544 — Rights and Responsibilities of the Stud Dog Owner
Rights and Responsibilities of the Stud Dog Owner
Dale Martenson of Touche Japanese Chin joins host Laura Reeves for a deep dive on the rights and responsibilities of the stud dog owner. The two long-time breeders break down the top five considerations for owners to consider as they decide whether and with which females to breed their male dogs.
Compensation
Stud dog owners typically will choose to either receive a stud fee or the choice of a puppy from the resulting litter in lieu of a stud fee. The amount of the stud fee, timing of when it’s paid and choice of puppy are all items up for discussion amongst the parties, Martenson noted, but whatever is decided should *always* be put in writing in a contract.
Pick and Choose
Owners of popular stud dogs will be in a position to select the ideal mates for their dog. But that requires having specific criteria, knowing the broad background of the breed, the pedigree of both dogs, the health, temperament and potential disqualifying faults and, finally, the ethics of the breeder with whom they are doing business.
Popular Sire Syndrome
Knowing what the “bottlenecks” are in a breed are part of the stud dog owner’s responsibilities. Population genetics come in to play as stud dog owners balance a desire to see beneficial aspects of their dogs used to strengthen the breed with a question of when does that become “too much” and impact the long-term health of the breed as a whole.
Preservation Breeding
Within small gene pools and truly rare breeds, owners of stud dogs will often make different decisions about allowing their dog to be used than owners of more popular breeds. For breeds with these “gene puddles,” the implications of using or not using a particular stud dog carry significantly more weight simply due to the sheer numbers or lack therof.
Relationship Building
“Establish a relationship (with the stud dog owner),” Martenson said. “Because I think right now, breeding requires more of a relationship than it did before. I think that you have to have that. You’re just not going to take a phone call and someone comes by with a brucellosis test and breed their bitch and take their check. That’s just not today’s environment.”
449 – Dr. Jerold Bell: Popular Sire Syndrome Defined
Dr. Jerold Bell: Popular Sire Syndrome Defined
Dr. Jerold Bell, adjunct professor of veterinary genetics, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University joins host Laura Reeves for a “hot topic” discussion of Popular Sire Syndrome.
“How I define the popular sire syndrome would be the overuse of a single dog beyond their usefulness to contribute to the gene pool,” Bell said. “So it is an over use that is the issue. What happens with a popular sire is that their use occurs during a relatively short period of time, usually a one to two year period of time when they’re in a very active breeding stage. So what it does for us is that it does not provide the feedback in terms of their offspring and how their offspring develop before the overuse is already taken place.
“When I compare a popular sire to an influential ancestor in the background of a breed who has a very high contribution to every member of the breed From the past and people compare the two and say well why is it OK for an influential ancestor to be so influential but not a popular sire. It is the ability to evaluate over time.
“So that with an influential ancestor they remain influential because their descendants for each generation are evaluated against other individuals and they are decided to be used for breeding. That’s how that ancestor continues their influence through multiple generations of descendants whereas a popular sire, the only way to evaluate him is based on his phenotype, what he looks like, and not based on his genotype or what he will produce overtime. So that evaluation is not available and possible with the popular sire syndrome.
“We’ve seen a lot of popular sire syndrome in many breeds, where a popular sire gets replaced by his son, who becomes a popular sire, who gets replaced by his son who becomes a popular sire. And the entire breed truncates on that single sire line. The insidious issue with popular sire syndrome is that there are only so many quality bitches that are going to be bred with each generation. If a large portion of those quality females are all bred to a single male or a single male line, it’s sidelines the other quality males across the breadth of the gene pool that should be contributing to their gene pools in the next generation. The issue with popular sire, there are several issues, but one of the major issues is the loss of genetic diversity in the gene pool.
“We talked about the genetic diversity issue. The second issue is recessive deleterious genes that the popular sire may carry. Everybody has some deleterious genes in their background. With the popular sire, you don’t know what those deleterious genes are going to cause until a few more generations down the line when his offspring are adults and maybe they’re reproducing as well. Where a popular sire is obviously producing an issue and we need to go through a purging process to try to get rid of those deleterious genes and disorders, then you’re not just purging that popular sire but you’re also purging the quality females that he was bred to.”
Watch this space in the coming weeks for more from Dr. Bell on Population Genetics.
Watch Dr. Bell’s presentation on the topic at the 2019 AKCCHF Parent Club Health Conference here.
237 — DNA Genetic Testing Prevents Bottlenecks, Promotes Diversity
DNA testing can provide useful information for all breeders
Angela Hughes DVM PhD, Veterinary Genetics Research Manager, Wisdom Health
Testing our dogs’ DNA provides details on everything from ancestry in mixed breeds to disease mutations and genetic diversity in purebred dogs. Dr. Angela Hughes, Veterinary Genetics Research Manager at Wisdom Health, talks about the different types of DNA genetic testing.
“A breed is a specific combination of alleles,” Hughes said. “And 99 percent of the DNA in a Great Dane is the same as a Chihuahua. It’s that one percent that is so important.”
DNA Panel tests, Hughes said, test for genetic mutations. The Wisdom Health Optimal Selection panel tests for 180 different specific diseases that are broken out by which are identified and correlated within each breed.
Focus on genetic diversity.
“Studies show that losing genetic diversity causes loss of reproductive health, increased disease incidence, even decreased hunting ability,” Hughes said.
Purebred dog breeders are succeeding with test and replace breeding theories, Hughes believes. She referenced a study of dogs in the U.S., mixed breed and purebred, in which of all diseases tested for, 34 disorders were found only in mixed breeds, not in purebred dogs.
While Hughes acknowledges that “you can have healthy highly inbred dogs,” she notes that breeders have to be incredibly selective to achieve that.
“The average breeder doesn’t have the time and resources, the number of dogs necessary or enough information to be that highly selective,” Hughes said.
Genetic diversity in dogs will be different even in full siblings, Hughes said. For full littermates, on average, about 50 percent of the DNA is the same. This power of DNA testing, Hughes noted, is that it can help identify which of two dogs, similar in quality and pedigree, is the best match in terms of genetic diversity. Simple pedigree analysis and COI (coefficient of inbreeding) can’t provide that information.
Skip the Bottleneck
The diversity testing also helps avoid bottlenecks in a breed’s gene pool due to popular sire syndrome. She defines this as any sire with more than 100 puppies produced. In an example based on studies of Golden Retrievers in England, in a gene pool of six generations, with 31,259 individual animals represented, the testing revealed only 67 genetically unique individuals.
“DNA testing doesn’t tell you who to breed, it tells you who to breed to,” Hughes reiterated. “This is the last piece. Do all the other testing – conformation, temperament, health, function – then do this.”
Importantly, Hughes also noted that breeders should be careful to not lose the “essence of the breed” in search of genetic diversity.
“You want to move the needle,” Hughes said. “Just shift the curve in the direction of diversity.”
https://www.optimal-selection.com/
164 – Busting the Genetic Testing Myths: Dr. Jerold Bell|Pure Dog Talk
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