Breeding dogs is simple?

Part 2  

In my last column, I wrote about making breeding choices. In one part, I stated, “Breeding is about entire families of dogs, not just mom and dad.” I think this is a very important point to remember. In short, all of the health issues that we know about in Goldens are diagnosed only on phenotype (other than prcd-PRA, which now has a DNA test). Therefor we only know that the dog we are breeding appears to be clear of the genetic disorders that plague our breed. Yes, it is certainly a plus that your dog clears ‘the big four’ (heart, eyes, elbows, and hips), but if his or her parents produce a lot of unclear dogs, especially if the unclear dogs are siblings to your dog, then that is certainly something to note in making breeding decisions.

I once remember talking to someone about juvenile cataracts. She had bred to a certain stud dog who seemed to be producing a higher than average number of cataracts. As the conversation progressed, she admitted that in her four litters by this dog, there were cases of cataracts in all of them. Additionally, one litter had all but one bitch affected and when she was bred, she produced them as well. Looking at the family history, this is not a bit surprising even though this bitch herself cleared.

It is no secret that some dogs produce certain problems more than others, just as some dogs produce more of certain strengths than others. Every breeding decision should be based on looking at the strengths and weaknesses of not only each dog, but also their family. Then we have to try to piece together how a pair may compliment each other while trying not to double up on known weaknesses. And ultimately, it boils down to learning where the weaknesses are and choosing which are the lesser of the evils that we feel comfortable with chancing.

Additionally, it is not always easy to have a clear idea of what to expect from a breeding prospect. While we can look at offspring of a stud dog, what if there are few, if any, to evaluate? Certainly there are advantages in this area using a popular sire, but for genetic diversity, it is good to use more than just the oft used dogs. One can certainly look to the parents, siblings, and other close relatives for clues, but it is always iffy when there is little production record to analyze.

Interestingly, though, even siblings can produce very differently. I know of sisters where one produced very few unclear puppies yet her full litter sister, even bred to the same dogs sometimes, produced a far greater number of health problems. Why is that? Apparently the latter bitch just ended up getting more of the faulty genes from her parents when they paired up than her sister did.

Additionally, I know about two brothers that have both been used as stud dogs. One possessed a far more impressive career in the ring, yet it was the brother who proved to produce the more winning offspring. Was it a matter of the bitches taken to these boys? Perhaps. More likely, it was a combination of both, but from all appearances, it seems the boy with the less impressive show record is the better producer. And perhaps in time, if better bitches are mated to the other dog, this could change as well.

So here we are armed with the tools of looking at the family of dogs. But there are many variables that can skew the results of what appears in research and what the real facts are. I’d like to explore a few of these, starting with the health research.

OFA states somewhere on their website that it is actually better to breed the one dysplastic dog in the litter of otherwise all clear dogs than the one clear dog in a litter where all the others failed on hips. From the above example on juvenile cataracts, this seems to hold true for other health issues as well. But when you look at a litter and the dogs listed as cleared or failed, how complete is this information? Like most breeders, I do not require my pet owners to do health clearances on their dogs. I encourage it, but it is not something people usually do with dogs that will never be bred. So when you see a litter of 10 and only two have clearances listed, is it a case that 8 went to pet homes? Or is it possible that there were 4 others checked that failed something? While it is wonderful to have health registries, participation is usually the choice of the owner. OFA has the option to check if you will allow failures to be listed for hips and elbows, but many owners do not select this option. Sadly, I heard that Golden owners are one of the breeds that fails to allow full disclosure more so than most other breeds.

One result of the inclusion of elbows in our screening process is that most owners do both hips and elbows together, so if they are sent in and you see ONLY an elbow clearance or ONLY a hip clearance on a dog done in recent years, it is a high probability that both were submitted and one failed. It is not definitive, but it is a clue.

Another issue is that sending our heart and eye clearances to OFA is not required. So while you know the dog cleared if you see all four listed on OFA, it does not mean that the absence of eyes and/or heart means the dog failed. It may have, or it may have never been checked. I once had a bitch that I had eyes and heart done on, but she ended up having enough faults that I didn’t feel she should be bred so she was spayed and placed. Thus the new owners did not do her orthopedic clearances. Someone assumed she had failed both hips and elbows but this was not true. She was never checked! So one must be cautious when trying to extrapolate information from OFA when something is missing.

Still another possible area that can be misleading is with annual CERF evaluations. In my own case, I had a bitch that cleared every year she was checked until the eye exam done a few months before she turned five years old. This time, she had developed cataracts! Now, if you look on CERF, you will see several years of clearances, then no more. Yes, in her case, it was a case of her failing. But for others, it may not be. Some people don’t submit reports every year, although for the small fee they charge, I personally don’t understand this. Some will not do so for no good reason. Others may have a dog that will clear, but now has some CERFable flaw (like cataracts that pass) and they don’t want that knowledge out there. So they don’t allow the dog to be listed. I suspect this was the case in a dog I knew to have CERFable cataracts because the eye report was never sent in. Yet one year, the cataracts weren’t noted, and his CERF was submitted (after about 3-4 years

Of not sending it to CERF), then it was not submitted in later years. So when one evaluates this, it may appear he cleared just fine but was never submitted. Yet in reality, he had a category that passed which it seemed the owner did not want made public.

Along these same lines, one must be careful using show wins for evaluation in a litter. I imagine I’m not the only person who has sold a lovely pup into a pet home, or sold one to a show home that never got the dog out to be shown more than a handful of times, then went on to breed them. Likewise, if the money is there, some breeders are able to finish a lot of dogs in a litter, often using a great handler, when a far nicer dog never saw the ring. So while this information is useful, again one must realize that using these statistics has many variables that have the probability of making one draw the wrong conclusions.

Yes, I think we should all use these tools. I think we should all list our pups on OFA and k9data, even those in pet homes that are not shown. I also suggest using the Open Health Registry to share this information (a topic for a future column). But remember, none of our tools are going to give us all the answers and we must be very careful not to make wrong assumptions.

So researching families of dogs is very important. But we need to be careful what we extrapolate from that research. We need to network and ask the owners and breeders if we have questions. And this brings up the topic of my next column, which covers trust and finding breeders and owners you feel are really going to give you honest answers to those questions.

Again, breeding dogs is NOT simple. It is complex, multifacted and requires a lot of research if you want to do it right. Hopefully with this research, you will feel more confident that you have done all you can to breed healthy Goldens that conform to the breed standard!

Return to current conformation article