ANNOUNCEMENT: 9 December 2011. As part of our effort to keep current with the rapidly changing DNA technology that is becoming a major aspect of the dog breeder's world, we are presenting a new FEATURE ARTICLE by Jeffrey on five canine genetics tests from Mars Veterinary. Several of these tests are quite new; all of them are still being further developed and improved. This to us is a very exciting area of the dog world with a lot of positive change underway. Jeffrey also hopes to offer one or two followup articles about these tests.
LIKE MOST OTHER PUREBRED DOG BREEDS, legacy sleddog breeds are at risk from genetic attrition. Many generations of kennel-club breeding have wasted the initial healthy genetic diversity of these working breeds -- Canadian Eskimo Dogs, Siberian Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes, Chinooks, Greenland Dogs and others -- causing high levels of genetically-related disorders through the expression of genetic load. Inbreeding levels in these breeds routinely reach thirty percent Coefficient of Inbreeding and higher.
Breeding sleddogs for the show ring has supported practices of inbreeding and artificial selection for cosmetic show points that have greatly contributed to the problem of genetic attrition. Breeding for appearance and 'conformation' have also reduced overall breed levels of working ability.
Relatively little of these breeds' original working purpose survives. Sleddogs are seldom used now for serious transport of supplies and passengers. Only the dogsled races remain, and racing sleddog breeding has become a numbers game employing excessively high levels of artificial selection for speed alone. This kind of breeding and selection is as dangerous to genetic health as show breeding. In fact, the two supposedly contrary approaches have united to contribute to genetic impoverishment of sleddog breeds.
Different methods have been tried over the years to deal with genetic load and preserve or restore genetic diversity. Simple selection for working ability and hardiness is the oldest method and remains better than most of the other options. Dog show enthusiasts believed and hoped that selection for breed type and for their own conceptions of correct gait and proper conformation somehow produce a superior animal. As time proved these hopes vain, emphasis shifted to screening against obvious "genetic defects," depending on veterinary research to identify genetic diseases and to develop viable tests to reveal high-risk animals.
One sleddog breed at high risk, the Chinook, went so far as to establish a cross-breeding programme to add fresh genetic diversity to its breed genome. However, the programme's rules are so stringent that there have been no applicants and the only Chinook Crossbreds were grandfathered into the programme. Even so, the requirement for four generations of backcross breeding to purebred Chinooks seems to have ensured that little or no new diversity remains after the backcrossing; at least, such was the result indicated by a genetic study commissioned from Mars Veterinary corporation.
The Siberian Husky breed for genetic refreshment seems to have relied largely upon clandestine expansion of its genome by individual breeders through the unadmitted use of Alaskan huskies, coursing breeds, Karelian Bear Dogs, and Alaskan Malamutes. Of course there are no reliable records of these outcrosses, although the so-called rumour history is rich with anecdotal evidence.
None of these expedients have done much to relieve high inbreeding coefficients or to lower significantly the expression of genetic load.
It seems obvious to us (even if it isn't to those with their heads stuck in kennel club and breed club sand) that the closed studbook and breed purity models aren't working. Yes, they produce pretty, cookie-cutter dogs -- but at what price? Hip dysplasia, epilepsy, focal seizures, glaucoma, corneal dystrophy, retinal atrophy, cataracts, anasarca, renal shunts, thyroid problems, subaortic stenosis, IBD/IBS and scores of other genetically-mediated disorders are the price that is exacted by the inbreeding/show selection methodology that is regarded as normal in today's dog world. (More realistically, it's yesterday's dog world, because the search for the dog that conforms perfectly to the breed standard and the methodology of "breeding the best to the best" are holdovers from the Victorian era. Over a century has now gone by and we need to leave these things behind!)
The price in canine suffering is too high. We need to show more respect for nature and to stop trying to be "sculptors in living flesh" as one breeder proudly put it. Above all we need to attempt to endow every litter of pups we breed with a healthy genetic outfit. In order to do that the first order of business is the restoration of canine genetic diversity.
That cannot be done with a single outcross followed by four generations of backcrossing to an inbred pure strain. The damage that has been done over a century of Victorian dog breeding cannot be undone in a single generation. Crossing two depauperate inbred strains will not restore normal canine genetic diversity. It will take time and persistence. We shall not succeed unless we first reorder our priorities -- the idols of breed purity and extreme breed type must be dethroned.
Initially, Susan E. Bragg and J. Jeffrey Bragg. We both have decades of experience in breed and bloodline preservation, research and development. Susan's experience is primarily in Chinooks, Jeffrey's in Seppala Siberian Sleddogs. For over a decade we have been greatly concerned that the purebred dog community has failed to realise the crucial importance of population genetics, has not taken seriously the need for greater genetic diversity in domestic dog breeds.
Susan has been a Chinook owner and breeder, partner with her brother Jack Murray in Tullibardine Chinooks, since 1993. In July 2008 the Tullibardine partnership was dissolved; after that, Susan formed Atholl Chinooks with Jeffrey, her new husband. She was a Board member of Chinooks World Wide in 1998-1999.
Jeffrey started out in the Siberian Husky breed in 1968 and was Editor of the Siberian Husky Club of Canada newsletter in the late 1960s. He was owner/operator of Tadluk, Regd. in the early 1970s, then of Markovo, Regd. when he engineered the rescue of the Leonhard Seppala Siberian sleddog strain from impending extinction. After a fifteen-year hiatus, he began the Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project and in 1993 relocated to the Yukon Territory to found Seppala Kennels, which has bred Seppala Siberian Sleddogs as an evolving breed from that time to the present. He left the Canadian Kennel Club in 1996 to found the Working Canine Association of Canada and obtain recognition for the evolving breed. In that same year he published "Purebred Dog Breeds Into the Twenty-First Century -- Achieving Genetic Health for Our Dogs," one of the early seminal documents of the canine diversity breeding movement.
Today we both realise that there is little hope left for our Chinooks or our Seppalas within the context of breed clubs and kennel clubs. Sleddog breeds need to be hardy and vigorous; that is not possible within a context of dog shows and endless inbreeding, where the concern for breed type always trumps the issue of genetic health. The Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project, intended to be a pilot project for diversity breeding, in the end was obviously headed for "distinct breed" status eventually, restricted by the regulations of Agriculture Canada and the Animal Pedigree Act. Something a little more radical is called for today. The diversity breeding movement has been visible in the dog world for fifteen years but has made only small inroads into the power structures of the American Kennel Club, United Kennel Club, Canadian Kennel Club and similar all-breed registries. "Working within the system for change" appears to be just one more of the things that aren't working, largely due to the fact that the system is carefully configured to prevent change.
