http://dogadvisorycouncil.org.uk/the-reports/

click on 'breeding standards V.2 to open the file

make for interesting reading methinks !!

Yvonne

Unfortunately I was not able to open the document.  Can you fill us in on the bones of it?

So do they propose this to be for everyone? It would effectively mean the end of puppy farming I suppose -at least as far as health etc goes. Some of it is just basic good sense, but certainly some aspects could do with a lot of debating. No animals to be used for breeding where the score is above the average -what if you have a hip score of a point or two above?  In breeds with low registration numbers and a low BMS too, it would be stupid to eliminate dogs from breeding just because they were slightly above. Not to mention they could technically speaking be average one year but above the next, as the BMS changes!  Plenty of other small points as well -what difference does it make if a dog living in a house only has access to one room? When it would be okay if it lived in a kennel outside? Each bitch have to have their own separate pen or room to whelp in -what about how the bitch feels? I have one for sure that refuse to give birth in a room with no other dogs, she has to be in the same room as the others -so I simply put a puppy pen around the whelping box. Temperament -all well and good but who would decide whether a dog or bitch was of correct temperament to be bred from?? Weight -all breeding dogs to be weighed every 3 months. Why? I weigh mine every time they see the vet, as they have good scales. Most only see the vet once a year.

That's just a few points I remember off the top of my head.

I read this through and it almost seems to me that "they" only want puppies bred on an intensive scale but with more safeguards and more staff.
Jeff.

I think you've got a point there Jeff!

Exactly what is happening in the USA make it so difficult for the small breeder, so they give up.

As for the BMS re hips that would be my two older champion bitches excluded as one has a score of 14 and the other 15 with our BMS at 13 (though sometimes 14).

Both have produced well and produced better scores than they have (both were done by lcoal GP vet who rarely does hip x-rays, so whether the scores may have been a point or two better with more expereinced vet???)

THat would of stopped me breeding my girl who I've just mated who has one of the best temperaments in our breed!

Throwing baby out with bath water comes to mind.

Can't open it

> Can't open it

Nope... neither can I! (ancient computer)

Maybe someone who is able, might copy and paste it, save as a .pdf (or a more accessible Word doc) and upload it somewhere, so those of us who are technologically challenged can have a read?

It is a normal Word document, a .docx. Shouldn't be impossible to open with any old version of Word, usually you can convert somehow. I've saved it as an old .doc document (works with any old version of Word) and can e-mail it if anyone wants it -PM me.

I also thought the same as Jeff :(

As usual the baby will be thrown out with the bath water.

On the whole i think most of it sounds good, but i cant see how they could police some parts of this, For example the training part.
14.  In addition to the habituation set out in paragraph 38, breeding dogs must be trained so that they:
a.  Walk on a lead;
b.  Come when called;
c.  Sit and stay when requested;
d.  Are capable of normal physical examination and treatment.
e.  All training must be based on reward, not punishment.


So say if someone had 100 breeding dogs are they going to send someone up there to see if all 100 dogs can do the above? Surely there wouldnt be enough time in the day to do it let alown the man power and money. Also surley they couldnt prove if the owner used reward based methods or not and could only take there word for it.

Also the socolising puppies with other dogs bit
40.  Puppies must be introduced to non-aggressive adult dogs in addition to the bitch.
How will they know if this has been done or not, they could realy only take the owners word for it.

As for the BMS re hips that would be my two older champion bitches excluded as one has a score of 14 and the other 15 with our BMS at 13 (though sometimes 14). Both have produced well and produced better scores than they have

Prehaps for the hip socring they could add a bit like with the DNA testing to allow girls such as yours who are just over to still be bred?
Where tests are based on DNA, affected dogs should not normally be used for breeding and carrier dogs should normally only be mated to clear dogs. It is recognised, however, that the careful breeding of affected animals to clear animals and carriers to carriers may be acceptable in certain breeds, depending on the severity of the condition and the individual breed's genetic picture.

The point is though that a hip score of up to around 20 is functionally normal, just not perfect, so in breeds that have pretty good hip status there is no need to get hung up on scores if the general pattern in the pedigree is good.  Ditto with the odd one sided score due to a wrench/injury etc.

> The point is though that a hip score of up to around 20 is functionally normal, just not perfect,

I could also throw in... whose COI are they using? We already know the KC's is flawed, as it doesn't take into account imported dogs. With the new relaxation of imports, that will skew it even more unless the KC gets a hold on that.

Oh yes I forgot to say about inbreeding! Well 12.5 % would make my next planned litter impossible for a start! And my best ever bitch, in every respect -health, looks and temperament) would never even have existed!

Yep my Inka would be out as she is around 12%, but her daughter according to KC is 0.25%, but that's only using 5 complete generations, and up to 16 incomplete, neither would exist.

it strikes me as well meaning but not realistic- for example how will breeders of designer crosses calculate their COI's when  most have no records or pedigree information ?

Yvonne

> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Oh yes I forgot to say about inbreeding! Well 12.5 % would make my next planned litter impossible for a start! And my best ever bitch, in every respect -health, looks and temperament) would never even have existed!

Y'know, I have been a fan of line-breeding but after knowing of a gundog breed where (According to the KC's Breed Select) the in-breeding percentage of this litter is 36.8 and the breed has suffered all sorts of physical problems (This is from 'top' breeders in this particular breed) I wouldn't want to be doubling up on any sort of problem that both sire & dam may carry through the lines without extensive research including temperaments.

That is the point breeding needs a lot of knowledge and far too much is carried out casually.

In the past we didn't know soem of the negative impacts of inbreeding, and I suspect much more vigorous culling was doen to remove the most obvious negatives as there were large3 kennels where the continuance of a line wasn't reliant on just one or two individuals as it is now in our small family kennels.

I'd never even dream of producing a litter with as high a percentage as 36.8 and of course you have to know what is behind the dogs -but to set a limit at 12 something in a breed with small numbers could effectively mean the very end of the breed.

> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">I'd never even dream of producing a litter with as high a percentage as 36.8 and of course you have to know what is behind the dogs -but to set a limit at 12 something in a breed with small numbers could effectively mean the very end of the breed.

It really depends.  Curtis has an inbreeding percentage of 7.5%, LM average is 6.6%.    I'm ok with that, he is linebred onto one influential dog who I have always liked and Curtis has a fabulous temperament as anyone who has met him will vouch for.       Large Munsterlanders don't have a large genepool.   Melody, my Flatcoat puppy, has an inbreeding percentage of 7%, yet the breed average is 6.8%.  FCR's have a far wider genepool than the Munsters so it shouldn't be limiting with any breed except those newly imported to this country.

Do you have a working/show split in LM? In 2010 there were 102 LM reg'd, compared to 138 Malinois. But out of those 138 Malinois, probably only around 30 odd of them were show lines -and of course the two are not crossed together. We have just 5 active show breeders in the UK, with a small number of additional breeders that have had one litter and may or may not breed again. In my experience, it is the outcrossed dogs we've seen problems in ("problems" covering anything from looks to temperament and health), as opposed to in the old original lines, and it is the original lines that are heavily linebred, as they originated before pets passports. Just producing pups with an outcrossed pedigree doesn't automatically mean you do the best for the breed.

> Just producing pups with an out-crossed pedigree doesn't automatically mean you do the best for the breed.

quite the parents of my 13% bitch were mated in order to regain type, as both grand-sires were total out-crosses, but they both had the same mother. 

I knew the resulting offspring would need to be out-crossed which is what I have done, and I will then hope to loosley linebreed the offspring to not loose type.

I agree to a certain extent as my first LM bitch had no inbreeding percentage at all but having seen the other extreme (My friend's 36.8% 'gundog' breed) I wouldn't go much above the inbreeding average for either breed.

No there aren't any differences in type between show or working LM's but we do have lots of cliques in the breed who will not use each other's lines so the genepool is even more artificially smaller.

Crossposted survey:
PLEASE CROSS POST TO ANYONE WHO BREEDS DOGS
You may be aware that there are moves afoot to implement legislative changes in this country, which will affect the way we all keep and breed our dogs.
Fair minded people would agree that we should always evaluate what we are doing, and look to make improvements where we can, and certainly where necessary. However, the appointed steering committee for this legislation are not necessarily experts in this field, and therefore could in all innocence; take a hammer to crack a walnut and implement changes that simply prove too onerous for many well run kennels.
At this 'information gathering stage' there is still have time an input, and thought it would be constructive to offer our help. With a view to influencing the final document.
In order to achieve this, we really need the help and views from a very broad selection of dog owners. From the home with 2 or 3 dogs to the commercial kennel establishment. So please 'forward' this to as many people you know who have the interest of dogs at heart. But most importantly, please take a few minutes to complete the attached survey. I assure you that there are no trick questions, right or wrong answers and you can remain anonymous if you wish.
It goes with out saying, that those of us who love and value our dogs would be delighted to see poor animal husbandry and in particular, puppy farming eradicated but we must ensure that any changes implemented are workable for rest of us.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEEydHAySHZGRTIxbEh4MFZneVcyOWc6MQ

May I suggest that anyone who feels they have constructive feedback on the Breeding Standards, to put this in writing/email as clearly as possible, including reasons, and forward it to the Advisory Council. The more expert input that something like this has at consultation stage, the more functional and realistic it will be. If you don't wish to do this directly, please PM me.

Can I also point out that this is not intended as future legislation into dog breeding (at this stage anyway) but as a 'blueprint' for any dog breeding assurance scheme to meet in order to be endorsed by the Council. Therefore, it will not be compulsory for anyone to comply with the requirements if they chose not to be a member of such a scheme. However, in future it seems likely that being a member of an assurance scheme will become more important...

The AC have made it very clear they have no intention of running an assurance scheme of their own (e.g. as an alternative to KC ABS). Logically though, should this be signed off and passed to PAS or BSI (whereby any control of the requirements are also handed over) the ABS as the primary (and only) scheme currently in existance would be expected to raise criteria to meet these Standards. Obviously this goes way beyond the KC ABS in its current format.
I do not know what thoughts the KC has on this document, if indeed they have passed any comments. They had a meeting with the AC in August
http://dogadvisory.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/notes-advisory-council-august-meeting-with-the-kc-final-rev-041111.doc
but this was generalised and discussing the ABS. The Breeding Standards document has been passed to external stakeholders for comment but as the KC deemed their own Health and Welfare sub comittee was sufficient, they have less input than perhaps we would like. Dog charities have considerably more. The KC have also chosen unwisely not to attend certain meetings of the AC (and APGAW) so their effectiveness and participation in matters under discussion has been weak to non existant. This is well worth bearing in mind as they cannot be relied upon to raise concerns in respect of minor but crucial details.

The detailed background to the Breeding Standards document is given in the Minutes of the AC May meeting, points 11 to 32 which is well worth reading:
http://dogadvisory.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ac-31-minutes-of-the-may-council-meeting.doc
Subsequent ammendments to the initial draft are discussed over the course of the later meetings, including the most recent in November. These can be seen in the relevent minutes. The main contributors to this project other than AC members, have been vets, animal charities and qualification/educational organisations. There has been effectively little breeder input, although the document has been passed to the expert panel which does include some breeders, for consultation.

(For those who are unable to read it, you need to download a (free) microsoft document viewer. Usually the link to the software will automatically appear, just be careful not to check any additional software other than the viewer.)

Other points for consideration:
The Advisory Council are just that, an advisory panel "providing independent, expert advice to governments and other stakeholders."
They have no legislative powers and can only offer suggestions and guidance. However, this is going to be offered to government departments such as DEFRA and APGAW...

Some aspects of the Breeding Standards which you may also wish to consider in addition to those mentioned by other posters:

1. This tries to be all things to all men (breeders). Is it possible or necessary to apply the same standards to every type of breeder?
2. Are some of the requirements really in the best interests of dogs (good points already been made above) or unnecessarily restrictive?
3. Are there any other potential requirements which have not been included which ought to be? (selling to third parties, dealing with 'special needs' puppies etc)
4. Are some requirements clear enough?

I believe the AC is keen to work with breeders and get them on side and genuinely does not want to alienate or discriminate against 'hobby' breeders. It therefore really is important to respond to this and make your concerns and thoughts known...to those who are taking the desicions that are likely to affect us all in the future. There have been some excellent posts on this, please don't let them go to waste, get them seen where they will be stand a chance of having an effect.

I can only echo this - please give the Advisory Council you input so that the oice of the small hobby breeder can be fairly heard

Yvonne

> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The Breeding Standards document has been passed to external stakeholders for comment but as the KC deemed their own Health and Welfare sub comittee was sufficient, they have less input than perhaps we would like. Dog charities have considerably more. The KC have also chosen unwisely not to attend certain meetings of the AC (and APGAW) so their effectiveness and participation in matters under discussion has been weak to non existant. This is well worth bearing in mind as they cannot be relied upon to raise concerns in respect of minor but crucial details.

Says everything about the uselessness of the Kennel Club doesn't it?

Surely the reason the KC chose not to attend those meetings was that they will be filmed and they refuse to be misquoted on PDE2 after last time. That's what I read.

I think you are correct as to the KC's reason Marianne.
I think they made a mistake and should have gone regardless. They are loosing the PR battle (imho) which is, unfortunately, these days so important. Time to stand up to these PR bullies!
Jeff.