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sandgrubber
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24-10-2014, 10:24 AM
Originally Posted by LMost View Post
Also please quit straight up lying about lifespans, most giant breeds are around 8 to 10 years. The only one which comes in at your 5-7 years off the top of my head is the
Dogue de Bordeaux at 5 to 8. Please join a giant breed forum and ask how important health testing is.

Many giant breeds actually live to be 11 to 14 years with the proper diet, care, and exercise.

Also the DNA testing I'm speaking of has zero to do with paternity.
I've had several to live past 10 years.
No need to get rude.

Individual dogs of any breed may live long healthy lives. Breed longevity data are difficult to come by and numbers are widely used that cannot be sourced to any reputable source.

I consider the Finnish KC database the best available data on breed lifespan. It gives the overall lifespan for the bullmastif as 6 yr 7 mo with only 43 of the 354 dogs in the database living long enough to die of old age or be euthanised for old age problems. Cancer was the most commonly recorded cause of death (103 if 354 dogs), although many deaths were from unnamed causes. Do you health test for cancer?
For the Dogue de Bordeaux, the respective numbers are 5 yrs 11 mo and 8/86 making it to old age. For the Neo, 5 yr 1 mo. with only 4 of 30 making old age.
Try some other giant breeds and you'll find a similar pattern. See http://jalostus.kennelliitto.fi/frmT...?R=157&Lang=en

If the DNA testing you refer to isn't paternity testing, what is it? When I moved from Australia to the USA, the AKC required me do a DNA swab for my bitch before they would register a litter. The function of this is to provide a genetic fingerpring for the dog . . . essentially a basis for paternity testing. The loci used are not health related . . . they are in segments of DNA where individual differences are large.

Again, please provide some data with sources, not just what people say on forums or testing results from an individual dog.

If you read my initial post in this thread, I simply said that there was no way to collect an unbiased dataset adequate to test the hypothesis that pedigree dogs are more (or less) healthy than non-pedigree or mixed breed dogs. I taught statistical sampling at university for many years, and if you like, I can elaborate on this point.

Breeding for extremes creates health problems. It may be that health (or disease) testing is done more in pedigree dogs because they have more health problems, and often their owners are willing to pay. Ie, patterns of ill health give rise to health testing. If you review the OFA statistics you will find much evidence that this is the case with giant breeds. http://www.offa.org/stats_hip.html

I resent your insinuation that I am simply mouthing party line.
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Malka
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24-10-2014, 12:16 PM
"Statistical sampling" is just that. Random statistic sampling which actually means nothing apart from the samples studied.

Nothing more than hypothesis - because X number of dogs/cats/humans show this/that/whatever disease does not make it a fact.

An hypothesis is not a fact.

And "statistic sampling" proves nothing. It is like standing in a shopping centre with a clipboard and asking passers-by if they have ever heard of/suffered from/used such-and-such a product.
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sandgrubber
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24-10-2014, 01:52 PM
Originally Posted by Malka View Post
Has anyone stated as a fact that all BYB and puppy mills breed unhealthy dogs?

When I bred Griffons I did not have kennels, my dogs lived in my house, and I was a Kennel Club [UK] registered breeder. The puppies I bred were 100% healthy, but because they were bred in my house with my family, did that make me a BYB?

Actually many breeders of "pedigree" dogs are BYBs or puppy mills. Anyone can get hold of "official" Pedigree forms and fill them out as they want. When I was an active breeder it was - and possibly still is - easy to telephone any dog food manufacturer and ask if they could please send you some fancy Pedigree forms.

And not all registered pedigree dogs are what they are registered as - because unless the person registering the puppies is 100% honest regarding the dam and the sire, how can any Kennel Club be 100% sure that they are those as actually those registered?

It was a well-known but unspoken [in those days] fact that on occasions a Griffon breeder would use a Pug as a stud and yet register the puppies under the name of a Griffon stud.
I was simply stating that if you define this, or any, statement to be true, it is true by definition. My main point is that you can't prove or disprove the contention that mixed breeds are healthier without resorting to use of tautological definitions.
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sandgrubber
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24-10-2014, 02:12 PM
Originally Posted by Malka View Post
"Statistical sampling" is just that. Random statistic sampling which actually means nothing apart from the samples studied.

Nothing more than hypothesis - because X number of dogs/cats/humans show this/that/whatever disease does not make it a fact.

An hypothesis is not a fact.

And "statistic sampling" proves nothing. It is like standing in a shopping centre with a clipboard and asking passers-by if they have ever heard of/suffered from/used such-and-such a product.
Statistical sampling is sampling systematically designed so that the data you collect is representative of the population as a whole (goal, a sample that is unbiased and efficient). Although it is difficult to do well, it statistical sampling is widely used in the sciences and in commerce. It is state of the art best practice. Try doing some reading. I haven't read what wikipedia says, but I'm sure it is close to what I'm saying.

Statistical sampling is commonly randomized, but it is seldom completely random. It is conducted using a sampling framework. Often, to avoid bias, one samples randomly within this framework. Eg., randomly select a number of households within each post code or voting precinct, or use a random number generator to select where to collect soil samples in determining how much lime is required to correct pH in a given field.

The data I've presented on lifespan is not sampling data. It is census data. It includes ALL dogs registered by the Finnish Kennel Club . . . in this case, all the dogs who have died during the years that records were kept. The weakness here is that dogs in Finland may not be representative of dogs elsewhere. The strength is that it is a census . . . there is no imposition of bias because the whole population is included.

Most of the longevity data available, including your guy with a clipboard at the shopping center, is opportunistic data. Opportunistic sampling is highly vulnerable to sampling bias.

btw. science should aim to disprove hypotheses. The best sort of proof in the science is the consistent failure to disprove.
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LMost
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25-10-2014, 02:08 AM
Ok best way to answer the health testing issue. Since you seem not to believe in it. Also the major difference between puppy mills and byb.

Health Screening
Before dogs are approved and used for breeding, they should undergo an extensive health screening process. This would of course allow any competent veterinarian to discover any kind of clearly apparent illness or deformity, but a health screening in this case needs to look well beyond the obvious. Different breeds of dog are vulnerable to different kinds of serious disorders and disease, and a thorough pre-breeding health screening should be performed to detect any genetic conditions or malformations that would disqualify a dog from being used for the purposes of breeding.

Some of the tests that should be performed to detect hereditary disorders and abnormalities include:
• Hip Scoring – many breeds of dog can be vulnerable to a condition called hip dysplasia. This is an abnormal formation of the hip socket that is both physically debilitating and very painful. Before being allowed to breed, all dogs should go through the hip scoring procedure, which involves a physical examination of their hip sockets taken by radiograph. Each dog so tested is then given a score based on the formation of their hip sockets, with a lower score being the best. Only those dogs that score well below average should be considered suitable for breeding.
• Cardiac testing – dogs can suffer from congenital heart disease, which can lead to illness and a slow, painful death. Each type of dog has a somewhat different testing protocol, which is determined by clubs devoted to that breed. But the basic procedure involves the monitoring and examination of the heart by electrocardiogram and echocardiogram, in the search for irregularities that might demonstrate the presence of hereditary abnormalities.
• Eye testing – dogs can be subject to a number of genetic eye conditions, ranging from minor to capable of causing blindness. At least 11 different tests exist for different conditions, and puppies can usually be tested at a fairly young age with accurate results.
• Syringomyelia – sometimes called the neck-scratching disease; but unfortunately the neck scratching exhibited by dogs in this case is only a side effect of a condition of the spinal cord that can degenerate into paralysis. There is a good test for this disorder, but because it can manifest later on a dog should not be tested until the age of two and a half.

The important thing to realize is that dogs that suffer from these disorders and abnormalities do, in fact, suffer greatly, and it is incumbent on breeders to try and eliminate these conditions from the breeding stock if it is at all possible.
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LMost
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25-10-2014, 02:20 AM
A good breeder does those things.
If he is a show or a working dog breeder.

I don't need a study published online, to show me how true it is after the amount of time I have owned Mastiffs.

It easy enough. If you google breeders and look at the dogs from those that do not health test and sell cheap to those that do test and do proper birth, and raising.
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sandgrubber
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25-10-2014, 11:09 AM
Originally Posted by LMost View Post
A good breeder does those things.
If he is a show or a working dog breeder.

I don't need a study published online, to show me how true it is after the amount of time I have owned Mastiffs.

It easy enough. If you google breeders and look at the dogs from those that do not health test and sell cheap to those that do test and do proper birth, and raising.
This reply pertains to both the post quoted above and your longer post just before it.

Please note the source when you use direct quotes.
Wherever this came from, it is not convincing. What tests are appropriate depend on breed. Small breeds are rarely tested for hips and elbows. Put a mastiff with a bad hip against a small terrier with equally bad hips and the mastiff will almost certainly develop osteoarthritis while the terrier will be unlikely to. Do you really test your mastiffs for SM?

The reason you test is because something is likely to be a problem. If you could test for cancer, which is the #1 killer for many breeds, including most mastiff breeds, I'm sure you would. But you're not going to test for primary lens luxation because it is rare or absent in your breed.

As I said, I do test, and I do believe in testing. But I do not view tests as central to a breeding program. A good, health-related, knowledge of the pedigree is far more important. Hopefully testing will improve and one will be able to submit a single DNA sample and get a holistic overview of the dog's genetic strengths and weaknesses. If and when that happens I will be much more enthusiastic about tests.

As for 'not needing a study published online' . .. how arrogant. First you accuse me of outright lying about life expectancies, then you refuse to look at the data I present to support my statement. Are you saying know it all and are not willing to consider alternatives? How many dogs have you known well? The 'study' I cited is actually an online database that tracks every single dog registered by the Finnish Kennel Club. I wish other KC's did the same. I would say the Finnish data speaks more truly to the health status of a breed than your personal recollections of dogs you have known.

I suspect that giantism is inherently unhealthy. I doubt that 100% compliance with present health testing guidelines would bring the life expectancy of most giant breeds up past eight years. If I wanted to breed healthy, long lived mastiffs, I would select sires and dams from lines with a record of long lifespans. Wouldn't surprise me if this ended out selecting, also, for smaller dogs.
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