Re: My Pup from hollydrive Kurt Health Testing diversion!

[James]

Yeah but it has to be affected and even then the odds are massive. Nobody wants to breed an affected pup so just as long as one parent is clear then crack on

[WGD]

A good dog is a good dog

Unless it goes blind I suppose.

Which is another question... we have this supposedly huge issue... and yet I know of nobody personally who has had an ESS go prematurely blind due to PRA, in trialling, beating, picking up or shooting circles.

[Dawnrazor]

A good dog is a good dog

Unless it goes blind I suppose.

Which is another question... we have this supposedly huge issue... and yet I know of nobody personally who has had an ESS go prematurely blind due to PRA, in trialling, beating, picking up or shooting circles.

Nope, neither have I, I spoke to my vet, a shooting/picking up woman who has Lab's, about fucsidiosis(?) and she'd never heard of it in springers, I'm not sure that's not a reason not to know what dog has what, if for nothing else that we keep these health issues as rare as they are.
I think it's inevitable that the moneygrabbingcouldntgiveatossaboutdogwelfareorhealthissues we call the Kc will implement testing parents before registering pups.

[WGD]

I'm not advocating not testing, I did mine so I knew what I had. I'm not denying there are health conditions that can be bred out but I personally think they're over played.

If I was putting a carrier over a bitch of mine I'd like to know she was clear.

But as James said, a good dog is a good dog and if I had to forego a number of health tests to have a dog from or by one of the best examples of the breed performing its function I would.

[Quin]

Line bred is often to a particular dog, especially one which appears in both the sire and dam lines. To give you an example ips, I have and ESS bitch line bred to Cheweky Wolf - on the sire line he is great grand sire and on the dam line he is grand sire. But if you push it back further, Cheweky Wolf is line bred to Rytex Rod who is great grand sire on Wolf's sire line and grand sire on his dam line. So you could also say my bitch is line bred to Rytex Rod. Especially when you recognise that Wolf's sire Kettlestang Clipper is also the sire of Moonreed Flush who is also my bitch's great grand sire on the sire line. And as Rod was a very prolific dog, he appears again gen 4 and gen 5 of my girl's 5 gen pedigree so he is there 6 times in her 5 gen and lurking in the 6th gen too.

The advantages of line breeding when it works out well is that you get the dog's strong points accentuated in the line bred progeny. You can also get the dog's weak points accentuated in the progeny too. The risk associated with this type of breeding is called the Co-efficient of Inbreeding. My bitch has a COI of 17.75% which means she has that risk of inheriting the same gene from a common ancestor (on both sides of her pedigree). In this case, look at PRA Cord 1 and Cheweky Wolf is the sire of three known Carriers by different bitches so it is very likely that he was an untested Carrier for PRA Cord 1 (He's dead now so can't be tested). My bitch has a 17.75% chance of having the Carrier gene twice from Wolf - once from her sire and once from her dam - so a 17.75% of being Affected for PRA Cord 1 and a roughly 35% chance of being a Carrier. She is DNA tested and PRA Clear both genes and I've been fortunate that she has many of the positive attributes of Wolf without having the serious problem re PRA Cord 1. With line breeding you are taking a risk to get the result you want. In times gone by, the not up to standard results of linebreeding were culled and particular traits established through the survivors.

The fact that a particular kennel name appears all over the pedigree does not necessarily mean line breeding as most kennels will have two or three lines that they balance to keep the COI at a reasonable level. If you look up your girl's COI on MyKC it will give you an indication of how inbred she is. With COI, the lower the better and in my breeding when I can I have aimed for single figures - not managed it recently though! 13% is the maximum for my breedings, but have been in the 7's and 8's. The COI's Ive seen for Cockers have been in the 15% - 25% range but look up your girl and see what she is. (And get her DNA tested!)

If you had two fully health tested dogs clear for all their tests and good hips would you breed them together even if the COI would be high, lets say 18%-20%. Does the COI still matter that much as their both clear for all the tests they've had done?

[Sgurr]

Quin, I have 3 fully health tested bitches and 2 fully health tested studs. The oldest bitch (Jodie) hips total 13 which was the breed mean score when I bred her to my older stud (Glen) hips total 7 , COI 8.1%, and of the pups hip scored from this pair 16, 8, 6, 6. When this bitch was put to an outside stud (Scott now fully health tested but he was not then) hips 9 the COI was 12.7% and the bitch I kept (Breagha) has hips 9. I also have a bitch (Peggy Sue) hips 11 that has been mated to both my older and younger (Zane) studs, COI 7.3 % and 7.8% respectively and from the latter mating a pup with hips A (best grade on the continental system). Breagha has mated with Zane (she will not accept Glen) and COI 12.9% - pup from this mating (Molly) has hips 8. The Jodie and Zane are too closely related in my view - first cousins in human terms - COI would have been 14%. I've set my own limit at 13% and the mating I could not get (Glen x Breagha) would have been COI 8.3%. Molly has mated with an outside stud (Boss - hips 9) COI 9.0% and had pups August 2016 so too young for any to be scored.

The point of keeping the COI's as low as feasible is more for the overall effect on the breed rather than just looking at an individual mating. When the COI increases, fewer pups are born, life expectancy decreases and it is the start of a slippery slope to an endangered breed. It is hard enough finding hip scored ESS studs without considering COI and when you do consider it, even harder. There is a hip scored FTCH (8) but with Molly COI would be 15.9% so he is out and another FTCH with hips 5 but COI 15.7%, also out. We have brought Peggy Sue and Zan'e's grand daughter over from Holland and her sire is a Belgian FTCH - the current national champion. This is a way of lowering future COI's as it is moving into a somewhat different gene pool but a lot or the back generations are the same because dogs were imported from the UK. The easiest way to reduce COI would be to move into the UK show lines but I breed dogs for their working ability. I'm too old now to look at a breeding programme that would take two or three generations to recover the working ability I want in a Springer.

PRA Cord 1 as I've said earlier on this thread is easy to breed around provided people will test their dogs for it - Kurt with Molly would be 10.1% and it would not bother me as I would just test the pups. But there are other conditions endemic in ESS, Multifocal Retinal Dysplasia for instance for which there is (as yet) no DNA test and few people seem to be aware of it. As with PRA Cord 1, you can follow MRD through the lines - three sons of B Druid were Carriers and other prominent lines have it too - one recent FTCH and two of his sons currently at stud are Carriers. Glaucoma is on the increase too - the BVA have now recommended that Gonioscopy is done every three years. All mine have had it done twice apart from the youngest who are not yet old enough. I also litter screen for MRD whenever possible but when you live 100 miles away from the nearest BVA Eye Panellist it does not always work out.

If you are breeding, in my view you have to look at the whole dog and I want a dog that can do the job and also pass on those qualities to a healthy next generation. I got interested in health testing as my first Springer died at just two years from an unknown cause which I now suspect was fucosidosis - he had lines in common with the now tested Carriers and the symptoms similar to fuco and it was heartbreaking. He was PTS as soon as we realised there was no chance of a recovery.
Hope this answers your question somewhat.

[Quin]

Thanks Sgurr

[Sgurr]

Quin, forgot to say that there are about 70 heritable conditions for ESS and we only have DNA tests for 3 or 4, so the more you inbreed (line breed) the higher the chances are that some of the very, very, rare stuff will come out as issues. The ESS gene pool is about 70 dogs (show and working) and anything over average 6% COI is bad news for a breed.

[Nickheref]

Quin, forgot to say that there are about 70 heritable conditions for ESS and we only have DNA tests for 3 or 4, so the more you inbreed (line breed) the higher the chances are that some of the very, very, rare stuff will come out as issues. The ESS gene pool is about 70 dogs (show and working) and anything over average 6% COI is bad news for a breed.

But realistically how do you breed a pup with a coi of below 6%? I am contemplating putting a useful homebred dog to one of two bitches- he has a coi of 10.8, the bitches have coi's of 17.5 and 6.7 respectively. The first bitch (17.5) has a small number of recent common ancestors with the dog and any pups of this mating would have a coi of 9.8%. The second bitch (6.7) appears to have no recent common ancestry with the dog (from a reasonably informed look, knowing siblings of well used sires etc) and the coi of any pups of this mating according to mate select would be 9%. Not a huge difference considering the pedigrees, from which it would appear that there is considerably more inbreeding in the first litter than there would be in the second. The difference in coi's of the two potential litters is not enough to have any bearing whatsoever on my choice of bitch over the working/health status qualities of the individual bitches in helping me reach a decision as to which way to go. So in reality, to me at least, the coi in this case is irrelevant, particularly as from this, it appears that a high coi can be substantially lowered in one generation whilst achieving a coi of below 6 seems almost impossible without introducing another breed in the mix and that has been discussed at length elsewhere on the forum .
Has anyone got a purebred dog (particularly ESS) whose coi is below 6 and if so where would they be going next in breeding terms to preserve that for the long term if that is there aim or will it almost inevitably increase as to find a potential sire with a coi of below 6 is impossible?

[Sgurr]

The pup I imported from Holland, Bailey, is COI 4.096% over 890 dogs going back 36 generations max but with some gaps on the Dutch registrations. So realistically I think she is about 6%. Where to go next - well she only has Clarburgh Art once in her pedigree so that gives me more scope. Just picking popular sires for examples - with Helmsway Heath 7.986% over a similar range, Hellraiser 8.639% , a stud with brilliant hips that I've got my eye on, 6.853% Vicky's Knots & Crosses, 6.621% It's not so much the mating of this bitch, it's where do I go with the bitch pup I keep from her. If I were younger I would look seriously at an outcross with a show ESS as that would get the COI down to 1% or 2% and breed back to working lines. But time is not on my side - and it is a case of recognising that ESS are in trouble as COI's are gradually going up. Bailey is only one this month so I've got another year to worry about the problem!