KC admits: "We needed to get a grip"

The KC's 140th birthday is celebrated in the current issue of Country Life. And it contains an interesting quote from KC Secretary Caroline Kisko.

In 2008, the unflattering BBC documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed prompted a shake-up of KC breed standards, a clampdown on producing dogs with exaggerated characteristics and the reinforcement of the message that only healthy dogs should win prizes. ‘We needed to get a grip,' concedes KC Secretary Caroline Kisko. 

This is true enough, of course, but you don't often see the KC admit it in print.  Although perhaps Mrs Kisko is misquoted. After all, she goes on to say:

‘The big concern was dogs with breathing problems, but, although it won't happen overnight, we're already seeing very different dogs coming into shows and we've introduced vet checks.'

Breathing problems were - and are - a huge concern. But, actually, the biggest  - which goes un-acknowledged by the KC in this article and more generally - is the long-term unsustainability of closed gene pools. 

On which note, the KC has just released its third Dog Health Group report (unusually without an accompanying KC press release). You have to plough through quite a bit of back-slapping here -  new DNA tests, improvements in hip scores and how the vet checks are discouraging conformation extremes - to get to the really interesting bit. 

And it's this:

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"Generally," it says, "our results show that most breeds have an effective population size below the recommended minimum to maintain a sustainably low rate of inbreeding."

This is massaged-genetics-speak for BIG trouble. 

It should be headline news, and should be forcing a review of breeding practices. Instead, it's buried in the Annex on page 30 of the report. 


Note, too, how the recommendations are to reduce line-breeding, manage the use of popular sires and to use more dams and sires (tsk... it's almost five years since PDE and still no real measures in place on these points). And no mention of  outcrossing, which is actually what any sane geneticist without the need to keep breeders sweet would recommend.

I have asked the KC for the reports. They say they are going to be distributed to the breed clubs first, then published online.

They will make extremely interesting reading.

The other interesting quote in the Country Life article, btw, is this one:

However, Mrs Kisko points out that the real problem is the underground issue of puppy farming. ‘Our mantra is that you should always buy a puppy from a KC-assured breeder because the rest we haven't got a clue about. We're working on this with the different governments, but they've all got different laws, which is daft. Current measures against puppy farming rely on local licensing authorities and that's not working. Our scheme is voluntary, so breeders are saying "I want to be inspected". The other difference is that we know what we're doing.'

And, of course, the breeders about which they "haven't got a clue about" include the thousands of  dogs the KC registers outside of the assured breeder scheme.

"We know what we're doing," says Mrs Kisko.

Indeed they do. It's called having your cake and eating it.

Pug-lovin' vets...

Announcement just posted on the Pug Club UK's website.

Yeah. That should do it.

Jilly's Jolly Jaunt

Jilly walks off with the big one...

Last year's Crufts' winner was a Lhasa Apso called Elizabeth described by her owner as "far too precious to take for a walk" in case the dog damaged her extreme coat (as detailed here).

It was bad PR for the Kennel Club, trying desperately to convince everyone that purebred dogs were fit for function.

There must have been a sigh of relief when this year's Best in Show was won by a jaunty Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen called Jilly (Ch Soletrader Peek A Boo).  Little reported, however (other than on Karen Friesecke's Doggiestylish blog from where I've nicked with her permission the pedigree below) is that the dog represents the other main problem with purebred dogs: inbreeding.

Jilly is very inbred. According to the Kennel Club's Mate Select, she has a co-efficient of inbreeding (COI) of 20 per cent, not far off the equivalent of a mother-son mating.  She is more inbred than her mother (14%) and her father (6%) and her COI is almost double the breed average of 11%.

She was born 14 months after Pedigree Dogs Exposed raised the alarm about the level of inbreeding in pedigree dogs, so this mating must have been a conscious decision to ignore the warnings.

"Jilly is the spitting image of her mum Dizzy in looks, attitude and temperament," it says on her breeder's website.

Well yes, she would be.  

Her dam's parents are her sire's grandparents. 

Click to enlarge (with thanks to Karen Friesecke)

Also depressing is that there is no mention of the work this breed was developed for anywhere on the breeder's or the UK Club website.  The Club has a page on the breed's history where it neglects to mention that the dog is a hunting hound, bred to flush and track rabbits in the Vende region of France. Instead, it prefers to concentrate on the fact that the Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen (PBGV) was once  interbred with the Grand Basset GriffonVendéen (GBGV) a practice that was banned by the French club in the late 1970s. That put a stop to that useful gene flow, then.

The US Club is better in detailing the breed's history and it even includes mention of hunt tests - although there isn't much evidence that they are wildly popular.

So let's not kid ourselves. Today, these dogs are simulacrums that look like the dogs of yesteryear. They are no longer worked. And the problem with that is where the dog will end up.

Now, the Robertsons clearly breed for moderate dogs.  Jilly is a low-rider, but not excessively so, and she really does move well. That tousled coat doesn't take much to maintain. And there's none of the haw or wrinkling or bonkers-long ears that have ruined her distant cousin, the show-bred Basset Hound. In an article on their website, her breeders do erroneously place way too much emphasis on a level topline - a trait that show breeders obsess about but which is unnatural and bears little relation to function (a blog to come about that...) but no one could accuse them of breeding freaks.

But without the work to keep them honest, all it will take is for one successful breeder to start pushing the limits and the road to exaggeration will begin. Do this within a perilously small gene pool that doesn't allow any ingress of new genes, not even from its bigger cousin any more, and you're headed for trouble. The average co-efficient of inbreeding for the PBGV in the UK is, at 11%,  already almost the equivalent of a grandfather/grand-daughter mating (12.5%).

I was also irritated to find that the Club keeps the results of any eye testing to itself - even warning that a booklet listing eye test results that is available (only to member of the Club) must not be reproduced.

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As it's Jilly's breeder Gavin Robertson who appears to hold the reins on this one (he is Chairman of the Breed Club), perhaps he might persuade them to make the eye test results publicly available on the Club website - as indeed other forward-thinking Clubs do?  After all, Jilly's win is likely to increase demand for the breed among pet owners - who surely have a right to know their dogs' health pedigree?

It would also surely be a good idea, given that there is concern about several eye problems in the breed, for the Club to request mandatory eye tests for Assured Breeders (the scheme currently lists no tests at all for the breed) and, preferably, for the Kennel Club registration of any PBGV.

Here's hoping, too, that Mr and Mrs Robertson will set a better example when they breed Jilly, as is their intention this year, and choose a mate for her that will result in pups with a lower level of inbreeding.

But there's one thing I am happy to praise Jilly's breeders for - in June, the dog will be embarking on a 130 mile walk to raise money for three very worthy causes - Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, DogLost (the brilliant national database for lost and found dogs) and the Kennel Club Charitable Trust.

The walk is also designed to raise awareness of rare and "vulnerable" breeds such as Jilly.  Which is great, as it also allows me to point out that they're only "vulnerable" because a) they're not very popular so not many are bred and (b) they're stuck in tiny gene pools - an entirely human construct that has been foisted on them by breeders and outdated/unscientific kennel club breeding practices.

And although outcrossing is not an easy answer, more breeds are going to have to consider it if they want to survive long-term. But of course they won't consider it until the breed is a genetic wreck - at which point it will probably be too late.

But I applaud Jilly's owners for deciding to do the walk. It's a good idea - and constructive PR for purebred dogs.

Jilly will be walking from National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham - the venue of her Crufts win in March -  to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London between June 10th - 14th. More info on the Jilly's Jolly Jaunt Facebook page.

Mudd the trampolining Bulldog

A Bulldog video to make you smile - not just because it's funny but because this dog is an example of a a longer-legged, longer-muzzled Bulldog - that is still indubitably a Bulldog. You can still hear a rasp in his bark - possibly an indicator of an imperfect airway - and he could do with a tail, but this boy looks pretty athletic and fit.  Love the name, too.

Now, let's see more Bulldogs like this in the show-ring.

A reminder again, of the Bulldog that went Best of Breed at Crufts 2013.

I've been having an exchange with one Breed Club health rep over the past couple of days who feels I am being unfair.  "I just do not understand what your part is, because you seem intent on continuing to bash the minority of breeders in the show world who are doing the most and are already accountable?"

The answer is because, very often, there are so much more moderate dogs being bred outside of the show-ring. That could could be changed overnight - literally. And yet it isn't, because show breeders and judges continue to cling to a warped sense of normal.

World's first striped pug

Striped pug, anyone?

German scientists have succeeded in transplanting a key gene that codes for the zebra's stripes into a dog - to produce the world's first litter of striped pugs. The researchers say they have been inundated with requests to buy the transgenic animals, which will inevitably be a surefire hit with breeders and owners looking for something completely different.

It is the latest in a series of efforts to transplant genes into another species to dramatic effect, most famously the creation of mice that glow in the dark through the insertion of a gene that produces a protein that gives jellyfish a green fluorescence. The German researchers used the same technique to introduce the striping gene into pug embryos - a retrovirus, much like the one that causes AIDS, to deliver the gene into the cells and insert them into the dog genome.

The gene governs the switching on and off of melanocytes (pigment cells) - the process by which stripes are formed in the zebra.

The result was a litter of four pugs -  two males, two females - now a year old and all with distinctive striping.  Such is the demand for the animals that the team are repeating the experiment to help fund further research.

The pugs are, says lead researcher Frans Liebermop, genetically identical to any other pug, other than for the striping gene. And there may even be a real benefit to  pugs who are well-known for overheating... the zebra's stripes are thought to help the animal regulate its temperature by dissipating heat more effectively than solid colours.

In response to the news, a Kennel Club spokesperson said: "Genetically, these are provably pugs. If the benefit to the offspring could be proved, we would certainly consider allowing the registration of striped pugs - we are always looking for ways to improve dog health."

But it's unlikely to go down well with the purists. A couple of weeks ago, there was uproar on dog forums when this ad appeared on Pets4Homes asking £10,000 for the world's first chocolate and tan pug. Chocolate and tan is not a recognised colourway in pugs. In that case, though, it was almost certainly introduced by crossbreeding with another toy breed.

The German team, based at the April Täuschen Institute in Frankfurt, says their research will be published in a peer-reviewed journal later this year.

Karlton Index 2013

The results of the 2013 Karlton Index survey have been published today. Launched last year, the aim of the Karlton Index is to highlight good practice within breed clubs, to share ideas and to "offer encouragement to all breeds in the difficult challenges faced in managing health and welfare issues."

"Its aim is also to recognise the hard work that is invested in breed health and to highlight the efforts to those who commit their time and efforts into these issues," explains Philippa Robinson, who created the Index.

Philippa is a pet owner who was "politicised" on this issue through the experience of owning a German Wirehaired Pointer, Alfie, who died aged four of idiopathic epilepsy. She now owns a gorgeous wire x weim crossbreed, in good health I believe.

Philippa first contacted me in March 2007 to tell me about Alfie and we interviewed her for Pedigree Dogs Exposed - an interview that hit the cutting room floor, not because it wasn't any good (Philippa talked fluently and passionately on the issues as she saw them) but because it was hard to stand-up, in a legally-concrete way, the claim that Alfie's breeder had been negligent. As such, Philippa appears in PDE only briefly, taking a walk with Cavalier campaigner, Carol Fowler.

After the film, the relationship continued, but we drifted apart a couple of years ago after a disastrous attempt to set up a charity designed to promote and campaign on better dog health and welfare.  The reasons were several-fold but probably boil down to Philippa being frustrated with my casual acquaintance with deadlines (justified...) and me put out by how sharp she can be on occasions.

Since then, we have exchanged the occasional email - most friendly-enough; others which have doubtless made one or the other of us bridle.

Meanwhile, I continue my role as the gobby blogger scrutinising breeds and health reforms with a critical eye. And Philippa has taken a different tack: she has now forged relationships with the Kennel Club and breed clubs/breeders, feeling that this is a more positive, productive approach.

The result is a very different Karlton Index to the last one, which was largely critical (and which is no longer available on the Karlton Index website). The 2013 survey is clearly designed to encourage more than damn. And that's fair enough. There are, after all, many ways to skin a cat.

But I have a problem with the Karlton Index and it concerns what it measures and how it measures it.

For notwithstanding the huge effort that Philippa has put into this  - all on an unpaid, volunteer basis -  the Karlton Index doesn't actually measure progress in health (as it claims) - it mostly measures the appearance of health. 

Just like dog shows.

So, for example, breed clubs get marks for disseminating health information, for conducting surveys and publishing the results, for holding health seminars and for out-reaching to pet owners through a half-decent website.

All well and good and sometimes this will translate into better health, but of course not always. Some breed clubs are real bullshitters and too often proactive health campaigners within the breed are  ignored and even vilified by other breeders. The Cavalier Club is a case in point - heaps of health info on the website, but behind the scenes still in denial about the extent of the health problems in the breed and even Committee members ignoring the breeding protocols designed to improve breed health.

Philippa's scoring is, she concedes, often subjective - garnered in the most part from looking at websites, talking to the KC and breed clubs and, in some instances, breeders on the ground. I imagine that some of her information comes privately from emails, too. But at best this gives a somewhat patchy picture of what's really going on..

There is one exception: one part of the survey is designed to measure "Impact", and this is spelled out precisely, as follows:

Elimination of conformational abnormalities. 

Greater genetic diversity for individual dogs and breed as a whole. 

Reduction in the incidence of genetic disease. 

In this year's Index, Philippa 41 breeds have improved their "Impact" rating - and yet I can find no hard or objective evidence, based on the criteria above, to support these claims. 

Meanwhile, here, according to Philppa, are the top 10 breeds for 2013.

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And this, I think, illustrates the problem. In first place is the Dachshund - undoubtedly prompted by amazing work that's been done on health by Dachshund Breed Council Chairman Ian Seath. It ticks many of Philippa's boxes, but the issue remains that Dachshund breeders are in the main clinging to a conformational extreme that is contributing to a very high level of disc disease in the breed - up to 25 per cent. And rather than straight-up demanding more moderate dogs, the Club is (in my view) time-wasting in funding research into finding a gene or genes for Dachshund disc disease when both (and more) approaches are needed.

Now, sure, some extreme dogs appear to suffer less than less extreme ones. Yep, some varieties suffer less, too. But bottom line, what do you expect when you breed a dog that is so proportionately out of kilter?

Now there is no doubt that the Dachshund Club/Council are being truly proactive on health. And yet I fear that this gives out the message that breeding long dogs with almost no legs is OK when it isn't. 

And how about the Flatcoated Retriever in second place?  Again, the Flatcoated Retriever Society is reasonably proactive on health initiatives. It is now promoting a Flatcoat Death Register and last month the Club announced that it was reopening its Group Study, following a rolling cohort of Flatcoats for life - and better, still, it is open to all flatcoats worldwide. Both are useful, but as I have whinged on many occasions, the Society plays down the elephant in the room - that more than 50 per cent of flatcoats are dead from cancer by the age of 8/9.  (And when I mention it I am accused of "ruining the breed".) 

The Irish Setter, meanwhile, is in a dire state with epilepsy and bloat rife. And the inclusion of the Bernese Mountain dog at No 6 is a mystery.

I emailed Philippa with my concerns this morning, specifically about the subjectivity and arbitrary nature of her scoring. I asked for the data to support the improved "Impact" scores. And in relation to Berners, I asked her this:

"You praise the BMD Club for a health seminar that took place in 2011 (so not current) - a seminar about which [health rep] Steve Green himself said that only 30 UK breeders (out of 1200 club members) attended.  They have come sixth and yet this is the breed with the highest rate of cancer of them all. Additionally, are you aware that they have never reported on their 2009 health survey, and in fact have removed all mention of it from their website?  Steve Green himself is fab but how much impact is he having? Have I missed something?"

Philippa replied that individual breed summaries (that presumably will answer my questions) were not available but will be released in April/May.

Additionally, she wrote: "To address those questions and more I am planning follow-up workshops to be held at locations around the country (hopefully at vet schools) so that these incredibly important issues can be explored in a meaningful context i.e. not just batted about ping pong fashion on facebook and blogs."

The exchange kinda deteriorated from there, with Philippa saying she "didn't like the line" I was taking - and ending just now with her emailing: "You are very tiresome. And of course I would expect many of the quarters with whom I now engage to think that also. But what has really surprised me this past 18 months is the number of eminent people not connected with the KC or breed clubs who find both you and Beverley so. I won’t be visiting your blog to find out your thoughts."

Oh I bet she does... And I hope she does  - because flinging insults because she doesn't like the scrutiny isn't grown-up, professional or productive. And also because I believe my concerns are valid (as indeed she herself appeared to acknowledge at the start of the communication today).

(The reference to Beverley, by the way, is to Beverley Cuddy, editor of Dogs' Today magazine - and while I can understand that many find me an irritant, I can see no justification for including Beverley in the above. Bev is a hands-on helper on so many dog fronts - including running the successful Don't Cook Your Dog campaign and spearheading a super charity Tailwaggers which helps people struggling to pay vet bills. Beverley doesn't even opine that much on pedigree dog health these days; it's just that some have never forgiven her for claiming in Pedigree Dogs Exposed that "the dogs are falling apart".)

The bottom line is that I feel Philippa should have waited until she could provide the missing data.  After all, she has recently completed - with distinction - a Masters of Science degree in Human Resource Management and she tells me: "Part of [this] was a module called Research Philosophy and Methods - in which I achieved a mark of 78% - it is usually a very tough module for students so such a mark is rare."

And yet such a module must have stressed the importance of supporting your conclusions with hard data. After all, it is a demand made of any serious research.

I hope I'm not being too mean to Philippa - and I welcome views from others. I do see a point to the Karlton Index, and I do appreciate that she's put a huge amount of time into it, completely unfunded, as far as I'm aware. 

I just want it to be better - and fear that in its current form it is in danger of rewarding illusion; also that breeds which have no cause for complacency will triumph re how well they have done.

If we want to measure improvements in health, we need to find a way to measure real  indicators of better health -  morbidity, longevity, fertility, litter size, functional fitness  - and not just the appearance of doing something. 

Because that's why many pedigree dogs are in the mess they are.

Sweet Pug Sounds

Yes, this dog's owner really has titled this video "Sweet Pug Sounds".

And when challenged has replied: "Many people who don't know pugs are either afraid of their noises or are worried something is wrong. I assure you he is fine... hot maybe, but fine."

Please feel free to hop over to YouTube and tell her what you think of that.