"Professional" and "Show" Breeders are not producing healthier dogs

Harvill notes that while professionally bred Scotties are more expensive than casually-bred dogs, they are not healthier. In fact, says Harvill, "The empirical evidence indicates that the best shot — even if a long shot — at a long-lived Scottie is from a non-professional breeder."
What hope exists lies with reducing COI:

Harvill writes: "While the endemic nature of health problems across all Scotties in the gene pool may render breeding out our problems difficult and maybe impossible, it is now more important than ever to practice breeding as genetic conservationists by carefully monitoring inbreeding coefficients (COI) to lower kinship ratios across the gene pool and so move our breed toward more genetic diversity as a way to boost natural immunity and so help our dogs toward relative hybrid vigor."

http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com...o-is-liar.html

Quote:
Ms. Caroline Kisko of The Kennel Club is a liar, and she's not even a very clever or smart liar -- merely a blatant and bold one.

But don't take my word for it. You can read The Kennel Club's own web site and find the results of their own breeder's survey (PDF).

In that survey The Kennel Club notes that "Health information was reported for 36,006 live dogs, of which 22,540 (62.6%) were healthy, and 13,466 (37.4%) had at least one reported health condition."

More than 37% of dogs had "at least one" health condition???

Wow!

When you consider that the average age of the dogs in question (healthy and unhealthy dogs combined) was just 5 years old, what you are looking at here is an extraordinary level of disease, deformity, and misery in Kennel Club dogs.

But apparently, Ms Caroline Kisko does not care about that truth.

No, she is paid to do a job, and never mind the dogs. She has been given her marching orders.


http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com...covenient.html

So how does Ms. Kisko reconcile her lies against The Kennel Club's own published survey data?

Simple: she simply says a lot of genetic defects do not matter.

And you will be astounded and amazed at what does not matter according to Ms. Kisko!

For example Ms. Kisko says congenital cataracts do not "materially affect" a dog’s life and so they can be wiped off the defect list.

Eh?

Congenital cataracts do not affect a dog's life?

So what does Ms. Kisko do? How does she achieve this?

Simple. Ms. Kisco unilaterally decides that 85 percent of the dogs reported in the breeder's survey that are suffering from hip dysplasia and epilepsy are, in fact, FINE because she supposes that these conditions might not result in premature death or cripple a dog too badly.

According to Ms Kisko, as long as the dog is alive, everything is fine.

I see no arguement between the 90% are fit & the 37% had a problem. For one thing a health problem need not mean a dog is sick. One of my previous dogs had a health problem a missing tooth, part of the statistics but not something which made him unhealthy, a dog who is a carrier for a disease has a health problem but it is not going to affect that dog, it only matters in a breeding programme, when you take into account that if that survey was answered , as our last two breed specific surveys have been by many more dogs with a given problem than without, ie those with no problems didn't bother to respond, & these figures can both easily be true & probably neither are.The trouble with statistics is that they can be interpreted to fit different scenarios.
Personally I am grateful to the kennel club for setting up many of the health screening tests in my breed & would hope they would go further.

The survey didn't include the odd broken tooth or scuff pad, the survey looked at Hereditary diseases.

The survey didn't include the odd broken tooth or scuff pad, the survey looked at Hereditary diseases.

Personally I am grateful to the kennel club for setting up many of the health screening tests in my breed & would hope they would go further.

The survey didn't include the odd broken tooth or scuff pad, the survey looked at Hereditary diseases.

Table 3. Disease condition by organ systems for all breeds (N=36,0006 live dogs).
All conditions Prevalence
Disease condition N* %† %†† Most common specific conditions in descending order
1 Reproductive 3233 14.4 8.98 Pyometra, false pregnancy, dystochia, infertility, cryptorchid, irregular heats
2 Musculoskeletal 2910 12.9 8.08 Arthritis, cruciate ligament injury, hip dysplasia, patellar luxation, OCD
3 Dermatologic 2320 10.5 6.44 Dermatitis, mites, pyotraumatic dermatitis, alopecia, pyoderma, fading nose pigment
4 Ocular 2167 9.6 6.02 Cataract, entropion, corneal ulcer, epiphora, KCS, cherry eye, distichiasis
5 Gastrointestinal 1690 7.5 4.69 Colitis, GDV, diarrhoea, pancreatitis, foreign body obstruction, vomiting
6 Respiratory 1242 5.5 3.45 Kennel cough, noisy breathing, coughing, rhinitis, long soft palate
7 Cardiac 1159 5.2 3.22 Heart murmur unspecified, arrhythmia, MVD, CHF, DCMP
8 Urologic 1009 4.5 2.80 Cystitis, incontinence, cystouroliths, haematuria, kidney failure (chronic>acute)
9 Immune mediated 990 4.4 2.75 Food allergy, atopy, flea allergy, allergy unspecified, AIHA
10 Neurologic 937 4.2 2.60 Seizures, IVDD, deafness, meningitis, vestibular disease
11 Aural (ears) 825 3.4 2.29 Otitis externa, earmites, excessive ear wax, aural haematoma
12 Benign neoplasia 762 3.4 2.12 Lipoma, histiocytoma, unspecified
13 Cancer 646 2.9 1.79 Type unspecified, MCT, carcinoma, lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, SCC
14 Dental 613 2.7 1.70 Retained puppy teeth, dental disease, defect other than extra teeth
15 Endocrine 573 2.6 1.59 Hypothyroidism, Cushings disease, diabetes mellitus, Addisons disease
16 Unknown 457 2.0 1.27 Dermatologic, hepatic, musculoskeletal, ocular, neurologic, unspecified undiagnosed illness
17 Trauma 342 1.5 0.95 Musculoskeletal, ocular,dermatologic, neurologic
18 Other 213 1.0 0.59 Hernia (umbilical>inguinal), poisoning, fever of unknown origin, uncodeable conditions
19 Anal gland 127 0.6 0.35 Anal sacculitis (anal gland impaction or infection or removal)
20 Behaviour 87 0.4 0.24 Unspecified, aggression
21 Hepatic 78 0.4 0.22 Hepatitis, portosystemic shunt, liver disease/failure (chronic>acute)
22 Cerebrovascular 55 0.2 0.15 Stroke or cerebrovascular accident
23 Haematopoietic 53 0.2 0.15 Anaemia, bleeding disorder, platelet disorder
24 Cardiopulmonary 16 0.1 0.04 Coughing, pleural effusion, pulmonary oedema