Well said Archer

I hope to catch this show
Of course it will be one sided - pretty much every tv show is but it should be interesting.

I have to agree with the idea that the KC pedigree dogs really limits gene pools

When you just worried if your dog was good at its job you bred to good dogs together - the colours are of little use to the working ability of the dog - but breeding only same colour dogs of one breed means you limit the gene pool based on nothing more than a preference for how a dog looks

also lets face it if you want your dogs to win you seek out winning dogs to breed from - only human nature - so a best in breed will be wanted more as a stud than another dog
Then if his offspring go on to do well then they will be selected more for breeding than other dogs

Both these things really restrict the gene pool - and also with the colours it can pretty much mean that you are creating seperate breeds based on colour alone

Then with this breeding judges wee preferences and interpritations of the breed standard mean that little changes take place and features are exadurated until we have a caracture of the origonal breed bred from a small gene pool

Sure at the moment there are healthy breeds out there, but there are also many breeds with eye problems, breathing problems, skin problems, joint problems

Not of course saying that anyone should be out there breeding mutts
But there is such snobbery over one bit of paper that at the moment is next to meaningless

Dogs should be bred for health and behaviour over colour, over winning shows, over set of the ears

The argument that breeding for conformation preserves breeds at the moment is wrong - breeding for conformation IMHO is destroying breeds - or at the least creating new breeds which look quite different from the origonal dogs

Spot on, great post, .


The real challenge therefore, is to see if small modifications in breeding programmes will be enough in the longer term. I certainly hope so, for example allowing a wider range of colours within breeds would be a start. I don't want to appear to be constantly singling out others' chosen breeds on here..it is not my purpose to wind people up, just to stimulate thought and discussion.

So, as an example in my own breed, the FL, although all colours are allowed, (in itself possibly a contributor to their robustness) some patterns e.g. the saddle pattern is 'not allowed' in the show ring as the main colour is not predominant. Thus breeders breeding to standard (and the vast majority do) do not breed from saddles, potentially losing the diversity (of alleles) within that colour group. Personally, I feel its a super colour combo, and one long term step would be to allow this colour back in. It would do no harm to conformation and would preserve diversity. A small step maybe, given the wide range of colour already allowed, but it would help.

Mary

Just an observation - there can be a reason why it's unacceptable for a dog to be a certain colour or have a certain coat length which is directly to do with the dogs ability to work - sometimes these aren't just "fashion" but for a valid reason.

Although slightly different, I found this on the FCI website (you may have already seen it!):

http://www.fci.be/commissions.asp?lang=en&sel=6

Encouraging the recognition of new varieties, rather than that of new breeds, offers several advantages:

• it officializes the fact that objectively close populations can, nevertheless, be distinctly recognized;
• it offers more freedom in the management of political or human problems. Thus, it is of no importance that several national varieties are recognized as long as they officiaIly belong to the same breed. In the event of disagreement between two groups of breeders, according recognition to each of "his/her” varieties could help in reaching a short -term solution to the problem while conserving the variability for the long-term
• it allows the populations which objectively exist, and with whom the breeders identify themselves, to be recognized even if they have little chance of, one day, satisfying the requirements for the recognition of a new breed.
• it helps the management of the inter-breed variability, a new variety being an official source for eventual out-crossing. On the other hand, if a variety disappears, either because of genetic errors or that it no longer interests anyone, the future of the breed to which it belonged is not jeopardized.
• Etc.


Quoted from "Reflections on the Procedure for the Recognition of New Breeds by te FCI" - Prof Bernard Dennis.

Am not going to say anything about the programme till I've seen it . All I'll say is two of the dogs I've known with the most problems health wise were our lurcher & my friends mongrel.

Thank you MSE2ponder, I hadn't seen that, although was aware of its existence...had been searching for it. Very usful, thanks

Yes, good post BMF

And on the Lapphund colours, I'll add brindle to that. Commonly occurs in the working lines in Finland but strangely not acceptable in the showring.

Yes, there are some colours that have a connection to work but I think these are few and far between. Even in the Flock Guardian Dogs, the dogs are said to be white for example, apparently to blend in with the flock. Yet according to ethologist and author Coppinger, there are a variety of colours in countries of origin. It seems the people who 'founded' the breeds for pure breeding decided for themselves that colour should be restricted and have subsequently narrowed the gene pool down to exclude variation.

In many breeds, what we see in the showring is just a selected and narrowed sample of what the breed, or rather landrace, consists of in the natural environment.

Point taken Sue, and you are right to point out individual variation, this will always exist in any given population to a greater or lesser extent... not to be confused however, with population health i.e. the health of the overall pool under study. This is where selective breeding can make a considerable difference to longevity, for example.

Should that really be taken into consideration though unless the breeder is planning on selling all the pups only to working homes. If being sold as pets surely health should be considered more important