German Shepherds - have they seen the light?

My heart skipped a small beat this morning when David Payne (Videx GSD) sent me an article promising:

"An excellent article by a leading German SV Judge and Kormeister on German Shepherd Dog (GSD) Hind angulation and unsoundness."

Hurrah! They've realised the error of their ways!

I clicked on the link. There,  Leonhard Schweikert has written that the breed sufferes from "over typification, that is, over-angulation in the region of the hindquarter."

Yes, yes!

He went on: "Anyone who still do not wish to face this truth, is sinning, transgressing, against the working dog characteristics of our breed!"

Finally!

He urged: "It is high time, that we faced this criticism and do not ignore it any further, or even dismiss it as the idle talk of some who criticise the German Shepherd with ill intent.

Bravo!

He even nicks a graphic of a horse that's done the rounds on the internet showing what happens if you give a horse a modern GSD show-line shape.

Absolutely!

He then pulls out some recent GSD rear ends and illustrates the problem.

Oh, isn't this great?

And finally, Leonhard Schweikert gives us a picture of the dog that he thinks has the perfect angulation.

Tah-daaah!

You can read the whole depressing thing here.

And then slightly cheer yourself up with this photograph - from a kennel in North Carolina breeding protection dogs.

Eye-popping billboards

Think this ad is OK?

How about now?

Pedigree Dogs Exposed - now on Facebook

Yep, what it says on the tin - a venue for others to contribute to the debate, too.

You can find us here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/pedigreedogs/

Would have been pedigreedogsexposed.

But Facebook doesn't like the sex in the middle of that.

Cavaliers: too little, too late

I meant to include this with the post marking the death of Carol Fowler's Cavalier, Rosie.  So here it is. As the commentary says: from creation to ruination in less than 100 years.

The message has, I'm glad to say, got through to puppy buyers re this breed - KC registrations have halved since the film. 

There was a time, perhaps, when an international effort might have saved this breed. But not now. 

It is too late.

LUA Dalmatians... still the Clubs resist

The Dalmatian Clubs in the UK have blocked an attempt to have the results of a key DNA test for the breed listed on Dalmatian pedigrees.

Four years ago, despite breed club opposition, the Kennel Club agreed to recognise LUA Dalmatians (those dogs that had at least one copy of a gene that ensures the normal production of uric acid). A year later, the AKC followed suit. It was a real victory for common sense.

The problem? 'Regular' Dalmatians don't have a normal copy of a gene that controls the production of uric acid. They only have a version that results in high uric levels which makes them very vulnerable to blockages/stones in the kidneys/urinary tract. These blockages can be painful and, at worst, life threatening.

The normal version of the gene (which exists in all other breeds) had been lost in Dalmatians somewhere along the line. But, in the late 1970s, American scientist and Dalmatian breeder Bob Schaible did an outcross to an English Pointer to restore the normal version of the gene to the breed. The LUA Dalmatians are descendants of this single outcross some 14/15 generations ago. Today, they are identical to any other Dalmatian, just blessed with a gene that prevents suffering from a significant problem in the rest of the breed.

But despite Kennel Club registration, and a growing acceptance within some in the breed, there is a diehard core of resistance in the upper echelons of the Dalmatian breed clubs. There are four in the UK and not a single one mentions the LUA Dalmatians on its website. There is also, very disappointingly, still mutterings ringside about 'mongrels' when LUA Dals enter the show-ring.

Recently,  LUA breeders Julie Evans and Dr Elizabeth Sampson wrote to to the Kennel Club to request that the uric acid status of the LUA Dalmatians be recorded on pedigrees.

The KC replied to say that for this to happen:

1) the DNA test had to be relevant to the breed
2) the Dalmatian Clubs had to agree

The first was a no-brainer. Litters from LUA parents can result in a mix of LUA and 'regular' pups, so LUA breeders always DNA test their pups to determine which ones carry the LUA gene - vital to ensure the onward survival of the gene in the breed.

So Evans and Sampson wrote to the Joint Dalmatian Clubs to ask for their agreement.

The response?

As you can see, it is an unequivocal no - plus they very rudely suggested that the LUA breeders find an alternative way to flog their pups.

But, of course, in doing so, it's clear that the Dalnosaurs know that LUA Dalmatians are more marketable.

Evans, Sampson and the other LUA Dal breeders all have waitings lists for their pups because the public, at least, recognise that they are healthier dogs.

For here's a thing: it isn't just that the LUA Dals don't form stones. There is a lower rate of deafness in the LUA dogs than in the rest of the breed - most likely because LUA Dal breeders will only breed from bilaterally hearing dogs with brown, not blue, eyes.

How about that?

Mission accomplished - a Pug with no muzzle at all

Click to enlarge

Spotted today... a pug puppy with a totally flat face - in fact (if you take away that nose roll) a concave face. Also note the discharge and tearing from the pup's eye, probably due to medial entropion -  a common-enough pug problem.

I have no idea of the provenance of this pup. Could be show-bred; could be pet-bred; could have come from a puppy farm. But it takes pretty determined selection to achieve something so unnatural; so terribly dysfunctional.

No one, anywhere, should be breeding dogs to look like this.  The person buying it should be ashamed of themselves, too.

And if you're struggling to find it as horrific as me, just think back to where it all started; of where a wolf's nose is in relation to its eyes.

Then look again at this Pug.

We did this.

And here's what it looks like from the inside - Pug on the left; a typical normal dog on the right. 

Ronnie Irving - voice of America? Voice of reason?

The prevailing view amongst the Fancy re the recent HBO Sports piece on purebred dogs was that it was a hatchet job. (Watch it here).

The AKC - so terrified of outside scrutiny that it filmed HBO interviewing its representatives - released out-takes which it claimed showed that HBO had twisted the interview but which in fact just showed the AKC reps looking shifty and unable to answer a direct question. (See that here).

Now former KC Chairman, who writes a column for Dog News in the US, has waded into the fray - but instead of bunkering down with the Fancy over those horrid media types with an agenda, Ronnie says the AKC must do more.

He writes:

"All of that rhetoric is just fine and is likely to impress those of the dog fancy who are already convinced that the anti purebred lobby is made of nothing but crazy animal righters. It is found to give a warm feeling to the fancy and is undoubtedly a very effective way of 'preaching to the converted' - that is to those of us who have already committed ourselves to taking part in the sport of purebred dogs and are already convinced that dog shows can be used as  positive lever for change in the interests of canine health and welfare. But does it pass muster with the rest of the world consisting of ordinary members of the general public or even with people who own dogs as pets?"

Ronnie goes on to not just accuse the AKC of rhetoric, but of complacency. He thinks the AKC is:

• wrong to have issued such a vehement statement against the introduction of vet-checks in the UK
• wrong to refuse to oversee the rewriting of breed breed standards that encourage exaggerations, and • wrong in doing nothing to remind judges of their duty to put up sound dogs.

Both the UK and the FCI have moved with the times, says Ronnie, and yet the AKC hasn't, leaving it very vulnerable to charges that it is not doing enough. The HBO piece he suggests, was a car wreck waiting to happen.

Read the whole thing here... it starts on Page 18 of Dog News - this edition of which boasts a cover picture which I reproduce here because it makes me laugh... as if a man proudly gazing off into the distance holding a ponced-up poodle called Pearl is somehow noble.

Related post: AKC sticks knife in - to itself