In a thread regarding the suitability to breed Brainless has posted of the difficulties people in her breed have of finding suitable bloodlines and people to take the breed forward.

Actually no the breed has never been numerous, (close to 400 registrations at their peak and sadly some of those were puppy farmed, and caused a need for a rescue to be set up) and since the 1980's when other Spitz breeds (Akita's and Husky's mainly) that have had more public exposure, and sadly a huge rescue problem, numbers have reduced.

Because the core breed enthusiasts as a community have been wholeheartedly behind health testing and responsibility, with nothing less being acceptable,  this has also caused many people to be put off breeding as the tests are expensive and many people do not feel they can make the commitment lifelong to the puppies, once made aware of what is expected from a breeder.

No-one should breed if they cannot make such a commitment, but that is exactly what so many one off breeders want to do, breed and move on.

The numbers being bred have halved since the prcd-PRA was identified.  Now we are just getting a test for Glaucoma any day.  So to health test a dog/bitch of my breed you may need to Hip Score, Eye test, DNA test with Optigen and also with Genescoper, these tests could; easily set you back £500+.

We have a huge lack of potential studs to use as very few male owners are prepared to shell out those sort of costs jut on the possibility their dog will be used, and even those used will only be used a handful of times at most.

We have lost a lot of breeders in the last 20 years to attrition.  Most of them had more facilities than most modern breeders who breed from a standard home, and used to breed several litters a year.  New breeders at most breed a litter a year, many less with having to fit this in with the rest of their lives.

So how would you approach this problem and increase the gene pool ?

Financial support needs to be given to these breeders either exemption from testing fees or incentivise a once breeder to consider breeding again for the good of this breed as a whole. Could the kennel clubs collectively contribute ? Could a petition be raised to demonstrate if we don't another breed could be at risk? A PR campaign?

I don't know if any of the above would be viable or work but it seems cost I'd one of the driving factors so that should be addressed. I do think that people who want to enter the breed if this was successful should be vetted for their reasons as obviously if there is money involved it is open to the wrong type of people.

I am just thinking off the top of my head have no experience of breeding etc

Unfortunately this is not a British breed and numbers in their homeland though healthy are reducing due to urbanisation and people wanting more fashionable/less traditional/more unusual breeds to their parents.

In Scandinavia breeders have tended to avoid inbreeding to the levels more common in the UK and USA in many breeds (though largely avoided by our breed due to small numbers) so we are OK for a while, but even now I find it rare to see pedigrees in Norway that do not contain dogs I am already familiar with in our pedigrees.

Something I think the kennel club ought to do with their windfall millions is set up a semen bank. 

Breeders should be encouraged to have semen collected from young dogs of around 18 months that have been health tested from each litter if possible, and this semen should not be used for 10 years.

> Unfortunately this is not a British breed and numbers in their homeland though healthy are reducing due to urbanisation and people wanting more fashionable/less traditional/more unusual breeds to their parents.

Is this really unique to this breed? I think not.
I know this debate is geared towards breeding the pure breeds and keeping them going, but there are a great many potential homes out there who are now choosing deliberate crossbreeds. Twenty years ago you could have seen these same homes looking at the various pure breeds and making their choice from those.

This is an issue in my second breed (IRWS) where there are less than 100 puppies registered each year, and the entire population roughly equates to the number of puppies born in my main breed annually.

Coming from a wildlife conservation viewpoint it seems strange to me that these questions are only just starting to be asked by dog breeders.
Genetic diversity is so important for the health of a population - in fact, it's a lack of genetic diversity that has led to the need for the ever increasing list of health tests. Maintaining a small, closed population is a delicate balancing act, and unfortunately the way many dog breeds have been managed for many years is unsustainable.

There are resources out there. There are geneticists willing to work with dog breeders to help come up with the solutions to these very issues. This organisation is a mine of information: http://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/ and this one is also a very interesting read: http://www.breedingfordiversity.com/

The most important thing is to see each breed population as a whole - breeders need to work together rather than in their own little bubbles.

Popularity/Fashion is a strange one.

Once hugely popular breed with the general public are barely surviving, and for no real reason, for example what makes the Smooth Fox Terrier or Manchester less popular than some other breeds?

One can understand some of the highly trimmed breeds being less popular with the general public due to coat care , yet some are very popular (though you'd have a job to recognise the breed in all off pet trim).

One could say some breeds should die out as their original purpose no longer applies or is even legal in some cases.  In this case why is the Stafford so popular (much to it's detriment).

Should we allow fashion to dictate viability of breeds and let market forces make some breeds extinct.

Personally I think not, though many breeds have died out it would be very sad if more did, fashions change so easily.

Who would have thought 20 years ago the French bulldog would become popular.

Sadly being popular can be very detrimental to breeds as a whole, but a level of interests by the general public is needed for any breed to prosper.

If I look at my own breed seems very few people below pension age have ever heard of it, yet newer similar looking breeds, for which mine are so often mistaken, brought into UK since the 1980 have had population explosions, and now have a huge rescue problem.  Yet both those breeds are harder to live with in a pet home?

How do we ensure that our breeds are protected from over exploitation at the same time as making them known to the public at large?????

> The most important thing is to see each breed population as a whole - breeders need to work together rather than in their own little bubbles.

This is the main reason why I feel anyone breeding needs to belong to their breed community/breed club etc.

Things are becoming easier for breeders to mange their breeds gene pool with resources like MyKC (though it pales against Finland's Koiranet) to know what is going on in their breed as a whole, what dogs are over represented in breeding programs health issues etc.

Since the pet Travel scheme breeders in the UK have had much easier and more cost effective access to lines of their breed abroad.  Problems often occur with being able to fully research these lines other than in Scandinavian countries where so much Registration, health etc info is on public Kennel club databases.

This allows a breeder to know exactly what is going on in their breed, who is breeding what to who, so that more informed choices can be made.

Now if only Kennel clubs internationally could pool the information!!!

For examples average COI's in our breed are said to be under 4% for my breed, but we have no way of knowing if they are accurate as so much importing of dogs goes on so many will not have much more than three generations of breeding behind known at the kennel club.

I have imports and overseas dogs in my pedigrees that KC shows COI's of 0, but I know taking pedigrees back that there are connections past the 4th generation, probably m7ultiple times.

I own a breed that has less than 10 people actively breeding and a total average of 30 puppies born in a year in the UK. The breed was revived in Sweden using one male and 3 females.

Breeders from all countries are coming up against the same problem, popular sire syndrome. Friends of mine in Sweden have been actively searching for dogs that have never been used at stud but are finding that a. these dogs are already neutered and b. their owners are not interested in having their pet dogs used at stud. There are dogs here in the UK that have never been used but it's mainly due to greedy owners (asking £1000 stud fee for a maiden dog) and personally for me not wanting to introduce dodgy temperaments into my lines.

We also have a history of non communication and people not being upfront when problems occur in their breeding, due to witch hunting! Our breed club is also ineffective, the majority of exhibitors aren't members, again due to clashing personalities. So even though I would love to get everyone together to talk about where we all go to in the future It's never going to happen.

There is also no demand for our puppies, people live in a want it now generation, and so we can't just churn out litter after litter to increase our population. I am hoping to bring in a bitch from Sweden this year to help with my own breeding but it is very expensive.

Interestingly our breed average COI is currently 8.5% in the UK. A friend breeds Bull terriers, a much bigger numerical breed here, and their breed COI is 14.8%. As a breed they do not appear to worry about line breeding, using popular sires etc and concentrate more on improving type by planning close matings, which in my breed we'd never consider...

>in fact, it's a lack of genetic diversity that has led to the need for the ever increasing list of health tests

As opposed to human populations,  which are hugely diverse in comparison,  since line breeding and in-breeding are taboo.    Yet the human population suffers from far more genetic diseases than any canine population.

There is now evidence that the mixed breeds so popular with the public and certain vociferous individuals,  are no healthier than the purebreeds.   In fact,  they have the potential for a higher number of genetic diseases because of their mixed heritage.

My own breed is very small in numbers compared with most breeds.   And yet,  compared to many breeds,  they are genetically healthy.   The only tests required by the KC are DNA test for Copper Toxicosis -  a disease that also affects a number of other breeds,  and the eye testing that many breeds have.    Copper Toxicosis in the show population (routinely tested before breeding) is almost non existent now.   The population not bred by show breeders is an unknown quantity as in many breeds.

The reason for the eradication of CT in a breed so low in numbers is that concerned breeders have been working with the AHT and their geneticists since the late 1970s to ensure that they don't make things worse.   They started with one dog who was known to be free of the CT gene,  so many pedigrees will still show this dog and his progeny,   making it appear that the breed has been extensively inbred to those who have no understanding of these matters.

One of the problems with people who breed without regard to the breed as a whole,  and outside the guidance of knowledgeable breeders,  is that they aren't as selective about what they breed from.     A knowledgeable breeder will only breed from dogs that are inherently healthy in addition to the health test results.   A one-off pet breeder or BYB will breed from dogs without worrying whether little fluffy has the right temperament or construction,  they may not even know what the right temperament is.   They may not recognise patella luxation or hip displasia,  they may even think that little fluffy's hop and skip whilst running around is cute!

They certainly don't have regard to the bigger picture.

Over use / promotion of 1 sire has created a dangerous bottle neck in my breed.  The introduction of a scheme like the AKC Frequently Used Sire regulation would help tremendously.  We are not a large breed numerically, and do not have a huge number of puppies born in the UK each year.

>They may not recognise patella luxation or hip displasia,  they may even think that little fluffy's hop and skip whilst running around is cute!

They do; I've been told that Jack Russells skip 'because they're happy'. The person was horrified to be told they skip because their kneecap has slipped out of place and they can't straighten the leg without pain until it's slipped back again.

> The introduction of a scheme like the AKC Frequently Used Sire regulation would help tremendously

And yet,  that regulation would have prevented the Bedlington Terrier breeders from beginning the breeding that has virtually eradicated CT.

It would have been 20 years before they could have started,  as it took that long to develop a DNA test that was reliable.    So more dogs would have been ill,  more would have died.

If I look at my own breed seems very few people below pension age have ever heard of it

The thing with your breed, and many other Scandinavian breeds, is that IN Scandinavia, they are NOT kept as pets. It simply does not happen. They are hunting dogs kept by hunters for elk hunting - a big annual thing in Sweden. These days occasionally they are even used for wolf hunting. I have worked as a vet nurse and a dog groomer in Sweden so came across a lot of dogs, and I can say hand on heart that I have NEVER come across a Norwegian Elkhound or a Hamiltonstövare or a Drever or a Schillerstövare or Jämthund or any of the other many native Scandinavian breeds used for hunting, kept as pets -or as show dogs. Even those shown tend to be shown by hunters. Certainly the Swedish KC was formed by hunters for hunting dogs, and the Hunters Society is still huge (and indeed shares its offices with the Swedish KC), and this ensures those breeds are not dying out -but they will not become pet dogs. I think the best UK comparison I can come up with is the Foxhound -you won't see them here kept as pets or showdogs, they are kept for one purpose only.

So I think this has a lot to do with the problems with your breed, making it a bit of a special case -it will make it harder to find breeding dogs abroad. And because they are not pet dogs in their native country, the word doesn't get spread about in the same way that it will with other breeds -where the internet has a lot to do with popularity increasing. The average person won't read articles shouting "Norwegian Elkhound helps to bring down elk!" but they will definitely read "Belgian Malinois helps capture Osama Bin Laden!" -or indeed "Actress X buys cute PooPooDiddlyDoo puppy".....

Yet they have been kept and known in the UK since 1870's and about 1930's in USA they have been kept shown and bred as companion dogs with a sporting bent.

Despite regular inclusion of working imported blood they make excellent companions, and certainly are treated as Pets by many hunting families out of hunting season.  Sweden do seem to have stricter hunting preference as one of our breeders found despite her bitch being by a hunting champion and mated to a hunting champion dog the hunters society would not allow her to advertise her litter with them, as the mother had not won hunting awards.

They certainly are rarely ever purely show dogs, and the ones shown most successfully tend to be shown by someone in the family that shows dogs of another breed, and the Elkies are shown too.

Under the Scandinavian system they can't do well (gain titles) in either sphere unless they do both hunt and show.

From what Scandinavians I know with the breed it isn't that they don't think they make good pets  they think the dogs should be hunting dogs first, and some go as far as to think the dogs would not be happy as a pure pet (I do wonder if they think the dogs are miserable most of the year with that logic).

I have noticed a steady decrease in registrations in Scandinavia over the last 20 years.  In Finland the breed has gone from third highest in 2006 to currently just being in the top 10.  I think a time will come then the Scandinavians will realise the breed is unsustainable if only kept for hunting.

With Scandinavian databases being open or for members of NKK in Norway it is actually pretty easy to gain information on bloodlines and importations have occurred regularly, and latterly with less difficulty.

Problem is the breed community cannot sustain things on importation and foreign stud use alone, as unlike the early days of the breed most people owning the breed are not wealthy.  may of us are more like church mice or squirrels, making the odd investment in new lines for the breed when we can afford it.

It's quite disheartening to breed a litter by an overseas stud, or import and only be able to find purely pet homes for the resulting puppies, and one absorbs the cost and only has ones own puppy to keep if lucky, sometimes having to keep one purely for the bloodlines when the best in the litter are wrong sex.

I had this situation in 2006 a good size litter, only two bitches, only one show quality who went to someone new starting out as a exhibitor/breeder (wanted her to have something showable to encourage her interest).  Not one of the male owners ended up showing even after one had been keen, even entered a championship show and then forgot to turn up.

Next time I did it we did want a male for an established exhibitor and got all bitches, and did get some into show and potentially breeding homes. 

I did import a male in a 4 way partnership when we still had to do 6 months Quarantine, the dog has been influential siring 8 litters, (one could say over represented due to the partnership al being breeders, so all of us have kept offspring or grand-offspring) but the four of us put in a lot of money each which we had no hope of recouping.

Sometimes you feel that everyone wants/waits for someone else to spend the money on importing.

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Dill - a scheme such as Frequently Used Sires does NOT prevent a stud being used at all.  It only brought in a compulsory requirement for DNA profiling of progeny once the stud had sired 7 litters, or more than 3 in a calendar year.  If anything it has been of importance to those breeds with genetic disease, and for those breeds that at present are clear of inherited problems a safeguard for the future.

Well that's good to know.

So basically, they've caught up with what has been happening in Bedlingtons for at least the last 15 years :-)

It must be hard Brainless -difficult breed to work with because of the special circumstances.  I've no experience of them as pets but they clearly DO function in that role! And yes, good point indeed -wouldn't the pure hunting dogs be miserable during the rest of the year if that was all that makes them happy.

> So basically, they've caught up with what has been happening in Bedlingtons for at least the last 15 years :-)

Err no the scheme has been in place for much longer than that.

> difficult breed to work

It's very strange that some of the most popular pet breeds are actually hunting dogs, (primarily gundogs but also terriers) so my breed being a good pet has plenty of precedents.

What does surprise me it the popularity as pets for so many working and herding breeds that often are too high drive as breeds for pet ownership.

Actually the dogs of my breed  themselves are a very easy breed to work with as pure companions compared to the BSD Groenenedael which was my first breed ;)

They are certainly far easier to 'manage' in a pet situation than the breeds that have in some ways displaced them in the UK popularity, Akita, Husky, Malamute and sibe crosses.

They are probably on a par of manageability with the Keeshond, Samoyed, buhund, finnish laphund, and Vallhund.

Apologies to others for going a bit off topic with my reply to Goldmali

>If anything it has been of importance to those breeds with genetic disease, and for those breeds that at present are clear of inherited >problems a safeguard for the future

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3. What information does the DNA testing provide?

AKC DNA Profiling is for parentage verification and genetic identity purposes only. It does not provide information regarding genetic health, conformation, performance ability, coat color, etc.

This scheme appears to only be for identifying pups to their sire.   But not all pups,  only those sired after 6 litters.   And there appears to be no way of linking the pups to their dam.   It's conceivable that pups could be registered to another dam -  eg a sister.   

Unless all progeny can be linked to both parents,  there will still be problems if inherited disease is discovered.

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> This scheme appears to only be for identifying pups to their sire.

I think you will find that is why it is called Frequently Used Sires, not and Dams.  A male is capable of siring many many litters over a lifetime.  Most females will produce 4 or 5 at most.  The method of DNA profiling the sires has proven successful in not only the canine sector, but in several other species.  Autosomal Recessive and Dominant Inheritance, and X-Linked inheritance cases have been traced back to sire sources. We have two cases in my own breed of 1st instances of reported Autosomal Recessive Inheritance of two different genetic diseases, and each has been traced back to single litters in each case, and from there in 1 of them to a single sire. 

This is a good basic article to explain the benefits of a FUS programme.  https://www.pawprintgenetics.com/blog/2013/03/19/popular-sire-syndrome-when-winning-results-losing/