registered pups legally.

How can a pup that can't have puppies registered with the KC, go on to produce pups that are then registered with the KC?

I think she means registered in the activity register...


How can a pup that can't have puppies registered with the KC, go on to produce pups that are then registered with the KC?


Really ? You can register any dog pedigree or otherwise on the activities register. So pups can be registered as say Labradors with no parentage details & legally be sold as KC registered(seen several litters do registered)

Joe Public probably doesn't realise that the activities register is different from the full breed register.

Both you and I know that the activities register does not mean the are KC registered as such.  The same as with other 'bogus' registrations that exist, and if Joe Public does so little research that they believe that pups are KC registered that's a completely different problem.  But my point still stands, you cannot register pups unless the endorsements are lifted on the parents, so endorsing pups does work!


Both you and I know that the activities register does not mean the are KC registered as such.  The same as with other 'bogus' registrations that exist, and if Joe Public does so little research that they believe that pups are KC registered that's a completely different problem.  But my point still stands, you cannot register pups unless the endorsements are lifted on the parents, so endorsing pups does work!


Oh dear you are very naive

The activities registered dog is a KC registered dog in law, there have been several small claims cases locally to me & in each case the breeder successfully defended themselves, therefore setting a president. In law KC registered simply means the dog is on any UK KC register not the breed register.

Also dont forget if a non registered dog of any is fully heath tested(regardless of status) & assessed by 2 CC awarding judges as being the breed it can then be placed on the breed register !! So the endorsements can circumvented & no details of pedigree recorded.

Unless you go down the route of some US breeders of neutering puppies before sale you cannot stop people breeding from endorsed dogs & circumventing the KC rules.

Unless the KC changes it role of being an open dog registry & making it a members only registry(like the ISDS)they cannot in law impose rules like compulsory parental DNA profiling for all dogs, compulsory health testing etc as it breaks the UK freedom of trading laws if it does

There was in Germany a major fraud involving the sale of GSD dogs with fake pedigrees & dogs being sold abroad that were not the offspring of their recorded parents to hide the poor health results of the parents & the issuing of incorrect certificates. Now all puppies have to be parental DNA profiled before registration. People can still breed from their unhealth tested unregistered dogs, but no one buys GSDs without correct documentation without registration in Germany

If someone wants to breed and not register the litter and you know the dog or bitch could be a carrier and in this example they are and mated to a dog not tested and let's say they are a carrier then producing affected pups is likely. This is why I don't want to use a carrier for breeding in what is fatal in my breed. Might think differently if its a condition that is very late onset but not sure and wouldn't and couldn't say whether I would unless I was in that position to consider

> Oh dear you are very naive<br /><br />The activities registered dog is a KC registered dog in law, there have been several small claims cases locally to me & in each case the breeder successfully defended themselves, therefore setting a president. In law KC registered simply means the dog is on any UK KC register not the breed register. <br /><br />Also dont forget if a non registered dog of any is fully heath tested(regardless of status) & assessed by 2 CC awarding judges as being the breed it can then be placed on the breed register !! So the endorsements can circumvented & no details of pedigree recorded. <br /><br />Unless you go down the route of some US breeders of neutering puppies before sale you cannot stop people breeding from endorsed dogs & circumventing the KC rules.<br /><br />Unless the KC changes it role of being an open dog registry & making it a members only registry(like the ISDS)they cannot in law impose rules like compulsory parental DNA profiling for all dogs, compulsory health testing etc as it breaks the UK freedom of trading laws if it does<br /><br />There was in Germany a major fraud involving the sale of GSD dogs with fake pedigrees & dogs being sold abroad that were not the offspring of their recorded parents to hide the poor health results of the parents & the issuing of incorrect certificates. Now all puppies have to be parental DNA profiled before registration. People can still breed from their unhealth tested unregistered dogs, but no one buys GSDs without correct documentation without registration in Germany

Oh dear, you are very rude. 

The activities register is very different to the breed register, and you know it.

The non-verified dog route is an incredibly expensive route to go down, it'd be cheaper to just go out and buy a pedigree of that breed; it's not just a case of having 2 CC awarding judges assessing a dog (and they don't pop round for a cup of coffee and a chat while they tell you if your dog looks like 'X' breed), you have to pay out for health tests first and if those come back with any problems then you've failed. I've only seen it done once for an ESS, bought in good faith as a KC registered pedigree (not the activity register), and that was because that dog was doing extremely well in training and the guy wanted to attempt to field trial her.  She was in the end, registered with the KC, on their breed register, but it cost him substantially more than it would have done to just go out and buy in another bitch with KC registration, so that's not really the typical route that anyone wanting to breed for profit only would take.  Not that it particularly worries me, as I've said previously, I trust my puppy owners as if they were part of the family. 

The KC can't impose any regulations, it's a registration body only, I just wish it would get rid of that awful ABS which is meaningless and misleading (apologies to those who are members and going by the ethos of the scheme as it was intended, but I think it's a waste of money).

She is rude sleeping_lion and I called her out on it a while ago and she then ‘ignored’ me as is her prerogative. I got one of my JRTs KC registered by the route you describe and omg it’s a real faff. Wouldn’t do it again.

> She is rude sleeping_lion and I called her out on it a while ago and she then ‘ignored’ me as is her prerogative.

Let's hope I get the same treatment!  Just because someone has a different opinion doesn't mean you have to resort to being rude.  Debate is good, but not just being derogatory about someone who doesn't agree with your point of view.

How lucky some people are to have a breed with so many dogs of excellent breed type who are also clear of every genetic condition! My breed has 8 different tests for genetic conditions, then hips and elbows on top of that, plus the possibility of an incorrect colour. Very few dogs are clear of everything and not all of those are good examples or they have cancer or autoimmune issues in the pedigree.
With a small gene pool you really can't afford to throw dogs out just because they're a carrier of something.

Would you breed from an affected dog though ?

Would depend what it was, but since there aren't any affected dogs bred by reputable breeders I wouldn't buy one anyway. But many of today's top dogs have an affected dog in their pedigree, bred from before the test was developed and many of his descendants are clear.

Affected dogs should not be bred from except in numerically small breeds when they should be crossed with a clear.

Carriers should be used but mated with clears.

So it would be OK to breed from a PRA affected rare/endangered breed, how would you stop owners breeding from it's carrier off spring to an untested dog that might also be a carrier & producing nlind offspring ? Doesn't matter whether the offspring are KC registerable or not the offspring will still be blind.

There is such a UK endangered breed BTW

There's no guarantee that a clear dog won't produce affected grandchildren either, all you can do is try to educate people with regard to health testing.

You've lost me if a dog/bitch is normal for a condition it cannot pass on that condition, ergo all it's offspring will be either normal or carrier depending on the partner's status.

A dog does NOT produce it's offspring's offspring.

It can only appear in the pedigree of affected dog in the second generation if it's carrier offspring is bred to an affected or carrier partner & surely no"responsible" breeder would mate carrier to carrier/affected partner.

>So it would be OK to breed from a PRA affected rare/endangered breed, how would you stop owners breeding from it's carrier off spring to an untested dog that might also be a carrier & producing nlind offspring ?

This is where honesty is vital. If you don't believe people are basically honest you never breed because you can never have a guarantee that the new owners will behave exactly as you think they should; once a puppy has changed ownership the breeder has zero rights over its future. However if you don't want to restrict an already small gene pool even further you use genetic tests to determine which individuals you can mate an animal to without producing affected offspring, not to rule them out entirely.

>A dog does NOT produce it's offspring's offspring.

Exactly my point. You can mate an affected to a clear because it can only produce carriers.

In the same way as you can't guarantee that someone will only mate their carrier to a clear, you also can't guarantee that someone will only mate their clear to a carrier. So a clear can still go on to produce affecteds down the generations if those breeders are irresponsible.

>So a clear can still go on to produce affecteds down the generations if those breeders are irresponsible.

?? If a dog doesn't have a gene for a condition (it is 'clear') it can't in itself produce any affected offspring ever. It would only happen when someone introduced the gene from another dog. If you want to guarantee that your dog will never have any descendants that have that particular condition you never breed from it at all. A breeder is only responsible for the generations that they produce, not what others do in the future. If the breeders of many breeds from 100 years ago saw what had been done to the descendants of their dogs and the travesty that their beloved breeds had become they would probably never have bred at all!

So a clear can still go on to produce affecteds down the generations if those breeders are irresponsible


No a dog that does not have the gene for a genetic condition cannot be"blamed"for the gene appeared in any other dog anywhere "down the generations"

I don't think you quite understand a dog only produces offspring from partners it is mated to, not the offspring of it's puppies.

This is why the ISDS are insistent that the offspring of carriers are DNA tested before registration, so that the status of the offspring is recorded. They only allow breeding from a normal to clear to be registered. Normal to Normal is obviously ok

If the breeders of both types of Irish Setters can agree to compulsory testing of all dogs before breeding & of puppies before registration, only breed carriers to normals & in 5 years they had bred out both PRA & CLAD completely allowing the KC to refuse to register the offspring of carriers for either condition. It did not diminish the gene pool & allowed the KC registered breed to be free of the conditions. I don't see why other popular breeds like Labradors could not do the same. Pity the breed clubs can't get their acts together & do the same.

I think the meant more that you cannot guarantee even if a dog is clear, mated to a clear, so progeny is CBP, that somebody might not then go on to mate to either an unknown status or carrier, affected status dogs.  So being clear is no guarantee that dog won't be bred on from unscrupulously, agreeing with your post that really it's down to the honesty of the people breeding. 

I've seen where an ABS member has mated an unknown status dog to a carrier for a condition, and pups have been affected.  I'm not sure why the mating was allowed tbh, if a stud dog owner was presented with a carrier surely they'd test to confirm the status of their dog, or you think they would!

Exactly, so producing carriers that can never develop the condition (but could produce affected offspring down the generations) is no different to producing a clear (which could produce affected offspring down the generations). You can't control what decisions other breeders will make.
If you only breed from clears you are going down a genetic bottleneck and what happens when the next genetic test is introduced? 10 years ago we only had 2 DNA tests and some people were all 'oh we must only breed from clears' well we're now up to 8 DNA tests and most of those 'clear for everything' dogs suddenly aren't.

OK I give up. You go on believing that a normal dog can magically transmit a gene it doesn't carry "down the generations"

Breeding from affected/carriers must be done with extreme care, especially when the condition is life threatening like TNS & CL & life affecting like PRA & CEA(CH), but according to your logic it is the same as breeding clear to clear !!

You cannot 100% trust anyone you sell a puppy to that carries a mutant gene & 100% know they will not breed it to an affected or carrier. Look at merle to merle breedings done by Joe Public to 100% guarentee they will get merle puppies. A brief look at the selling sites always reveals at least 1 litter despite it being common knowledge it is nound to produce disabled pups. Saw 1 little which had 3 pure white puppies in it which were "rare"& 3 times the cost of the others.

I'll make it simple for you, as you're struggling to understand. 

Jane has two health tested dogs, they are genetically clear for a condition which is not hugely debilitating but it's good to breed clear from, along with lots of other considerations.  Jane doesn't care where that puppy ends up, so she doesn't endorse, what are those things anyway?  And this puppy goes to a nice pet home where they suddenly think, hey, what if we breed on from this puppy to pay for our holiday, let's go find a dog/bitch to have a litter.  Is that dog/bitch health tested?  Possibly, possibly not, and then your genetically clear by parentage puppy sold on to a home where they don't really know about breeding and health tests, is mated, possibly to an affected or carrier status, and those dogs go on to more homes where someone decides to breed on, etc, etc. 

So simply put, producing clear by parentage puppy is no guarantee that they won't then go on to be bred from unscrupulously.  Producing carriers from an exceptional dog that is affected status, as long as it's done carefully is going to produce just carriers when put to a clear, and as long as this is known and people are careful about who then breeds on, or doesn't, and tests are done on all the progeny etc, then it's equally as possible in a couple of generations to have a clear status dog, or, as above, to have a clear status dog and go to affected in just a couple of generations. 

I see people having litters with hardly any health tests done, and yet because the status isn't seen it's somehow accepted.

I give up too. A clear dog can have affected grandchildren, no of course the clear dog hasn't passed on the gene but you're forgetting that a dog has 4 grandparents not 1. And conveniently ignoring the fact that there are multiple genetic conditions not just 1. I can only assume you are in a numerically strong breed where there are only 1 or 2 known genetic tests where you can afford to discard dogs. If we discarded every carrier in my breed we'd soon be in serious trouble.

Thank you Sleeping_Lion, I'm glad someone gets it!

>If the breeders of both types of Irish Setters can agree to compulsory testing of all dogs before breeding & of puppies before registration, only breed carriers to normals & in 5 years they had bred out both PRA & CLAD completely allowing the KC to refuse to register the offspring of carriers for either condition. It did not diminish the gene pool & allowed the KC registered breed to be free of the conditions. I don't see why other popular breeds like Labradors could not do the same. Pity the breed clubs can't get their acts together & do the same.

The COI for Irish setters as a breed is 13.5%. The COI for Labradors, is 6.5%. As a breed, Labs are far healthier due to genetic diversity and the plurality of lines to go to, should things go wrong in future.

Breeding out DNA conditions isn't the end goal if it results in higher inbreeding to achieve this. (As it will.)

There is nothing wrong with breeding an Affected to a Clear because this breeding produces all Carriers. Carriers do not suffer from the condition and their life is unaffected by being Carriers. Even breeding a Carrier to a Clear produces some Carriers so unless you advocate only ever breeding from Clear dogs (which would massively affect the gene pool) it is fine to breed from an Affected to a Clear.

I seem to remember that the breeder I bought my Irish Setter from in the 1970’s told me that there had been an issue with ‘night blindness’ which had been eliminated as the breeders had all got together to make sure that affected dogs were not bred from. As said above this doesn’t stop the unscrupulous from breeding from any old dog whether it was affected or not, but the breed club did seem to make efforts to do something about it at that time. I was new to buying dogs, my IS was the first dog I bought rather then my parents, so I was largely innocent over health tests etc. Thankfully the lady was more then happy to tell me what was what and I certainly learned a lot from owning an IS

Am I missing something here, I didn’t know there were two types of Irish Setter.

Possibly the Irish Red and White?

Irish Setters & Irish Red & White Setters ie 2 types of Irish Setters. All the breed clubs got together when DNA testing was available for both CLAD & PRA & worked with the KC to eliminate both. PRA had greatly been refuced by using the BVA/ISDS/KC scheme( the ISDS were the first registry to work towards reducing eye conditions & not the KC who adopted the ISDS scheme)The DNA test removed the need for test matings of stud dogs to affected bitches to see if the clinically normal stud carried PRA.

It was interesting when an alleged normal for CL Champion stud dog was imported. He was used at stud at least 7 times here in the UK before it was discovered he was in fact a carrier for the lethal CL gene after one of his offspring died in his country of origin. The show breeders in the UK had been lining up to use him. His KC record does not show that he was a carrier however. A lethal condition not previously seen in the UK, which has now been found in pure UK dogs unrelated to him after the top trialling dogs in Scotland were DNA tested for all available tests. If memory serves me right one dog was carrier for TNS & a different dog a carrier for CL were found plus a carrier for MDR 1. A very small sample(under 50 dogs) but worrying that carriers were found at all. One reason for fully health testing & parental profiling for all dogs

I still think it is worth considering what the genetic disease is. CLAD is very different to say late onset PRA. A dog affected with CLAD will be dead roughly by the age of 6 months, PRA is not a death sentence.
In Rottweilers we have JLPP in which usually a dog is dead by the age of 1 yet the KC don't see this needing to be a mandatory test like in Irish Setters where they must be tested for HC for it. Its not even a mandatory test under the ABS yet many of us have pushed for it to be mandatory, no questions asked.

Absolutely, PRA is not only thought to be mainly a late onset condition in Labradors, it's thought to be so late in most cases even those with an affected status will never reach an age where they could develop it.  Where as you get something like EIC, which, although not fully understood, is not something I'd consider breeding on from as an affected status.

Still many big names are not testing for EIC in Labs and that is worrying. Seeing some haven't even started elbow scoring.

I can think of a few old, well known kennels that do very little other than hips and eyes. 

EIC is a funny one, although we know the condition exists, and it's something to do with 'excitement' it's not actually known what physically triggers it.  The last time I looked at any articles about it, only one dog had died, and that was because they were swimming when they had a collapse episode.  And there are so many other conditions that can cause fits/collapse in dogs, it'd be nice if it were a bit more fully understood. 

Elbows, hmmmm, I do them but I don't like the way they are done in comparison to hips.  With hips at least, you have a wide range, with elbows there's just the 4 grades of 0-3, which doesn't seem as accurate.  The KC initially said to breed on from only a 0 or 1, and have later changed that stance to only breed on from a 0 and not from a 2 or 3, but left out any mention of a 1 grade.

The KC initially said to breed on from only a 0 or 1, and have later changed that stance to only breed on from a 0 and not from a 2 or 3, but left out any mention of a 1 grade.


Are you sure it was the KC that changed the advice ? I thought it was initiated by the BVA through the CHS & is quite simple only dogs with 0 scores should be bred from. I could be totally wrong of course

Interpreting and using the results
Once your dog has been graded, a completed certificate detailing the elbow grades will be sent back to your vet and then passed on to yourself.

A grade is given for each elbow and the overall elbow grade is determined by the higher of the two individual grades. The grades are:

0 = Radiographically normal
1 = Mild osteoarthritis
2 = Moderate osteoarthritis or a primary lesion with no osteoarthritis
3 = Severe osteoarthritis or primary lesion with osteoarthritis
CHS recommends only breeding from dogs that have an elbow grade of 0.

Yes, it was the KC that I am thinking of, whether they were advised by other parties prior to this, the KC advice was only to breed on from a 0 or 1, and then changed to breeding on from a 0, not from a 2 or 3, and not mentioning the 1.  That said, there is conflicting advice on the KC website where it does still mention breeding on from a 0 or 1. 

"The lower the grade the better, with the advice given to breeders is to ideally breed from dogs which have an elbow grade of 0."

I do nor nor have I ever bred. My knowledge of canine genetics comes from my lifelong profession from which I am now retired

The quote I posted is from the BVA Elbow screening advice not KC. My information when the CHS guidelines were changed was that the change was instigated by the BVA. However if you know otherwise please correct me.

CHS recommends only breeding from dogs that have an elbow grade of 0.


I am not here to correct anyone, I am posting about the advice as it happened from memory, not from any peer reviewed study about the changes made advising breeders of which elbow grades can be bred on from!

There was no study. The CHS Is a joint BVA/KC venture & any veterinary imput comes solely from the BVA

Really?  There was no study?  Next you'll be telling me irony doesn't exist?!