New campaign targets Crufts - Parody or Peta?

First up, let me say that I have no time for the People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (Peta) and am on the record calling them a bunch of crackpots.

Pedigree Dogs Exposed and this blog is all about animal welfare, not animal rights; about campaigning to ensure that pedigree dogs enjoy a healthier future not, as Peta wants, no future at all.

While PETA in the US is an undeniably powerful force, it hasn't amounted to much here in the UK - last year a group of earnest men and women dressed up in dog costumes and waving the odd poster outside Crufts.

The KC did get upset when Peta UK paid for an advertising site on a bus shelter in Birmingham close to the National Exhibition Centre to display this poster - but lost a bid to have it taken down. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the ad was not offensive.

Of course many dog breeders would disagree. And so they're really not going to like this attempt to make the point that people should adopt a rescue dog than buy a pedigree pup.

I won't reproduce any images from the spoof website here as I suspect the KC has a strong legal case as regards the adulteration of their logo.

Although it does look like Peta UK might be behind it (they're using the same image that was used on the bus shelter), they claim they are not. So who is? Satirists or animal rights nut-jobs?

Pedigree Dogs Exposed is often accused of fueling the animal rights agenda and of course we were concerned that our message would be hijacked by animals rights extremists. But we never felt - and still don't - that this was a good enough reason to not make the points as strongly as we did in the film.  After all, no one thinks that because the RSPCA has highlighted the misery of battery-farmed hens that it endorses the bombing of the farms where caged birds are raised.

I'm sure I'll get a bit of stick for publicising this new website. But if it is animal rights activists behind it, it's good to know what your enemy is up to. This presents a strong case for rehoming a dog rather than buying one, something many ordinary people will think is perfectly reasonable. Don't be fooled though -many animal rights extremists like Peta want the eradication of the dog as a pet. They think it's enslavement.

Must tell that to the ones that are currently on my sofa, having dragged me out for a two-hour walk in the driving rain on Salisbury Plain this afternoon.

Dalmatian Club of America - last throes of resistance?

Not much winds me up like the Dalmatian Club of America's resistance to introducing the backcrossed LUA/NUA Dalmatians. (Background here.)  The Club's eugenicistic obsession with purity is at a clear cost to the dogs who suffer a painful and sometimes fatal health problem. 

No longer able to ban discussion of the LUA/NUA Dals (yep, they really did that) the DCA is pulling out all the stops after experts commissioned by the American Kennel Club to examine the issue concluded:

"Because the introduction of the low uric acid dogs into the AKC registry gives Dalmatian breeders a scientifically sound method of voluntarily reducing the incidence of the condition, this committee strongly recommends some controlled program of acceptance of these dogs. Where the strict health and welfare of the breed is the over-riding concern, no other argument can be made."

Phew. Job done, then.

Er, not quite, because the AKC decided to refer the decision to the Dalmatian Club of America - the very people opposing this ingress of mongrel blood. (The current generation of backcrossed Dals is 99.7 per cent pure, by the way)

So what does the DCA do? It publishes an article suggesting that the 10 distinguished members of the AKC advisory committee got it all wrong.

Contrary to what those vets and scientists think, the DCA wants its members to know that:

• Descendants of the backcross project are not purebred enough.
• Abnormally high levels of uric acid do not often lead to the formation of crystals and stones.
• Urate stones are not a significant problem in the breed.
• High levels of uric acid is not a predisposing factor in the formation of urate stones.
• Introduction of LUA Dals into the AKC genepool could have a negative impact on the health and welfare of the breed.
• It would be extremely challenging to come up with any plan to safely integrated LUA Dals into the AKC population of Dals.

Bollocks, of course.

You can read more in the latest edition of The Spotter (from page 47 onwards...)

This is going to be an interesting one because the case for introducing the LUA/NUA Dals is just SO strong that I think the AKC might be able to make a stand on this one.  As the KC did in the UK, despite a lot of resistance from the purists here, too.

Or am I being a hopeless optimist?

DNA blessings - and curses

Illustration © Kevin Brockbank

How extraordinary it is that the raw potential for everything about us and of course our dogs is encoded in something so small that until very recently even the most powerful microscope could not see it.  And yet today we can send off a drop of blood or a mouth swab from our beloved dogs and find out what’s going on inside them at a level that would have been considered quite unthinkable just a few years ago.

Without the discovery of DNA thousands more dogs would be suffering needlessly – from blindness, horrible neurological conditions and a host of other debilitating, painful and sometimes deadly diseases. And that’s because the discovery of DNA in 1953 has led – in the blink of an eye really – to tests that can help us avoid breeding dogs that will inflict these blighting problems on their puppies. 

Today, there are DNA tests for a growing number of conditions in our dogs. Most aim to give us an answer to: “Will this dog develop this condition?” And many more are on the way thanks to increasingly-sophisticated technology that can identify genetic mutations faster than ever before. No doubt about it – DNA tests are a modern miracle.

Good breeders have embraced the concept of DNA tests with great gusto. Many have helped contribute financially and have donated blood/cheek swabs to the researchers. And thanks to the current greater emphasis on health in pedigree dogs, there has been a many-fold increase in the number of breeders contacting the Animal Health Trust (UK’s main DNA-test development centre) to request and offer help in developing new DNA tests.

One of the most recent breakthroughs, for instance, has been a new test for Primary Lens Luxation (PLL) , a painful, blinding condition found in miniature bull terriers and Lancashire heelers.  “Both breeds have both been terrifically supportive and we absolutely  couldn't have done the work without them,” says the Animal Health Trust’s Cathryn Mellersh.  “They have volunteered DNA and information from their dogs and I have every confidence that they will use the test to its full advantage.”

The PLL mutation is very common in mini-bulls so the chances of puppies being affected are very high.  Now with this test, breeders can be sure that the puppies they produce will not go blind.  Mini-bull breeders must be whooping with joy – and with good reason.

But there’s been something niggling me for a long time: a fear that we are relying far too much on DNA tests to bail us out of the trouble in which pedigree dogs find themselves in, and that this gift from the geneticists is a double-edged sword.

The niggle turned to real concern at the recent publication by the Kennel Club of a press release entitled : “Eradication of inherited diseases in dogs moves a step closer”. The opening paragraph then went on to say: “The Kennel Club Charitable Trust strengthened its campaign to eliminate inherited diseases in dogs last week, as it signed its formal agreement with the Animal Health Trust (AHT), to jointly create the Kennel Club Genetics Centre and revealed some of the exciting findings so far.”

Eradicate? Eliminate? Now I’m all for optimism but there are more than 500 genetic diseases in dogs (and twice that number according to some estimates) and we currently have DNA tests for only around five per cent of them   The KC press release went on to say that the AHT will be looking to develop a further 25 tests in the next five years – all welcome, but still only a handful in the greater scheme of things.

In fact, any talk of elimination of inherited disease in dog is not just hopelessly premature – it’s dishonest. There isn’t a hope in hell of eradication and why anyone sanctioned the KC press release’s headline is beyond me.  Genetic disease is a fact of life (ironically a statement often used by those defending what they see as the ‘attack’ on pedigree dogs).  Really, the most we can hope for is to reduce problems to an acceptable level and DNA testing, while a wonderful tool, will only ever be part of the answer.

In the past few years, the Kennel Club has set great store by DNA tests, hence its considerable funding for the Animal Health Trust.  And you can understand the appeal. Quite simply, DNA tests appeared to offer the hope that you can fix problems without changing, fundamentally, the way we breed dogs. In other words, that we could continue to inbreed dogs to achieve the specific look/traits we want without paying the price in doubling up on the genetic disease that also tends to spread with inbreeding.  

But there are problems. First up is that the ability to look deep into our dogs’ DNA has revealed much more than dodgy mutations; it has shown us the nuts and bolts of what we’ve done to the dog genome – which is, essentially, to knacker it through inbreeding in the pursuit of certain traits that often have little to do with health. There is a price to be paid for this as it is increasingly obvious that inbreeding impairs our dogs’ immune systems, making them increasingly vulnerable to infection, allergies and other immune-mediated problems, even cancer. A group of Italian researchers has found that purebred dogs are twice as likely to suffer from cancer as their random-bred cousins.  A shocking statistic.

Second, all the current DNA tests are for conditions that are, in a genetic sense, simple. Most are caused by single mutations that are pretty easy for the gene hunters to spot.  But lots of problems in dogs are much more complicated than this.  We know, for instance, that there are likely to be many genes involved in hip dysplasia and that diet and exercise play an additional role in whether or not a dog is affected clinically.

Five years ago when I spoke to the KC’s genetics advisor Jeff Sampson about this, he was confident that there would be useful DNA tests for complex disorders like hip dyslasia. But today the emphasis is shifting towards developing Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs). This, essentially, is a breeding tool that assesses risk using nifty computer programmes into which can be fed all kinds of different information about a breed  – population size, the level of inbreeding, health-test results and so on. All breeders need to do is type in the names of the two dogs they wish to mate and out will pop an EBV score which will reveal if it’s a match made in health-heaven, or health-hell. The KC will be rolling out the first stage of this - Mate Select - at Crufts in March.

The beauty of EBVs is that they should be reliably predictive independent of DNA tests, although DNA data can be incorporated if and when it becomes available.  The hope is that EBVs will be better than what we currently have for complex disorders.  In the case of hip dysplasia, for instance, the early evidence is that EBVs are better at predicting an offspring’s hip-scores than the hip scores of the parents, which is how we tend to do it at the moment.

I like the idea of EBVs because they have the potential to look at the whole dog in the context of the whole breed.  I think we need to think more holistically about genes, too. Because although we talk merrily about the gene for this and for that, genes are not discrete entities that just do one thing . Genes can and do play many roles  - both individually and in combination with other genes. And neither are they pantomime goodies or baddies. 

 “It is risky to focus on just one gene at a time,” says biologist and saluki breeder John Burchard. “The idea 
that there are ‘bad’ genes and ‘good’ genes and that you can eliminate the ‘bad’ 
ones while keeping the ‘good’ ones is at best a dangerous over-simplification. Genes do not exist, or act, by themselves.”



The classic example of this is the genetic mutation that predisposes Africans to sickle-cell anaemia. It turns out that this mutation is life-saving in another respect: it protects against malaria.  So this mutation is both good and bad.  Now we don’t go much for genetic engineering in humans – but if we had decided to try and breed it out, millions more would die of malaria. We need, therefore, to be very careful about playing God with genes. 

This is particularly true with DNA tests for what are known as “heightened-risk” genes.  While some DNA tests are pretty conclusive – ie. if the dog has the mutation (or a double-dose if it’s a recessive condition), they will almost certainly develop the disease.  But others are not definitive.  Boxer breeder and geneticist Bruce Cattanach is currently struggling with the new “heightened-risk” DNA test for degenerative myelopathy (DM) in boxers.  “The test will tell you which dogs have two copies of the mutation and are theoretically likely to develop DM,” says Bruce. “The problem is that although British-bred boxers have tested positive for the mutation, we have no reports of DM in boxers in the UK.”

The problem may be because DM is a late-onset condition. Perhaps boxers are simply not living long-enough to develop it? Or perhaps, as is very likely, other genes yet to be identified are exerting an influence?  So do breeders remove otherwise good dogs from the gene pool simply when it’s by no means certain they would develop the problem? It’s a very tough choice.

“It's also exceedingly unlikely that
 this gene does nothing else other than affect the probability of DM,” adds saluki-breeder John Burchard. “One of the
 things it almost certainly does is form part of the "environment" in which other 
genes function. If you start tampering with that, the law of unintended 
consequences is all too likely to rise up and bite you in the arse.

 That's the danger of overenthusiastic DNA testing - most of the time we are 
indeed still tinkering in the dark.”

That said, it’s clear that some mutations do much more harm than good and we’d be well shot of them. We need to do it carefully though and over several monitored generations to be sure we’re not losing something important.  It’s for this reason that witch-hunts against dogs who are just carriers of a particular condition (but not themselves affected) are misplaced.  There is no reason why these dogs cannot be bred from, as long as it’s to a “clear” as none of the puppies will be affected. Some may themselves be carriers but as long as they are themselves DNA tested and bred carefully, there is no risk.  In this way, we will not further impoverish the small gene pools that threaten some breeds.

Finally, there’s the issue of cost. DNA tests through the Animal Health Trust currently cost about £50 each. As more tests come on-stream, DNA testing could become prohibitively expensive for breeders of some breeds.

“If I want to know if an adult Borzoi has cardiac problems, the least expensive way to do it is to take him to a lure course and test run him on an 800 yard course,” says Bonnie Dalzell, a US breeder of wonderfully-fit and functional working Borzoi “If he can do that a full racing speed twice in a row his heart is probably OK. Currently there are so many different ways that cardiac problems can be caused that the idea of having genetic testing for all of them is very difficult and could add up to thousands of dollars.”

The AHT’s Cathryn Mellersh predicts that one day breeders will be able to submit a single sample that will be run against all the known problems at a much cheaper cost than doing them all individually. She also points out that knowing that your dog, for instance, will not develop a blinding eye problem may negate the need for expensive annual eye tests.

But a reality-check is still in order. DNA tests are a wonderful resource - truly. But they are in themselves no guarantee that a dog is healthy because they measure just a tiny part of the whole dog. They are also no excuse for not tackling the fundamental reasons why genetic disease has become so prevalent in some breeds of dog – essentially a kennel-club system that to-date has promoted inbreeding and placed too much emphasis on how a dog looks.   But that, we hope, is changing…

This article is adapted from the version that first appeared in the December 2009 issue of Dogs Today Magazine

Pekes - some progress?

Danny the Peke

We gave Pekes a hard time in Pedigree Dogs Exposed, mainly on account of the 2003 Crufts winner looking like a Tribble. Ah, and the fact that the dog had needed a soft palate resection the year before in order to breathe and was so prone to overheating that he had to sit on an icepack when it was warm - in common, indeed, with many Pekes.

After the film, the Pekingese was the breed that the Kennel Club was the first to act on. It changed the breed standard in order to encourage breeders to return the dog to something more like the Pekes of old - ie, less coat and more muzzle.

A Tribble

There has been a mixed response.  While many accept that the breed's health does need to improve, many fought hard to retain the description of the breed's "rolling gait" in the breed standard (in fact a side effect of being achondroplastic - a dwarf) and some diehards refuse to accept that the breathing problems in the dog are to do with the Peke's very flat face.  The Peke Clubs, then, have decided to help fund research to find a gene for Bracychephalic Airway Syndrome.

100 years ago... a Peke from 1911

Sigh.

Now it is certainly true that some Pekes with very flat faces can breathe much better than others. But that is surely due to the variation in the amount of bunched-up tissue inside blocking the airways - something that is never going to be controlled by a single gene for which a DNA test can be developed.

It is hard not to see this as a ridiculous time-and-money wasting exercise so hopefully it won't take too long for the researchers to conclude that this is not the way to go.

A much better initiative from the Peke clubs is a new health survey - UK based, but open to all Pekes, wherever on the planet they may be.  Here's a chance for Peke owners to really help the breed by establishing what the main health issues are.

If you have a Peke, please take a moment to fill in a simple online survey form here. 

And spread the word on the Peke lists and forums.

The survey closes February 15th, so be quick!

Their Own Worst Enemy - Part 1

I'm currently dealing with a case (about which more to come another time) involving a breeder who among many other misdemeanours has failed to hand over a pup's papers to the person who paid £900 for the dog.

The puppy-buyer contacted the Kennel Club who confirmed that the puppy is KC-registered but said there was nothing they could do. Even though the new owner has a sales contract that proves unequivocally that the dog is hers, the Kennel Club is unable, apparently, to furnish her with the dog's KC registration certificate. The KC also refused to write to the breeder - telling the new owner that they had no duty to do so and, instead, she should seek recourse through Trading Standards.

The rather astonished puppy-buyer pointed out to the KC that there is a clause in the Kennel Club's Code of Ethics which asks that a breeder "...will ensure that all relevant Kennel Club documents are provided to the new owner when selling or transferring a dog, and will agree, in writing, to forward any relevant documents at the earliest opportunity, if not immediately available."

The puppy-buyer also pointed out that, at the foot of the KC's Code of Ethics, it states:

"Breach of these provisions may result in expulsion from club membership, and/or disciplinary action by the Kennel Club and/or reporting to the relevant authorities for legal action, as appropriate."

The puppy-buyer asked if the KC could, therefore,  put some pressure on the breeder who has clearly broken the KC's code of ethics.

And back came this reply:

"The code is the KC saying how we would like people to behave. If people choose not to abide by the code then we cannot take action. We do not plan to discuss the matter of the certificate with the breeder - your recourse is through the normal legal channels. Due to the current volume of work in the office I cannot give further priority to your messages and any future email will have to be dealt with as written correspondence and you will need to allow at least 28 days for reply."

How to win friends and influence people, eh?

Hybrid vigour... fact or fiction?

Illustration: Kevin Brockbank

So which is healthier -  posh pedigree or humble mutt? It’s this question more than any other that makes breeders of the purebred dog hyperventilate. And you can understand why. Surely, after years of honing their beloved breeds, their dogs are vastly superior in terms of health than their crossbreed cousins – especially, God forbid, than those awful designer dogs.

The breeders on the show-focused Champdogs website certainly think they know the answer. They recently had a big whinge about the prices of Labradoodles, Cockapoos and other money-earning crosses and, over 100 posts later, they emerged having convinced themselves that their purebred dogs had to be healthier. Phew!

“There’s no such thing as hybrid vigour in dogs,” was one comment, oft-repeated. “You only get hybrid vigour if you mate two species together and all dog breeds are the same species.”

Well no. While it is true that a lion/tiger cross would produce a hybrid animal, the term hybrid vigour is used more usually in science and agriculture to describe the rude health/better yield you get by breeding animals or plants of different varieties. Indeed, we enjoy the benefits of it every day in our food. Your morning toast? Very likely to be bread made with hybrid wheat. Your steak for supper? It may say Aberdeen Angus on the packet, but it only has to be 60 per cent purebred to be allowed to use the moniker. Same goes for eggs, chickens, corn-on-the cob and many other foodstuffs. The reason farmers use crosses is because the wheat grows stronger, the maize grows sweeter, the poultry thrives better and the cattle grow bigger. Indeed, the hybrid vigour so dismissed by dog breeders is one of the things keeping our farming industry afloat (if barely). That’s not to say that farmers don’t maintain purebred lines too – they do. But it’s often a more expensive business because the yield is less.

In fairness, one informed poster acknowledged this. She wrote: “You can get hybrid vigour when crossing two separate 'types' which have been kept pure in their own gene pools for some time. The theory is that over time, 'inbreeding depression' sets in with any closely-bred/line-bred strain, which is immediately lost when crossed to a different strain.” This is exactly right. But she then added:  “Of course if you cross two breeds that get epilepsy, or two breeds prone to hip dysplasia, or PRA (progressive retinal atrophy) - all you're going to get is epilepsy, HD or PRA. No amount of hybrid vigour can wipe away recessives present on both sides.”

This post goes hand-in-hand with another one that’s repeated with depressing regularity by breeders on many websites – and that is: “If you mate two different breeds the puppies will be cursed with all the problems of both breeds.”

Again, it’s not the case – although there is some truth in this.  Many conditions in dogs are recessive. That means that both parents must carry and pass down the genetic mutation that causes that condition for the pups to be affected. If they’re different breeds, this is much less likely, as confirmed by the Animal Health Trust: “Because of the small gene pool in purebred dogs, inherited diseases resulting from single gene mutations are more likely to occur than in their cross bred cousins,” said the AHT in a recent press release.

Of course if both breeds suffer from the same condition, the pups could be affected. There’s very good evidence, for instance, that Labradoodles  are just as likely to suffer hip dysplasia as their purebred parent breeds.  The breed mean hip score for Labradors is 15 and for Standard Poodles it is 14 while the Labradoodle’s average hip score is 14.  Over 400 have now been tested  via the KC/BVA scheme– more than many Kennel Club breeds, including the Boxer and Dalmatians – and clearly the cross doesn’t bring any benefits in terms of joint disease. This is as you might expect, but it isn’t a given. Both Springer Spaniels and Irish Setters suffer from the eye condition PRA, for instance, but it’s caused by different mutations. The Springer x Setter pups, therefore, will not go blind.

There’s another point here, too: dogs from genetically-different parents are likely to have stronger immune systems. This may not help with avoiding genetic disease, but it most certainly helps in terms of withstanding infections, parasites, viruses, auto-immune diseases and allergies. So here again, crossbreeds tend to have the advantage.

Next up on Champdogs was this old chestnut: “All my pedigree dogs are perfectly healthy but my mongrel has lots of problems, including epilepsy.”  No doubt this is the case – but I could chip in with evidence that all my mutts enjoy rude health whereas my purebreds are more sickly. It doesn’t prove a thing. To know which is more representative you have to compare a lot of crossbreeds with a lot of purebred dogs. Has that ever been done? Champdogs didn’t think so: “The claims about crossbreeds being healthier than pedigrees are based on unproved statistics” wrote one poster and no one chipped in to point out that they were wrong.

And they are wrong. There are several scientific studies which have explored the issue and found either no difference or that crossbreeds are healthier overall [see below].  However, “overall” means comparing all purebreds with all mutts and if you compare all mutts with individual breeds, it’s clear that some of the smaller, hardier breeds are healthier.

The same goes for longevity, too. Overall, mutts live – on average – a little longer. In fact, they’re likely to be at our feet for up to two years longer according to one key study. But this doesn’t mean that mutts outlive every breed – they don’t. That’s because small dogs tend to live longer than large ones and that endures across the purebred/crossbreed divide. Some terriers, miniature poodles and whippets live longer than the average cross.  So breeders of these breeds really could justifiably claim that their dogs are healthier than most mutts. But it’s not a very fair comparison because if you split the crosses into size categories, the crossbreed benefit manifests once again. In other words, small crossbreeds live longer than small pedigree dogs (and the same is true for medium and large dogs too).

Insurance company data also confirms the crossbreed health benefit. Most charge lower premiums for crosses and mixed breeds. This isn’t because they’re “anti-pedigree” – an accusation often levied at anyone who dares sing the health-merits of the average mutt. Nope, it’s bottom-line not opinion that cuts ice with the actuaries. They’ve calculated the risks by looking at their data (ie claim history) and priced their premiums accordingly.

For all these reasons, we felt able to say in Pedigree Dogs Exposed that crossbreeds are – overall – healthier than their purebred cousins. Of course this isn’t to say that every mutt enjoys rude good health – they don’t. I wrote recently about losing a lovely collie cross to lymphoma at the age of two and you don’t have to look very far to find crosses suffering from many of the same conditions that blight our purebred dogs. It’s just that, statistically, they’re less likely to be sick. In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, one recent Italian study found that purebred dogs were twice as likely to suffer from cancer than crossbreeds.

“Ah but,” cry responsible breeders, “studies comparing mongrels and purebreds lump all the purebreds together. If you just compared the dogs we breed – carefully selected and fully health-tested – you’d find that our dogs are healthier.”

What the breeders are claiming here is that the disease statistics are being skewed by all those dodgy purebred dogs being produced by backyard breeders and puppy farms.  This sounds plausible, but is there any evidence that it’s true?

No, there isn’t. Actually, there’s next to no evidence to suggest that it isn’t true, either, so the jury is out on this one.  I’ve only found one survey that did the comparison – of Scottish Terriers in America – and it disproves the breeders’ claim. In 2005, Great Scots Magazine did the biggest-ever health survey of Scotties (785 dogs) and found absolutely no difference in disease-rates or longevity between “well-bred” Scotties and others.

“I expected to find statistically verified greater health in the well-bred group,” says Joseph Harvill, publisher of Great Scots Magazine. “That has been the classic claim of show breeders. But I found no significant difference in health benefit between the two groups and it raises real questions to me about the validity of the show breeders' health claims.” In fact, more recent studies by the Scottish Terrier Club of America's Health Trust Fund looking at cancers  - especially bladder cancer from which Scotties are 30 times more like to suffer than other breeds – support the findings. “There is no safety among show dogs,” insists Harvill.

It’s only one study though and you can’t apply the findings across all breeds. It may well be that, in other breeds, show-bred dogs are indeed healthier than the rest of the population. But the show-breeders can’t simply assume this without data to support the claim.

So there we are.  On the evidence we have to date, pedigree dogs can fairly boast predictability of type, looks, character traits and temperament. But in terms of health and average longevity, the humble mutt rules – with the possible exception of working dogs that have been carefully and sometimes ruthlessly bred for fitness and function – a process that in many ways mimics natural selection. Racing greyhounds, for instance, do not suffer from hip dysplasia.

It is the case that not all mixed breeds are created equal. If we breed crosses in the same way as we breed pedigree dogs (as certainly happens with some designer dogs) it’s asking for trouble.  One reason why randomly-bred dogs enjoy a health benefit is that they get to choose their own mates (a process by which nature ensures that only the fittest get to breed). Further, if the individuals dogs are in poor health (genetically or otherwise) and we then go on and inbreed the offspring, we’re on a hiding to nothing.  In other words, just being a crossbreed or mutt is no guarantee of superior health and if a breeder of Labradoodles, Goldenoodles, Cockapoos, Puggles or any other cute mix tries to claim otherwise, vote with your feet and walk away - particularly if they insist there is no need to do any health-tests because their pups will be the automatic beneficiary of hybrid vigour.  It ain’t true.

References (researched and collated by Dr Hellmuth Wachtel):

• B.N. Bonnett, A. Egenvall, P. Olson, A. Hedhammar, Mortality in Swedish dogs: rates and causes of death in various breeds, The Veterinary Record, 1997. ("Mongrels were consistently in the low risk category")

•  P.D. McGreevy & W.F. Nicholas, Some Practical Solutions to Welfare Problems in Pedigree Dog Breeding, Animal Welfare, 1999. ("Hybrids have a far lower chance of exhibiting the disorders that are common with the parental breeds. Their genetic health will be substantially higher.")

• A. Egenvall, B.N. Bonnett, P. Olson, A. Hedhammar. Gender, age, breed and distribution of morbidity and mortality in insured dogs in Sweden during 1995 and 1996, The Veterinary Record, 2000. ("Mongrel dogs are less prone to many diseases then the average purebred dog.")

•  A. R. Michell, Longevity of British breeds of dog and its relationship with sex, size, cardiovascular variables and disease, Veterinary Record, 1999. ("There was a significant correlation between body weight and longevity. Crossbreeds lived longer than average but several pure breeds lived longer than cross breeds, notably Jack Russell, miniature poodles and whippets”.)

• G.J. Patronek, D.J. Walters, L.T. Glickman, Comparative Longevity of Pet Dogs and Humans: Implications for Gerontology Research, Journal of Gerontology, Biological Sciences, 1997. ("The median age at death was 8.5 years for all mixed breed dogs and 6.7 years for all pure breed dogs For each weight group, the age at death of pure breed dogs was significantly less than for mixed breed dogs.")

• H.F. Proschofsky et al, Mortality of purebred and mixed breed dogs in Denmark, Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2003. (Higher average longevity of mixed breed dogs. Age at death when split into three age bands: mixed breeds 8,11,13, purebreds 6, 10, 12)

• Marta Vascellar et al. Animal tumour registry of two provinces in northern Italy: incidence of spontaneous tumours in dogs and cats. BMC Veterinary Research 2009. (“In both dogs and cats, purebreds had an almost 2-fold higher incidence of malignant tumours than mixed breeds.”)

• Agneta Egenvall et al. Mortality in over 350,000 Insured Swedish Dogs from 1995–2000; Breed-Specific Age and Survival Patterns and Relative Risk for Causes of Death. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica, 2005. (No difference overall, but mongrels low-risk for locomotor problems and heart disease.)

This article first appeared in the October 2010 issue of Dogs Today Magazine.

Caveat emptor...

Cherry eye... don't worry, it's 'normal'

Was forwarded this link to an internet puppy-selling site in Canada... which reassuringly offers a lifetime guarantee,  including against genetic disorders.  A closer examination, though, reveals that it includes some amazing get-out clauses and conditions.  It does not, for instance, cover heart murmurs, invertebral disc disease or luxating patellas and..."You must follow PUREBRED BREEDERS, LLC recommended nutritional program, including feeding only premium dog foods and vitamin supplement listed in the paperwork that we give you at the time of purchase. You must retain all receipts for food and vitamins to show you are abiding by this guarantee."

But the wording that most caught my eye was this:

"English Bulldogs are only covered for a period of one (1) year from original purchase date. During which time, this guarantee does not cover what in Bulldog breeds we consider normal: Cherry Eye, Entropion, "loose hips", skin allergies, elongated soft palate, small trachea, stenotic nares."

Depressing.