TO BREED OR NOT TO BREED
Building An
Ethical Framework

by Susan Thorpe-Vargas Ph.D., John Cargill MA, MBA, MS


Society's concept of canines is affected by many factors, all of which must be considered in a breeder's decision-making process:

PART 1

This four-part series on breeder ethics discusses religious, historical and legal concepts surrounding the dog and its place in modern society. With this foundation, we will examine ethical issues pertaining to breed preservation, the betterment of breeds, overpopulation and the altering of dogs, genetic disease and the purpose of breeds as well as backyard and occasional breeders. Along the way, we will take a look at American Kennel Club statistics, the showing of dogs, sportsmanship, responsibilities of puppy buyers, the need for contracts, the work of rescue groups, the presence of puppy mills and pet stores, the role of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the sales/advertising of dogs, including the Internet marketplace.

As a breeder, the ethical decision-making process begins well before the first litter arrives and continues well after those dogs are placed.

Say, for example, your municipality requires a kennel or a breeding license for each dog at a cost beyond your financial means, but you know these laws are rarely enforced as long as your neighbors do not complain.

Say you find a dam or a sire prospect with several champions in its pedigree but whose genetic screenings could be more thorough. Or say you breed a litter, two of the seven puppies are stillborn, and later on, the litter becomes sick with a flu-lick disease resulting in the loss of one more puppy. What are your disclosure obligations to potential buyers?

What if after the puppies are placed the sire's dam develops cataracts and the sire's sire develops hip dysplasia? What if your sales contract specifically mentions the requirement for humane treatment, but you hear that one of the puppies is being chained year-round in an unfenced back yard by its new owner and another one frequently rides in the open bed of its owner's pick-up truck?

During the course of a breeding career, these scenarios and countless others are likely to be presented to either you or someone you know. In this four-part series, we will address these emotional and controversial quandaries and discuss ways breeders can approach these issues ethically.


WHAT IS ETHICAL?


There is nothing you can do with, to, or even think about dogs that does not have an ethical component. Ethical choices are not made in a vacuum, however. The history of how we perceive and treat dogs, and how attitudes have changed throughout the years, is very much related to the value systems within which ethical decisions are made in a breeding context. But history is only part of the equation. Other societal factors, including the law, religious tradition, ideological cleavages and cultural norms, must be examined to fully understand this intricate framework.

In this first article we hope to illustrate the various ways dogs are viewed and to impart an understanding of how culture, law, religion, philosophy and ethics influence owners' and breeders' decisions and dog activities.

In researching the material for these articles, we encountered no one without an opinion, and most people had more than one. We solicited input from across the internet, breeds, nations and registries. We spoke with pet owners, obedience competitors, breeders, veterinary technicians and vets.

The most important thing to remember when examining these opinions is that which is ethical is that which is consistent with the beliefs and mores of a particular group of people and their culture. Different social and religious beliefs, different laws and different cultures produce different codes of ethics. In many cases, these differences are irreconcilable. By examining the differences, we do not attempt to value or judge them (this task would be impossible). Rather, we want to illustrate how they are central, or not central, to the ethical conduct of the dog game, and how they are at work in the lives of people who own and breed dogs.

SCRIPTURE AND MYTH

If one is scripturally oriented, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, humans' dominion over the animals comes early in the sacred texts. Genesis 1:26, for example, states, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

For many people, a religious sense of dominion helps to legitimize their ownership and controlled breeding of dogs. Other faiths, however, have a different perspective on animals and dominion and may view as suspect any kind of ownership based on this idea.

Dominion aside, history has certainly shown a strong partnership between canines and people. In the earliest days of humankind, the dog most certainly was a competitor when it came to scavenging the leftovers of the largest predators. Eventually, however, the canine became a partner, but why this is so is not very clear, nor is it clear whether we became the dog's hunting partner or the dog became ours.

This partnership is deeply seated in many cultures. In a wonderful American Indian folk tale, a rift opened up in Paradise separating man from the animals. The animals remained in Paradise on one side of the rift except for the dog, who leaped the rift to remain with man and to share man's fate.

Many of the earliest cave paintings discovered to date depict dogs/wolves hunting with people. LaGrotte du Lazaret, a 125,000-year-old complex of Paleolithic shelters discovered in 1969, contained wolf/dog remains suggestive of some form of human/animal relationship. Despite the concept of dominion, throughout history the dog has been viewed as a little bit different, as very special and even sacred.

For example, the dog was sacred to Anubis in Egyptian myth, revered in Babylonia, associated with Artemis of Greek mythology and Diana of roman mythology and with Astarte, the Phoenician goddess of love. To this day, some African tribes consider the dog a cultural hero, and Australian Aboriginals think of the dog as an essential companion. Native Americans viewed the dog as a guardian and protector. In Celtic and Norse myth, the dogs were associated with gods, often as messengers.

With these mythical and religious traditions, it is easy to see why the ethical treatment of dogs is such an emotional subject. Abraham Lincoln, a man not only of great practicality but also at times of great sensitivity and understanding, said about dogs, cats and religion: "I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."

Mahatma Gandhi, the great spiritual leader of India, wrote, "One can measure the size and the moral progress of a nation to how she treats her animals." We agree-- how you treat your animals says a lot about you.

WORLDWIDE PERSPECTIVES

Among other factors, national cultural and religious differences may account for the varying viewpoints held by the world's people about dogs. In Scandinavian countries, for example, Norse mythology traditionally held dogs as hunters with the gods. There was no immediate concept of man's dominion over an expendable commodity. Today, those areas of the world have relatively few dogs in shelters or resulting from unplanned breedings.

Given their historical background, it would be unexpected for Scandinavians to adopt the disposable pet concept, as have some Americans. To them, it just would not be ethical. In fact, Scandinavian dog people, on various internet lists, had difficulty dealing with our cavalier American morality leading to cast-off dogs and overflowing animal/euthanasia shelters.

Other countries, such as Taiwan with more than 2 million stray dogs, let them pretty much fend for themselves scavenging from garbage dumps. (1) In India, strays are captured, inoculated, neutered and returned to the streets because of ethical and religious concerns. (2)

In the Third World, the life of animals and concern for their well-being is even more tenuous. Where humans are starving about you, it is difficult to conceive of animals, even dogs, as members of the family imbued with legal rights. In some countries today, such as China and Korea, dog farms for meat and fur are an accepted practice. The slaughter of these animals is in many ways similar to our own American forms of slaughter for the highly intelligent pig. Stores abound of the common Chinese and Korean practice of skinning and butchering while the dog is still alive. (3)

China has an active economy in dog meat and pelts. In northern rural areas especially, it is not at all uncommon for a Chinese family to raise a few cats or dogs, then during the winter when the coats are best, kill the animals and take the pelts to market. Many rural villages have open-air fur markets that serve as collection points for the pelts of dogs and cats killed locally. (4)

Lest we imply this is an Eastern view of dogs, following are examples of the Western view: At one German auction, 10,000 Korean dog fur pelts were sold. A Chinese shipment to Italy was seized for a lack of proper permits. It contained 4.7 tons of dog hides. "Gae-wolf," a euphemism for dog hide, is a popular fur in Germany. Ironically, the "gae-wolf" coming out of China and Korea is typically harvested from German Shepherd Dogs. (5)

We point this out neither to offend nor disgust, but to demonstrate that not everywhere are dogs viewed as companion animals, but rather more as livestock, like chickens in both the Eastern and the Western worlds. Currently, there is a bill that has passed the U.S. Congress that would ban the sale of dog and cat fur in the United States, and now the House and Senate versions of the bill must be reconciled before final passage and enactment.

FROM FARM TO FAMILY ROOM

Historical factors, including the extent of industrialization, also must be considered when examining international/cultural differences regarding canines. Earlier in man's history, survival was paramount with little enthusiasm for the delicate sensitivities to which we devote much time today. Concern for any being's life and welfare, whether human or animal, is a relatively new concept. Torture, murder and ritual execution (often in the name of some deity) have been common across time and around the world.

Things have developed positively for the canine in the United States and other industrialized countries, however. With urbanization, the farm dog became the yard dog, and the yard dog of the past became the house dog of the present. In turn, the house dog truly has become a member of the family, often with all rights and privileges thereunto pertain. As much as many of us attempt to keep things in perspective, our dogs tend to quickly become members of the family and receive much the same care, time and nurturing as children.

Dog people are dog people because they have a fascination with and a love for animals in general, and dogs in particular. They view dogs as more than livestock, regardless of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's classification of dogs and their legal status as personal property.

A country's perspective on the dog, however, is not only reflected in how it treats its pets but also in how it deals with dogs in general, including those without loving families. Humans have had a long and problematic history with stray semiferal dogs. Records go back thousands of years telling of wandering bands of stray dogs threatening passers-by, especially those with foodstuffs from the markets. Stray dogs surviving by eating human's garbage are not new. There is even a historical and biblical name for these dogs: "pariah."

Today, we still have a large population of unwanted or discarded dogs in many countries. How we deal with canine issues in a societal context often is dictated by ideological differences.

ANIMAL WELFARE VS. ANIMAL RIGHTS

Ideological rifts tend to surface when dealing with canine social problems such as pet overpopulations, animal abuse or incidences of canine aggression. Obviously, ethical frameworks used in day-to-day decision-making often hinge on one's ideological bent.

Social organizations often rise up to collectively represent and advocate for certain widely held social beliefs and values. One of the founding organizations of the animal welfare movement is the British Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The RSPCA is noted for its political clout and its ability to cause legislative change. Specifically, the organization managed in the United Kingdom to get dogs banned as beasts of burden and to end the "slavery" of the spit dog, which was a small dog that ran inside a wheel for hours at a time to turn meat on a spit. (Perhaps more than legislation, however, the automobile and electricity brought an end to such forms of animal involuntary servitude.)

Recently the RSPCA has come under fire by some dog enthusiasts for its role in the passage of England's 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act, which is based on a breed-specific premise. The RSPCA was reported to have advised the British Home Office on banning and control measures and various chief inspectors served as expert witnesses for the prosecution in DDA cases.

Other European nations have followed the British example, with the result that in the year 2000, there was an ongoing attempt to ban some 49 breeds in Germany, France, Poland, Luxemburg, Holland, and other nations have joined the witch hunt, further fueling pressures for increased breed-specific legislation in the United States.

The message here is that all animal-oriented special-interest groups do not have the same agenda, goals or even overall commanding ideology. Owners may agree with one organization on certain topics, but they may disagree on others. One major contemporary rift can be understood as the difference between animal rights and animal welfare.

The general distinction between these two ideologies is that those promoting animal welfare accept human's dominion over the animals and conclude there should be an ethical concern for their well-being and humane treatment, even if they are livestock destined for slaughter. Animal welfare advocates recognize animals as personal property with an understanding that you can use them as you see fit as long as you are being humane about it.

The animal right proponents generally conclude that humans do not have dominion over the animals and they should not be domesticated, slaughtered or viewed as livestock. The animal rights person opposes any medical or scientific experimentation that uses animals; whereas the animal welfare proponent views a certain amount of experimentation necessary but insists that researchers use humane procedures and minimize pain as much as possible.

One area where the rift between animal welfare and animal rights manifests is the growing movement in some countries, including the United States and many European nations, to imbue dogs and other companion animals with a special legal status that is more than property status. This, in effect, would make them legal entities in their own right.

Although such a status could help curb the mistreatment of animals, there may be other, less positive implications for breeders and owners. For example, if it is found that sledding, carting or hunting with dogs violates the animals' rights (i.e., amounts to animal exploitation), selling an animal to someone who intends to pursue these activities is suddenly on very shaky legal ground.

Owners and breeders have very much at stake in the animal welfare/animal rights debate. Their chosen activities (e.g., breeding dogs, showing dogs and, in some cases, even owning dogs) are simply not aligned with some animal rights agendas. For example, some animal rights organizations remain firmly against the breeding of any domestic animal and can be found in the background behind legislative or administrative attempts to ban or tax breeding or breeding stock.

We feel that if you have earmarked spare cash for the occasional donation to animal welfare/animal rights organizations, it is important to carefully consider exactly which causes you want to support and which organizations are aligned with those causes.

If you want to fight breed-specific legislation, consider the Humane Society of the United States and other organizations that have a strong history in this area. Certainly, as an owner or a breeder, you should avoid providing support to animal rights organizations that wish to free animals from "domestic service," including livestock and pets of all kinds.


CANIS LUPUS AND THE LAW


The law as it relates to canines is yet another lens through which to refract a society's overall view of the dog and owners' ethical choices about dog-related issues. In many cases, dog enthusiasts have made ethical decisions to disobey the law when they feel it is unsound or unfair, or if it conflicts with their personal values as owners.

One such controversial set of laws are those than ban wolves and wolf hybrids in many municipalities and counties in the United States and other countries. The interesting thing about these laws is that they seemingly fail to recognize that dogs, in fact, are gray wolves -- genetically they are the same species, Canis lupus. (6)

According to "Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference," edited by D.E.Wilson and D.A.M. Reeder, biologists now classify the domestic dog as a subset of the gray wolf. Once known as Canis familiaris, the domestic dog's scientific name is now officially Canis lupus familiaris, more explicitly linking it to other wolf species such as Canis lupus arctos (arctic wolves), Canis lupus baileyi (the Mexican wolf) and other Canis lupus members.

Research has shown us that many breeds are genetically closer to feral wolves than they are to some other breeds of dogs. It is unknown whether wolves and dogs were distinct at one time, however, because over the past tens of thousands of years, the genes have become intermixed. Some breeds distinctly have wolves as part of the foundation. For example, according to the breed's first studbooks, Germany Shepherd Dogs included wolves in the pedigree.

Insomuch as dogs and wolves have been separated in legal and popular culture despite their genetic similarities, there has been a concept that any wolf in an individual canine's immediate genetic background makes it a wolf, whereas any dog does not make a wolf hybrid a dog. The U.S. Constitution is silent on the regulation of animals; however, the USDA in no uncertain terms states, "all hybrids between domestic and wild animals, such as wolf and dog, cat and jungle cat . . . etc., are considered to be domestic animals." (7) In reality, it has fallen to the states to determine what is what. Unfortunately, this cuts no ice at the local levels of government where breed-specific legislation (including laws banning wolf hybrids) is rampant within some jurisdictions.

In author Cargill's home county of Carteret, N.C., for example, Canis lupus is specifically banned, and there is no definition of domestic dog. Thus, ownership of all dogs and wolf-dog hybrids is technically illegal.

In many local jurisdictions, however, it matters not that dogs, wolves and wolf-dog hybrids are members of the same species. Much as we find breed-specific legislation arbitrary and discriminatory, we find the banning of any Canis lupus, whether the Chihuahua version of the gray wolf or the Mastiff version or the German Shepherd Dog, ridiculous.

In most jurisdictions, it becomes more ridiculous as the determination of what is or is not a wolf or a banned breed falls to the dog warden, some local humane society official or a veterinarian, generally none of whom can even identify every breed or mixed-breed with complete accuracy.

Various counties enforce their breed ban laws based upon complaints. Many of the laws are written within a vacuum with little basis or scientific knowledge. Although such bans technically put owners outside the law, many people do not even realize it, or they choose to not follow the law because they believe it to be based on an unsound foundation. We personally feel that there is an ethical imperative on the part of dog owners to fight against these arbitrary and unscientific restrictive covenants against man's best friend.

LIABILITY AND ZONING LAWS

Aside from the seemingly unbiologically based laws separating dogs from wolves, there also is a growth and proliferation of increasingly stringent liability laws for dogs. Often, the societal objective of these laws is to protect humans from dangerous dogs.

These laws have ethical implications for owners and breeders as well. While we recognize that one should not harbor a dangerous animal without exercising special control, it is now difficult to avoid exposure to liability if you own a dog of any kind. Any given dog will bite under certain circumstances.

Many courts, especially those states with "strict liability" laws, have held injured persons not responsible for their own actions even if they provoke dogs and are subsequently bitten. A strict liability statute imposes liability upon a dog owner without exception should the dog damage property or injure someone.

With strict liability in such states as California, no matter what anyone does to provoke the dog, the burden of proof will be on the owner to show it was not a vicious dog. Liability laws such as this are a clear indication of how the legal system views dogs as opposed to humans.

The majority of dog-bite victims today are children. Many bites occur because little ones are not being raised around dogs and are not familiar with how dogs might react. We feel there is a moral obligation on the part of owners to socialize their dogs properly, but also a moral responsibility on the part of parents to educate their children about dogs and to keep them away from dogs if the child does not act appropriately. We have become convinced that many of the several hundred thousand dog bites occurring each year could be prevented if parents educated their children and held these children responsible for their actions around dogs.

Additionally, we feel there is a moral imperative, given the ability of any dog to bite, for breeders to "hold school" on puppy buyers to ensure they recognize the inherent risks of dog ownership. This becomes even more of a moral issue for puppies going to homes with children. Make sure they understand what they are getting into and that they must "dog proof" their children and their children's playmates.

In further attempts to protect humans from dogs, leash laws have become common. Also, in most locations, licensing laws with mandatory inoculation against rabies are in force; i.e., licensing is compulsory when the animal is vaccinated. Some estimates indicate that as many as 50 percent of all dogs and 75 percent or more of all cats are unlicensed and not inoculated against rabies. In some areas, these licensing laws have been challenged because they have been viewed as a financial deterrent to inoculation.

Further restricting dogs are zoning laws that limit the number of dogs a person may have or which may be kept on a particular property. Interestingly, these zoning laws very tremendously around the nation. On Oahu, Hawaii, a person may have 10 dogs per tax parcel. In San Diego County, Calif., only six dogs may be kept per tax parcel, and only six dogs total if tax parcels are adjoining. Thus, if two 100-acre tax parcels touched each other, only six dogs total may be kept on both of them. Fortunately, other municipal and county jurisdictions are less restrictive. Oddly enough, in San Diego County, where the number of dogs that may be kept on a given tax parcel regardless of its size is limited, one may keep horses in any number!

Of course, such laws have implications for breeders. For example, if your zoning says you can have only two dogs and you have three bitches and rent studs, you have broken the law. Just because the action is illegal, however, does not necessarily make it unethical. For dog people, the ethics of this scenario most likely do not involve the broken zoning law but are more concerned with making sure the accommodations for the animals are adequate and that they are treated humanely. We will deal with these later in the series.

Along with zoning and licensing laws, we find that many jurisdictions are attempting to address the excess pet population with breeding bans or breeding licenses. In the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles county, for example, unaltered animals, if registered now, require a $100 per year per dog unaltered dog permit and a $200 breeding permit per intact animal per year. Failure to register an intact animal can result in a $500 fine,(8) and there is a county policy of encouraging citizens to report neighbors who are breeding dogs without licensing. Risking the possible penalty, many owners have nonetheless decided to not register their dogs because they cannot afford it and do not agree with the registration fee.

A TAXING SITUATION

Fines and breeding licenses aren't the only financial hardships owners may face. Many jurisdictions worldwide tax dogs. These taxes range from a minimal fee to outright confiscatory levels.

During the current wave of breed bans in Germany it has been found that tremendous numbers of dogs are not licensed, much the same as is the case in the United States. This isn't surprising given the highest registration or dog tax fees we have been able to find are in Pinneberg, Scheswig-Holstein, Germany, where the annual tax on the Bull Terrier, Tosa Inu, Mastiff and several other breeds is DM2,400 for the first dog and DM3,600 for the second dog. Thus two Bull Terriers will cost you DM6,000 annually (about $2,600).

We make the point that the authority to tax dogs is in effect the authority to confiscate or prohibit dogs except for owners who are very rich. Similarly, the authority to tax real estate upon which dogs are kept is an ability to prevent or eliminate dogs in that tax jurisdiction.

Those persons who wish to avoid these taxes do not register their dogs. Unfortunately, dog people with high visibility, i.e., those who hunt, show or enter various trials, often cannot avoid these taxes because they fear being caught. Thus only the "law-abiding" are taxed.

In some jurisdictions, there is an ongoing attempt to tax dogs of different sizes and different breeds at different rates. It matters not that the breed many times cannot accurately be determined. The most commonly banned or specially taxed dog is the "it bull," although exact definitions of this vary. In one U.S. jurisdiction, we found pit bulls defined as "any short-legged, flat-skulled, short-coated dog." We would hate to hazard a guess as to what might constitute a pit bull cross, also banned in some jurisdictions.

We found strange laws all around the nation covering dog licensing, breed bans, insurance requirements by breed, breeding permits, etc. Each set of laws is predicated upon some belief structure about dogs, tempered with the reality of who can be made to pay. For example, a large majority of the dogs going into the pound are unregistered. Yet, license fees are used for animal control. Most of the backyard/occasional breeding done is without kennel or breeding licenses in jurisdictions that require them. Those serious dog fanciers who license their dogs and who obtain kennel or breeding licenses pay for the animal control efforts of those who don't. We feel this unequal treatment may have an ethical component and that dog fanciers should actively campaign against such selective treatment by local authorities.

We have looked at the dog from several perspectives: religious, cultural, ideological, genetic and legal. With this common ground, and hopefully understanding, we will be able to address in detail the ethical concepts associated with breeder ethics. That is, what does it take to be an ethical or responsible breeder?

We are going to challenge many of the common practices found among dog owners, breeders and in the show and trial rings. We ask not that you subscribe to our views, just that you hear us out and base your actions as a breeder or dog owner on thoughtful and careful consideration of the ethics involved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan Thorpe-Vargas has a doctorate in immunology and has an extensive chemistry and lab background. She has been involved in numerous Environmental Protection Agency cleanup sites. Susan also raises and shows Samoyeds. She may be reached by e-mail at docvite@aol.com.

John C. Cargill, retired Officer of Marines, statistician and science writer, grew up with Airedale Terriers and American Foxhounds but now lives in Smyrna, N.C., with his 6-year-old male Akita, Ch. Kimdamar’s Jambalaya Jazz (call name "JJ"). He may be reached by e-mail at cargilljc@aol.com.

Susan and John won the Dog Writers Association of America’s Maxwell Medallion and the IAMS® Eukanuba® Canine Health Award for their series of articles on canine genetics that appeared in DOG WORLD. Last year they won the Eukanuba award again for a recent DOG WORLD article on acupuncture, and they were awarded another Maxwell Medallion for their DOG WORLD series on the geriatric dog.

REFERENCES:
(1) Taipei Abandoned Animal Rescue Foundation, www.toapayoh.com/taarf
(2) Personal conversation with Dr. Abdul Rahman, Dean Bangalore Veterinary School, Bangalore, India
(3) www.hsus.org/current/dc_fur/dcespose_l.html
(4) Ibid
(5) Ibid
(6) Kaoru Tsuda, Yoshiaki Kikkawa, Hiromichi Yonikawa, and Yuichi Tanabe, "Extensive interbreeding occurred amont multiple matriarchal ancestors during the domstication of the dog: Evidence from inter- and intraspecies polymorphisms in the D-Loop region of mitrochondrial DNA between dogs and wolves. In conclusion, our findings contain strong experimental evidence that dogs and wolves are members of the same species." From Genes and Genetic Systems, Vol. 72, 1997, pp.229-238
(7) Clarification of Animal Hybrid Crosses, USDA Animal Health and Plant Inspection Service memo dated February 21, 1985, and signed by R.L. Rissler, assistant director, Animal Health Programs Services
(8) www.cfodc.org/la-city-ord.html; CNN "LA Pet owners may face choice: spay or pay," September 21, 1999, www.cnn.com/US/9909/21/spay.or.pay/

FOR PUPS' SAKE
A BREEDER'S DUTY
TO PETS AND PEOPLE

by Susan Thorpe-Vargas Ph.D., John Cargill MA, MBA, MS

From finding suitable families to encouraging the continuation of socialization, the breeder's impact on a puppy's life extends well after the little one leaves the litter :

PART 2

The reasons for dog ownership are many and often overlapping. Most people consider dogs companions, both for themselves and for their children. Others view their dogs as adjuncts to home and personal security, especially those larger breeds from the Herding and Working Groups that excel as guard and watchdogs.

Others find great satisfaction in competing in obedience and other trials and in conformation shows. Others still use their dogs for hunting. What is common throughout dog ownership is that owners truly appreciate the company of their dogs, often to the point of considering them members of the family.

In this second part, we look at one of the major components of canine ethics, the dog owner. Here is where the rubber meets the road, if you will, and where the decisions are made about all of dogdom's numerous components, including hunting, conformation, agility and obedience competition, herding, therapy and assistance dog work, and general canine companionship.

In Part 1, "To Breed Or Not To Breed: Building An Ethical Framework" in the April 2001 issue (Dog World Magazine), we focused on trying to determine the dog's place in society, how it has been historically viewed and what place it might occupy in the grand scheme of things.

In this part, we will attempt to define responsible dog breeding and responsible dog ownership, and the ethical concerns of both. In so doing, we immediately will run directly up against some views we categorically reject. For instance, some fringe animal rights groups reject the concept of the domestication of animals. To those organizations, w hat follows in this article is based on a premise to which they are fundamentally opposed.

To some animal rights activists, carting, sledding, pulling and, of course, any and all hunting are barbaric and constitute inhumane treatment of dogs. Unfortunately, the animal rights vs. animal welfare issue is frequently misunderstood (see Part 1 of this series). We make this distinction because it is a fundamental difference in the way that animals in general should be viewed and drives the issue of what ethically may be done with them.

With this point noted, let's discuss breeders' specific duties to both their canines and the people who will own them.

RESPONSIBILITIES TO PEOPLE . . .

Ownership often comes with strings attached. Whether they own dogs, motor vehicles, firearms or real property, owners have certain responsibilities to society. How these responsibilities are enforced varies. In some cases, such as with firearms and the operation of motor vehicles, they are regulated by the government through licensing.

Some people believe that owning a dog should be licensed. There is a movement afoot in Germany requiring dog owners to receive some form of training and pass a test prior to obtaining a license for dog ownership (see " 'K-Nein' Laws Bite German Dog Owners, " by Elizabeth Crosby Simpson in the December 2000 issue of Dog World). This is similar to the requirement that citizens receive training before they operate motor vehicles, light aircraft, personal watercraft or their own firearms. Several Canadian cities are looking into similar licensing requirements, and Baltimore is considering licensing ownership for certain breeds of dogs (pit bulls).

It is very debatable whether government licensing is the best way to promote responsible ownership, but it is certain that along with the inherent benefits of dog ownership, there also are inherent dangers that must be considered. We find it appropriate to view dogs as potential risks, and dog ownership as a personal property ownership situation requiring risk assessment and risk management.

Specifically, we note that dog owners under the laws of most states are responsible for everything their dogs do. A loose dog that causes a string of traffic accidents is the proximate cause for those accidents, and generally the owner will be required to show that due diligence was exercised. In those states with strict liability, the owner will be held accountable regardless of the level of diligence exercised. Similarly, an owner has a responsibility to members of his or her family and to visitors to control the animal while it is at home, and the public at large when the dog is off-property.

Thus, if a dog has not only the capacity but also the propensity, regardless of size or breed, to attack humans, the owner has a responsibility to control the animal to prevent such attacks. Children are especially at risk, often not having been socialized around dogs and often acting in such a way as to arouse the dog's prey instincts.

We think the dog owner has a very clear responsibility toward children, and that any child permitted to be around dogs should be instructed in how to behave. It makes great sense to discuss with all children, whether they come from dog homes or not, how to act around your dog(s). We caution that a child, especially a very small child, should never be left unsupervised with any dog.

Dog bite statistics suggest that children are in the category most likely to be bitten by dogs. Forewarned and forearmed with this knowledge, it follows that there is an ethical duty to socialize all dogs to respond properly to youngsters if there is any chance canines will come in contact with them. This probably includes most dogs, especially those that will participate in dog activities.

We make a special note here: If you sell a dog, either as a puppy or as an adult, courts may construe that you have a duty to the buyer to fully inform that individual of the potential liabilities associated with ownership. If the puppy buyer or potential owner has children, you have an ethical reason to evaluate that family, to meet the children and to determine for yourself whether the dog you are selling would be suitable for that family.

If you find the family has unruly and disobedient children, you should develop an opinion as to whether their rearing of a dog would result in the same level of unruliness in the dog. You also should consider whether the children's misbehavior, if allowed to continue around the dog, could result in injury to themselves or the canine. If you decide the family probably does not have the capacity or inclination to correctly socialize the dog, you are left with the ethical question of whether it is permissible to put the children at physical risk. From both a financial liability standpoint and from a moral standpoint, we feel that the dog breeder should refuse to sell to such a family.

Buyer screening is becoming no longer an option but a necessity. You may ask why it is your responsibility to protect buyers from themselves. The straight answer is: because you can -- you have the knowledge, and case law is developing that even may legally oblige you to do so. Failure to fully inform buyers (informed purchase) is becoming like informed consent to medical procedures.

Much as bartenders in most states have a duty to refuse service to those who in their judgement would have their driving impaired with another drink, we feel that breeders have a similar and very special responsibility to refuse sales to those people who are not good candidates for dog ownership. Just because someone else will sell t hem a dog does not mean you should be the one to take the moral road with its associated risks.

... AND TO DOGS

When you choose to "adopt" a dog, we feel you do so for the life of that dog. This runs contrary to the "disposable society" of the current era. Likewise, we feel if you breed a bitch, the resulting puppies also are your responsibility. Some believe there is an ethical imperative to be responsible for those puppies for the rest of their lives, even to the extent of taking them back in the event their owners cannot care for them or no longer want them. Others feel the responsibility stops at point of sale. We tend toward the former, but most likely there is a practical ethical solution somewhere between these two poles.

It is very clear, however, that proper socialization of the puppy is critical to the proper development of the adult temperament, and that the breed-specific adult temperament is one of the controlling factors in determing how well the puppy will fit into its new family. Here the breeder has a very clear responsibility not only to future owners of the puppy but to the puppy itself. An aggressive dog is more often than not predictable, whereas a fearful dog is like a hand grenade with a loose pin rolling in the scuppers aboard ship during heavy seas. You are not sure what is going to happen, or when, but you can bet on something of note occurring in the not-too-distant future.

Puppy socialization starts with the breeder, but it must continue with the new owners after the puppy has been placed. Our experience has been that puppy kindergarten training classes are just about the best way to enhance puppy development. Puppy kindergarten training is one of the easiest ways to determine just what you are working with in terms of bravado, aggression, attention span, tractability and desire to work.

For some of the larger and more dominant breeds, puppy kindergarten before puberty is a good way to avoid butting heads with an animal that has suddenly discovered it has a mind of its own. For the Northern breeds and other notoriously stubborn breeds, puppy kindergarten is a shortcut that pays dividends the rest of the dog's life.

Dogs turned in to pounds for eventual euthanasia are most frequently relinquished because of problems, often including behavior problems with children. We tell prospective puppy buyers to give their new puppy a "life sentence" instead of a "death sentence." We tell them to take the puppy to kindergarten training.

Please understand that training is a real necessity and not just an option. Well-behaved dogs are an extreme pleasure, and most people find them wonderful, but an ill-mannered,

ill-behaved dog is something that is at best an obnoxious nuisance, and at worst an extreme liability. For most dog owners, the best way to encourage development of desired behavior traits in their new dog is to take it to a basic obedience course. Almost any city of any size has someone running obedience courses, whether for competition or for pets. We encourage owners to participate in one of these formal courses. The structure and scheduling of the training sessions tend to ensure the training actually occurs and is not continually put off until another day, which may happen if owners intend to hold their own at-home training.

We think puppy kindergarten training should be a matter for discussion in all puppy sales. In a later article in this series, we will discuss contracts with buyers and the use of rebates and other incentives. Puppy training is a good one. Breeders should consider rebating a certain amount of the purchase price for completion of various training programs. A sizeable rebate for owners who successfully complete puppy kindergarten can be more effective and less expensive than making early training a condition of the sales contract and attempting to reclaim dogs if the new owner breaches the agreement.

Read into all of this and find that we emphatically believe training is essential, not only for having a safe and manageable dog but also for bonding between the dog and its owner/family. Dogs seem to feel important when they are doing something. Training events and dog shows become fun and many dogs seem to thrive on them.

We have used dogs in sledding, carting, obedience, assistance, therapy, weight pulls, lure coursing, herding, etc. The dogs enjoyed it immensely, and part of our pleasure in these activities is derived from seeing the canine enthusiasm and obvious relish for such events. One of the joys of dog ownership is joining your dog in something it likes to do. Some dogs love agility training. Others excel in obedience or herding. Others look forward to visiting people as therapy dogs.

While on the subject of doggie events, there is an ethical concern for safe, comfortable transportation arrangements for the dogs. Both authors are currently residing in North Carolina, one in the mountains and the other on the coast. Both of us frequently see loose dogs in the backs of pick-up trucks. We consider this a potential hazard to not only the dog, but also to the other drivers on the road.

It's not only the loose dogs in the backs of pick-ups that are a problem but also loose dogs allowed to move about inside vehicles. Some enthusiasts feel crating the dog when transporting it is safest; others put dogs in the back of the vehicle behind a wire screen; still others feel that buckling the canine in a dog harness works well. It is important to note that wire barriers can come loose and become unsafe both to the dog and to the driver in the event of an accident. In any event, a loose dog, especially an active one bouncing around in a car, can be a hazard. It is important for breeders to educate new owners on safe transportation practices, to keep abreast of the latest safety trends and to pass that information along.

Instead of traveling from one event to another, some dogs are relegated to the back yard to spend much of their time alone. One of the saddest sights in dogdom is t he pooch abandoned to the back yard, isolated from social contact with its family. All that had to be done was to find some activity that could be shared.

In our article on puppy socialization (Social Security: Shaping A Well-Rounded Pup" in the March 2001 issue), we pointed out that dogs are social animals and that they have a very real need for being with other beings, whether canine or human. To deprive a dog of this contact we feel is unethical and akin to locking a social being up in solitary confinement. We conclude that there is an ethical issue involving abandoning social creatures to back yard isolation, as is done in so many pet homes.

To prevent this, breeders should carefully screen all prospective buyers to determine what conditions the dog will be kept in. Breeders should not be afraid to ask questions about the dog's accommodations (e.g., where will the dog sleep and spend most of its time?), the dog's primary caretaker, and the frequency and duration of incidences wherein the dog will be left alone. In this way, breeders will be able to form a clearer picture about the dog's potential place in a particular home.

A common example we have noticed is the case in which the 12-year-old boy or girl is given a puppy. They bond, become close friends and share many tender moments together. As the child matures and leaves home, the dog may be relegated to the same category as the forgotten teddy bear in a childhood toy box.

When young people leave home, there often is no room or opportunity for them to take their dogs. Most universities cast a dim eye on dogs in dormitories! Many apartment building owners catering to younger tenants view dogs in the same way. Thus, the childhood dog is left with parents, who may or may not wish to invest time, effort and money in the dog.

Breeders can head these situations off by asking questions and being observant during the screening process. When parents and children both have input into the dog purchase decision, and when they both will be sharing the daily responsibilities of caring for the dog, it is more likely that when the children leave the nest, the canine still will have a cherished place in the family pack.

ANTICIPATING SCENARIOS

Screening potential buyers also affords breeders the opportunity to have frank discussions with new owners about what to do in the event of unforeseen circumstances that make dog ownership improper, impossible or otherwise not feasible.

One of those scenarios is divorce. When couples split, what happens to the dog? In the case of divorce, often the dog goes with one partner or the other and likely suffers some stress due to a separation from a pack member or members, moving anxiety, etc.

Many divorced persons, in essence, are starting over again in life and have several new constraints on their time and money. Sometimes a dog provides that extra measure of companionship that helps ease the pain of divorce; sometimes the dog is just a reminder of happier days and becomes a costly burden, both emotionally and financially.

We urge all persons contemplating divorce to agree on what to do with their dogs, and make this a mater of immediate concern rather than an afterthought to the property settlement being negotiated. The ethics of marriage and divorce are beyond the scope of this article, but the question of what to do with the dog is not. We feel there is a great moral imperative to do right by the dogs and make sure the pet lives with the family member who wants the dog and is the best equipped to care for it.

The breeder also can have a role in ensuring the dog's welfare by having a contractual agreement with the buyer giving the breeder the option of taking back the dog if neither divorcing party wants or can keep it. Additionally, if the breeder can't keep the dog permanently or isn't able to take the dog in at all, he or she should be willing to use his or her contacts to help rehome the dog.

Another scenario owners and breeders should consider is the fact that animals can outlive their owners. When children have left home and retirement years seem empty, many aging couples will purchase a dog. These animals tend to be indoor dogs and closely embraced as members of the family.

Old age can be a lonely time, and depression is frequently associated with the elderly. There is a growing understanding among people working with the elderly that their lives can be significantly enriched through having a pet, and ownership even may extend their period of relative good health and ability to live unassisted.

Nonetheless, careful consideration should be given to the elderly person's ability to care for the animal and the need to make arrangements for the animal should the person have to move to an assisted-living or other care facility that does not allow pets. This is a difficult question: What is to become of Granny's dog? Often seniors will become so attached to their dogs that these animals occupy a position of central focus in their lives. Consequently, they are heartbroken when they are parted from their dogs.

Breeders can help guard the dog's well-being in these circumstances by explaining to buyers that they should have someone willing to take care of the dog in the event they are incapacitated. A Contractual agreement giving breeders the option of taking a dog back in these situations also could be considered and may give an older owner some peace of mind, too.

TOUGH DECISIONS

Eventually most dogs will become old and subject to ailments and the general infirmities of old age. Although reputable breeders will sell puppies with health guarantees for a certain period of time after the sale, we feel that if you adopt a dog or the guarantee has expired, you should be responsible for the animal's veterinary care and should provide for it when it becomes ill. The problem is often that of cost.

Now that veterinary procedures mirror human medical procedures, the cost differential is lessening, i.e. state-of-the-art veterinary care is getting more expensive. When an animal becomes sick, the issue always arises whether to put it down or to treat it. The choice is not a simple one. We grow fond of our animals and wish them to remain with us as long as possible. This makes sense only as long as they are not suffering, have a joy for living and the care is affordable.

The question of whether care is affordable is relative. Can you afford it? If it is likely that you cannot pay for the care of a possibly short-lived animal, it may be time to take the difficult steps of considering euthanasia. It may be the case that this is the best and most humane choice for the animal as well. (Some of the toughest choices of ownership revolve around the question of when it is time for euthanasia. Our collective experience has been that when the dog no longer exhibits a strong will to live and its existence is becoming a life of pain and more pain, it is time to let go.)

On the other hand, if the care needed is affordable and has a good chance of increasing not only the duration but also the quality of the pet's life, we feel that the owner should be willing to pay for these expenses. Carefully balancing the welfare of the dog and the economics of the situation is part of the obligation one undertakes when deciding to own a pet.

With the advent of pet health insurance, we feel the commitment to your dog's health is reasonably affordable and should be considered. Several pet health insurance companies have made it possible for owners to afford veterinary care for animals that otherwise would have been put down. When breeders sell puppies, we feel it is important to let puppy buyers know about pet health insurance and to guide them in that direction. Although self-insurance is less expensive in the immediate short run, it often can become pricey in the midterm or long-term. For elderly persons who may not be able to keep a pet, whether the dog has health insurance in effect can be a deciding factor in placing it. An insured dog can give its owner a great sense of comfort knowing the canine companion will be cared for.

In this second article on ethics, we have just scratched the surface of what it means to be a responsible dog owner and what breeders can do to ensure their dogs are placed with one. An important element to this is breeder-buyer communication.

Breeders should encourage their buyers to keep in touch and to continue throughout the life of the puppy/dog. This is not just a moral issue, but also a financial one -- author Cargill has sold many dogs because a potential buyer heard of the ongoing contact he maintained with a previous puppy buyer. Everyone wins when breeder and buyer keep an open line of communication long after the puppy has been sold.

Another factor in the long-term welfare of pups is their physical health and breeders have a major role to play here as well. In the third installment, we will look into the study of genetics and its impact on ethical breeding practices.

THE TIES THAT BIND:
GENETICS AND THE BREEDER

by Susan Thorpe-Vargas Ph.D., John Cargill MA, MBA, MS

One must make ethical choices when deciding
what to breed, when to breed and even if to breed

PART 3


Humans have created all of the more than 400 dog breeds in existence today. Even if their origins are shrouded in obscurity, we still know breeds were not brought into existence by natural selection. In fact, dog breeds are such an artificial construct that without human intervention and supervision, these breeds would cease to exist.

The canine species as a whole maintains a tremendous genetic diversity. Indeed, it is the "plastic" nature of the canine genome that has allowed the creation of such a variety of different dog breeds. By selection for certain behaviors and the physical requirements needed for a particular occupation, humans were able to fashion breeds as morphologically different as the Yorkshire Terrier and the Newfoundland.

Every dog carries deleterious genes. It is nothing to be ashamed of; it is simply a fact. When you inbreed, you not only double up on the "good" genes, or those that you are selecting for, but you are also doubling up on those recessive traits that are at the least suboptimal and which, at the worst, express genetic disease. If the trait is polygenetic, such as hip dysplasia, then you are likely adding to the "threshold" genetic load at which that disease is expressed.

We already have discussed the social, historical and political issues surrounding canine ownership and breeding, as well as some of the responsibilities that go along with them. (See "To Breed Or Not To Breed: Building An Ethical Framework" in the April 2001 issue and "For Pups’ Sake: A Breeder’s Duty To Pets And People" in the May 2001 issue.) In this third part, we will discuss the choices and priorities of individual breeders and their impact on the continued viability of their specific dog breeds. The question one should ask is, are you breeding for yourself and your ego or are you seeking the betterment of, and indeed the continued existence of, your breed? We suggest that some current breeding practices are neither in the best interest of the individual dog in terms of health and temperament, nor do they bode well for the future.

BREEDING QUESTIONS

So what defines a breed? It has been suggested by Jeffrey Bragg in the World Wide Web site titled "Purebred Dog Breeds into the Twenty-First Century—Achieving Genetic Health for Our Dogs" (www.seppalasleddogs.com/documents/pbdg21c.htm) that three concurrent criteria have to be met before one can declare with certainty that, yes, this is a distinct breed.

Dog breeds are first distinguished by ancestry. This means that all the dogs of a certain breed can trace their pedigree back to a select group known in breeding parlance as founders or foundation stock. The next condition is that they have been created for an express purpose, i.e., they all have a specific job to fulfill. Thirdly, they all must share a particular physical appearance that subsequently has been defined and refined into what is now known as the breed standard.

Originally, that breed standard should have reflected the type of work required of the dog but, sadly, this no longer may be true. The Bulldog is a good illustration of how exaggerated type (appearance) has led to the creation of a dog no longer capable of performing its original function, which was bull-baiting—setting Bulldogs on a tethered bull with the purpose of pinning and holding it. The breed has lost its agility and now would get stomped or gored by a bull.

We suggest that rigid selection for appearance and preference of breeding partners, based on a closed and genetically isolated population derived from a particular foundation, has resulted in the loss of genetic diversity and the steadily declining health of the purebred dog. In addition, little or no emphasis is often placed on performance factors for which the dog was originally bred. Even though many do not acknowledge there is a problem, modern breeders are now in a quandary because they have failed to recognize that techniques needed to establish a breed (such as extreme inbreeding) are detrimental to the continued existence of that breed.

Dog breeders are a group with long traditions and many "rules of thumb" that are contrary to known scientific facts. In making most breeding decisions, very few in dogdom have had any exposure to basic genetics, much less population genetics. Population genetics involve a population or species as a whole, rather than concentrating on the individual animal. Population genetics is a very useful tool for showing what happens when we lose genetic diversity.

Our worldwide purebred registries were developed on premises that do not hold scientifically today, such as the idea that inbreeding is not problematic. This must change if we are to save the sport of dog breeding and showing.

When discussing the need for changes, many "old line" breeders argue, "Genetics is just a science based on theories, and theories have often been proven wrong by newer theories." We even have seen comments on various Internet breed lists alluding that no one person’s theory has more value than another’s because they are only opinions.

Theory and scientific opinion are often misused and misunderstood terms. To a layperson "theory" means speculation, but in truth, anything in science that gets elevated to the status of a theory has an overwhelming amount of evidence that supports it and has, in fact, withstood many challenges. Theories bring together and elucidate a large chunk of information and help us to understand and organize a wide range of topics.

INBREEDING AND THE PUREBRED DOG

So what has science shown us? In order to create a uniform type that breeds true, one must inbreed. Inbreeding is the mating of two animals that are more closely related than the average individual within a certain breeding population. When breeds were formed, usually just a few dogs were used as founders. As a result, many existing breeds are more than 20 percent ancestrally inbred, as shown in Daniel L. Hartl and Andrew G. Clark’s "Principles of Population Genetics."

Author Thorpe-Vargas works with Samoyeds, a breed that started from a foundation stock of fewer than 20 dogs. The English had already taken some of the dogs of the natives local to the Bering Straits for sled dogs in their quest for the north and south poles. (Taking a small population from a major population in this way is called a founder event.) The English had a rather severe selection criteria: The dogs were to be white, have dark eyes, dark eye rims and solid black lip lines. The situation with the Mastiff is even more problematic because there were only four dogs used after World War II.

Compounding the problem of a limited number of founders was the overuse of several of these foundation animals, and the underutilization of the others. This artificial selection was necessary because inbreeding alone is not sufficient to "fix" characteristics and eliminate unwanted traits. Artificial selection refers to nonassortive mating in which selection pressures are determined by factors such as a human deciding, for example, that he or she likes red coats. So inbreeding and artificial selection were used to fix type by increasing the homozygosity of the genes that coded for appearance. In addition, many other traits not expressed in the phenotype also became homozygous.

This practice also resulted in a loss of genetic diversity and the fixing of gene frequency. This means that the frequency of certain genes found within the source or original population are not necessarily reflected in the new founder population. It all depends on what genes the founder animals brought with them. Thus a genetic defect that was very rare in the source population now can be very common in a particular breed, because one or more individuals in the new population carried that defect.

Compounding the problem is that small populations are subject to genetic drift. Genetic drift is the random loss of alleles due to chance. Alleles are alternative forms of genes at the same position on a chromosome. Having multiple alleles at a particular locus within a population is a measure of that population’s genetic diversity.

One way to illustrate the concept of genetic drift is to think of a coin toss. The probability is 50:50 that either side will come up. However, if you toss the coin only three times, it is not all that unusual for you to get three heads or three tails. It is only by increasing the number of tosses that you start to get the normal probability. This is called the Law of Large Numbers.

Think of the number of tosses as the number of individuals in a population—the fewer the number of individuals, then the fewer the number of alternative alleles available. Also adding to the problem is the fact that not every individual is chosen to produce progeny, so his or her genetic contribution is lost forever.

Although the effective population is not really the actual number of individuals that produce progeny, it is very close to that number, as opposed to the actual number of individuals that make up a population. To illustrate, imagine you have a very popular breed with thousands of registrations yearly. What if only 300 males are used to provide stud service? Anything that restricts the number of males used will limit the effective population. This uneven use of individuals in breeding continues today and is called the popular sire syndrome.

LINE BREEDING AND INBREEDING

We have listened to dog breeders expound ad infinitum on the merits of line breeding as opposed to inbreeding (see "Definitions"). We have often heard how line breeding has no deleterious effects. This is just not so. Line breeding is not a recognized term in genetics—it is all considered inbreeding. Dr. John Armstrong of the University of Ottawa, Canada, communicated with us via e-mail. He so elegantly wrote:

"In my view, one could probably subdivide inbreeding into three categories: background, historic and recent. The background level is dependent upon the number of founders. In a breed/population that started from six or eight founders, sometimes closely related, you cannot find individuals that are not related even if you breed as carefully as possible. Recent (or "close") inbreeding is, to me, the breeding of sons to mothers, full siblings, and the like. When it isn’t done simply for the convenience of the breeder, the usual justification is that it is the only way to preserve type, or that it is an effective way of discovering problems in your line. Yes, genetic defects can be uncovered in this way, but in practice I don’t think many are or they are not recognized as such.

"Historic inbreeding results from uneven sampling from the population," he continued. "This is most obvious with the males. The same few ‘popular’ (well-promoted) individuals are used repeatedly, and many of the others are not used at all. The collection of genes from the latter may be lost to the population, particularly if it is small. Everyone becomes related to these popular sires and inbreeding becomes inevitable. What appears to happen is that slightly detrimental genes that individually might not make much of an impact start to accumulate in the population until breeders begin to notice that their litter sizes are smaller than they remember the old-timers reporting, they have difficulty getting a bitch pregnant and that various health problems seem to be turning up more often than in the past. Some may attribute these problems to diet, environmental toxins and the like, but the bulk of it is genetic [authors’ emphasis]. This is what inbreeding depression is all about."

COEFFICIENT OF INBREEDING

The coefficient of inbreeding is the statistical probability that the two alleles at a randomly chosen gene locus are identical by descent; i.e., inherited from an ancestor common to both parents. The more inbred the breeding partners are, the more likely that they will share the same alleles. A common inbreeding paradigm in the dog world is the breeding of a grandfather to a granddaughter. (Although this may be a general concept of breeders, it is contrary to how geneticists, especially population geneticists, think you should do it.) If one ignores any previous inbreeding within the pedigree, the minimum COI of this breeding is 12.5 percent. Professional breeders of production animals such as cows, pigs, goats, horse, sheep and chickens, think that a COI around 9 percent is skirting the allowable limit. They, of course, are interested in such issues as health, productivity and reproductive viability. One then must ask what dog breeders are interested in? A COI of 12.5 percent means that it is very likely that the progeny of a granddaughter/grandfather cross share identical alleles at one out of every eight possible loci.

Decreasing heterozygosity within the individual breeds must give us cause for alarm. Not only are we seeing loss of reproductive fitness, but other parameters such as longevity also are affected. A paper titled "Inbreeding and Longevity in the Domestic Dog," which was submitted by Armstrong for publication in the Journal of Heredity, suggests that in the breeds he looked at, there is a decline in the median life span of about 7 percent for every 10 percent increase in inbreeding.

Another example of the deleterious effects of inbreeding is what is happening to the immune system. More and more we are seeing such problems as autoimmune diseases, irritable bowel syndrome and various food and environmental allergies. The genes that control the immune system must be heterozygous if the individual is to have the ability to recognize foreign proteins, to differentiate foreign proteins from "self" and to fight off disease and parasites without overreacting to these environmental perils.

The genes that control the immune system are passed down together as "haplotypes," one set from each parent. They are found so close together on the chromosome that very little if any recombination occurs. Recombination is the process of combining genotypes and phenotypes not present in either parent, but which show up in their offspring. When inbreeding occurs, the chance that a puppy will inherit an identical set of these genes from each parent increases. This, in effect, cuts the functional ability of the immune system in half and seriously compromises the quality and duration of life for the puppy. Those of you who have had a dog with allergies, with demodectic mange or without the ability to fight off a deadly disease know the tremendous suffering this involves, both for the dog and its owner.

There are other reasons for an impaired immune response, such as poor nutrition or a lack of vitamin E and selenium in the dam’s diet. Without those two nutrients the offspring are born without a sufficient number of immune competent cells. So there are environmental reasons for an impaired immune system, but the bulk of the literature suggests that inbreeding plays the greater role.

THE RAMPANT RABBIT

Inbreeding was another topic on an Internet breed list recently, and the question was asked, "Wild rabbits arrived in Australia in 1859, when Thomas Austin released 24 animals he had brought from England for sport hunting; why didn’t the rabbit inbreed itself to death?"

This story is a good illustration of the problems associated with dog breeding. The first difference between dogs and rabbits is that the rabbits were not being selectively bred for anything other than survival. They had the additional advantage of having an almost unlimited food supply, no effective predators and really no competition for their particular ecological niche. In fact, there was no natural selection to begin with because few if any diseases and parasites came with them. The breeding was as random as possible, and rabbits have lots and lots of offspring, who also bred randomly, so the founder’s alleles were comparatively evenly distributed during the first explosive phase of population growth.

Once the rabbit population was large enough to meet the Hardy-Weinberg criteria of about 10,000 to 100,000, the gene pool was pretty safe from genetic drift. (The Hardy-Weinberg criteria states that the population needs to reach a certain number of individuals for it not to be subject to genetic drift.) Considering that rabbits breed like, well, rabbits, they undoubtedly reached that population cushion pretty rapidly. Even so, the Australian rabbits had a smaller number of alleles available to them than their European cousins, so they would be less able to handle any new environmental hazards.

On the other hand, dog breeds were intensively selectively bred right from the first generation and for criteria that had nothing to do with survival: In the Samoyed it was all-white coats, black lip lines and prick ears; thus, breeding was by no means random. In addition, because the population was never large enough early in the breed history to protect the dogs from genetic drift, the random loss of alleles was a serious problem. Some alleles that code for big brown spots do not matter in this breed, but what about those that control the immune response or allow an individual to metabolize an environmental toxin?

There are alternatives to inbreeding, however. Assortative mating is the selection for breeding of phenotypically similar individuals. For dog breeders this means that when choosing a mate for a bitch, you find a male that matches all the physical appearances or traits within the breed standard that you want to keep and that do not duplicate any of your bitch’s faults.

Selection by phenotype is very common in those European countries where inbreeding is discouraged. According to M.W. Willis in "Genetics of the Dog," most German breeds are bred with very little inbreeding—instead they use assortative mating and selection. This results in a very uniform type among dogs appearing in the show ring. Assortative mating does increase the resemblances among littermates; however, phenotype breeding is still selective breeding so some increase in homozygosity is to be expected.

The difference between the two breeding techniques is that the chance of doubling up on hidden or undesired traits is minimized with assortative mating, even though the breeder is selecting the animals. This is not true of inbreeding.

PRESERVING GENETIC DIVERISTY

The optimal program for breeders is to use assortative mating and avoid inbreeding as much as possible in order to minimize the coefficient of inbreeding. Open up the studbooks, and, if possible, use the original stock. Three examples of breeds that have small pockets of "country of origin" dogs include the Saluki, the Samoyed and the Basenji.

Allow breeding between different strains of dogs that are really the same breed but that have had artificial breed status conferred upon them by the various registries. There have been numerous artificial breed splits along color lines or sizes or based on politics. A current hot topic is the American Kennel Club’s Akita vs. the Federation Cynologique Internationale’s Great Japanese Dog vs. the Japanese Kennel Club’s Akita. There were never very many Akitas in Japan. Fewer still survived World War II. After its recognition of the Akita, the AKC closed the studbook on Akitas from Japan, effectively cutting the genetic pool of Akitas off from their land of origin.

The politics innate in the registries have not followed rational genetic lines but rather have followed power, influence and winning kennels. Basenji and Saluki breeders understand firsthand what we mean by politically restricted gene pools subordinated to a European concept of purebred dogs. These two breeds of great antiquity are not AKC-recognized unless they come from just a few founders. It matters not that they have been around for several thousands of years.

HIDING GENETIC DISEASE

If breeders withhold information about the genetic disease in their breed or within their line, then we face an insurmountable barrier in any attempt to control genetic disease. Open discussion about problems your dogs have produced allows other breeders to make more informed choices. Secrecy and denial only perpetuate the problem. Genetic testing may help; however, if the disease does not appear until late in the dog’s life, then only by alerting your puppy owners "downstream" from the affected dog can you hope to prevent further misery for both the dogs and owners.

False pedigrees, absent genetic testing, can invalidate the conclusions drawn from pedigree analysis. We recognize that there is some "noise" in the various registries and, in some cases, a significant level of noise. False information on pedigrees makes analysis difficult and in some cases impossible. The SCC (French Kennel Club) has done random paternity and maternity checks on about 200 pups from recent litters from various breeds. The parents of 17 percent of the pups as indicated by the pedigree were incorrect. We suspect that this French example is not only a French example, but a worldwide example. This may occur even more often in the United States where there is a significant amount of money changing hands between commercial breeders and pet stores.

This quote from C.A. Sharp, author of "The Biggest Problem," in the Summer 2000 edition of Double Helix Network News, says it all succinctly:

"You all know them. The ones that put winning above all other goals. ‘It doesn’t matter as long as the dog wins,’ is their mantra. Their dogs must win, as must their dogs’ offspring, and woe betide anyone who stands in their way as they pursue greater breed and personal glory . . . If a genetic problem isn’t apparent they will ignore it. If it can be (surgically) fixed they will. If it can’t, they will employ some variant on ‘shoot, shovel and shut-up,’ or recoup their losses by shipping the dog a long ways away, preferably across an ocean or two. If someone else knows about the problem, the Incorrigibles will use any means at their disposal to shut that person up, ranging from veiled threats and rumor-mongering to blatant bully tactics and threatened legal action."

Most of us can think of an example of this behavior. In author Thorpe-Vargas’ breed it was the attack on Rosemary Jones, the breeder who first brought the dirty little secret of progressive retinal atrophy into the light of day and who named names and published pedigrees. Without acknowledging there is a problem, how can we fix it? Why is it also that we speak among ourselves about these unethical breeders and yet we do business with them because . . . their dogs win! What does this say about our own ethics?

The form of PRA expressed in Siberian Huskies and Samoyeds is an X-linked, late-onset disease that usually appears somewhere between 3 and 5 years of age. By testing breeding stock, breeders will be able to avoid producing affected offspring. Research on the disease was done at the James Baker Institute, Cornell University and was funded by a combined grant from the AKC Canine Health Foundation and the Siberian Husky Club of America. The test is offered by Optigen®, LLC (www.optigen.com).

Let’s move on to the Ostrich Syndrome breeders. These are the ones who will do anything not to test for a genetic disease. If they do not test for it they will never find it. Denial is the name of that game.

The authors recently became aware of a situation with respect to hip dysplasia, a crippling disease that cannot be diagnosed without radiography. It seems a breeder with dogs having an incidence of hip dysplasia much greater than the breed average is saying that the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals is incorrectly diagnosing hip dysplasia. In addition, the breeder states that the dogs are passing PennHIP®, another rating system. PennHIP, however, does not grade using "pass" or "fail."

Those of us who are truly dedicated to the health of our canine companions will not make any headway until we first recognize and confront the human behavior expressed when faced with canine genetic disease. We conclude that the genetic problems in purebred dogs are not intrinsically a canine problem, but rather a human problem supported by politics, old wives’ tales, ignorance and even outright rejection of scientific opinion. In the words of Elvin Stackman, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as quoted in Life magazine in 1950, "Science cannot stop while ethics catches up—and nobody should expect scientists to do all the thinking for the country."

We have shown that breeders’ understanding of genetics plays a controlling role in the future of any dog breed. Why, on the majority of Internet breed lists, do we keep hearing that line breeding is necessary to preserve type and that one needs to improve a breed by "doubling up" on popular sires?

We have the knowledge; we have the technology. Failure to incorporate this information and technology into a breeding program is unconscionable; however, in many cases (and some would argue most cases) breeders have not availed themselves of the necessary information to make informed breeding choices.

The time is now and the knowledge is here. We hope we have demonstrated the prime moral imperative of breeder ethics—breed for the genetic health of the breed.

The fourth and final article in this series on breeder ethics will concentrate on some of the nuts and bolts of dealing with puppy buyers and the dog-owning public in general. The "devil is in the details," and we will do our best to sort out the high road for breeders to follow.


DEFINITIONS:

Allele — An alternative form of a given gene producing a difference in the trait controlled by that gene; some genes have only one allele, some have two and some have multiple alleles for the same trait.

Artificial selection — Nonassortive mating, in which selection pressures are determined not by fitness to breed and to perpetuate the species, but by other factors such as a human deciding, for example, that he or she likes red coats.

Country of origin dogs — Dogs of a specific country. For instance, Akitas originated in Japan, and Akitas from Japan are dogs from country of origin.

Genotype — Genetic makeup of the individual, which includes alleles that may be recessive and therefore have no visible physical expression.

Heterozygosity — The opposite of homozygosity; having nonidentical alleles at one locus (the space that a particular gene occupies on a chromosome) regarding a specific trait.The natural genetic balance systems of most species include a high degree of heterozygosity.

Homozygosity — The opposite of heterozygosity; having identical alleles at one or more loci.

Inbreeding — Any breeding selection wherein the breeding partners are any more closely related to each other than they are to average potential opposite sex partners in the general population.

Line breeding — A form of inbreeding in which there is an attempt to concentrate the genes of one of more ancestors.

Phenotype — Appearance, as opposed to genotype, which is the genetic makeup of the individual.

Population genetics — The genetics involving a population or species as a whole, rather than concentrating on the individual animal. It is associated with the concept of "gene pool."

Recombination — The process of combining genotypes and phenotypes not present in either parent, but which show up in their offspring.

Type — Phenotypic appearance that sets the dogs of one kennel apart from another

A BREEDER'S WORK IS NEVER DONE

by Susan Thorpe-Vargas Ph.D., John Cargill MA, MBA, MS



From selecting a stud to working in
rescue, those who choose to breed dogs
must follow through from beginning to end

PART 4

All of us "in dogs" started somewhere, and not all of us had the good fortune to grow up in families that were involved with dogs and dog breeding, showing or other activities. Author Cargill was born into dogging. When he came home from the hospital, he came home to an Airedale Terrier that was to become his first "baby sitter." Author Thorpe-Vargas' dog life started later.

We have been somewhat hypothetical in the earlier installments (see "To Breed Or Not To Breed: Building An Ethical Framework," "For Pups' Sake: A Breeder's duty To Pets And People" and "The Ties That Bind: Genetics And The Breeder" in the April, May and June 2001 issues, respectively), but in this final article we now concentrate on specific moral issues the ordinary breeder can expect to encounter. You will find the devil is in the details.

We thought the best way to start was to talk about our own personal experience with breeding and our relationship with our "puppy people." both authors made many mistakes when getting into the game as novices, and we will use personal examples of some of the ethical issues.

LEARNING A LESSON

Thorpe-Vargas got her first Samoyed (her first dg ever) in 1984. It was a rescue, but her family immediately fell in love with the breed and wanted their very own puppy. They had never had a puppy before and were not dog people. The people they had gotten their rescue from had a Christmas litter, so they bought a bitch puppy from them as a present for their son. These people were one step up from backyard breeders. They did do some showing and rescue, but they bred litters to make money. (In preparing to write article, we found that puppy mills do not make up the bulk of American Kennel Club registrations. According to published AKC statistics, the majority of dog registrations are attributed to those who produce only occasional litters.)

This Christmas puppy, call name Shisu, turned out to be Thorpe-Vargas' "foundation bitch," and she was extremely lucky with her choice (for Shisu was free from major genetic defects), although Thorpe-Vargas didn't realize how lucky she was at the time. Shisu came into heat three times between 6 months and 1 year old. Her vet told Thorpe-Vargas either to breed her or fix her because this girl "wanted to be a mother." So, she called Shisu's breeder who said, "I have the perfect choice for a stud. You should breed her to her grandfather."

And they did. The litter decided to arrive on Thanksgiving Day, and the first puppy was breech. With her vet on the phone, Thorpe-Vargas was talked through the process and was able to help Shisu deliver nine puppies, one of which later died. (The family thinks the mother might have stepped on it.) At 6 weeks, Thorpe-Vargas put an ad in the newspaper and sold the puppies to whoever had the money. To this day, she has no idea what happened to those puppies after they were placed.

What is wrong with this picture?

The people who sold Shisu should have never sold a puppy at Christmas time. Leaving a mother and littermates is probably the most traumatic experience of a puppy's life. All the turmoil and confusion associated with the holidays is not an environment conducive to introducing a puppy to a new household, especially a family that has never owned a puppy before.
Thorpe-Vargas had no experience with young dogs and did not know what questions to ask. She knew nothing about the breed, hadn't done her "homework" and the breeder had done no genetic testing of her dogs.
Thorpe-Vargas bred a dog that was too young and had had no genetic testing done. She did not know what genetic diseases were common in her breed and what, if any, testing was available.
Thorpe-Vargas did not carefully plan the litter, studied no pedigrees and used a sire that was both too closely related and that had not undergone any genetic clearances.
Thorpe-Vargas was neither physically nor mentally prepared to whelp the litter, nor did she have the proper equipment, i.e., a whelping box with pig rails. (These rails prevent the puppies from being asphyxiated or squashed to death.) She should have had an experienced breeder with her or, at the very least, assisted at a few whelpings. She put both her dam and puppies at risk because of her inexperience. Fortunately, Shisu turned out to be a very good mother, but if she hadn't, the pups would have been at risk of death or abandonment and then depended on the breeder to hand-raise them.
Thorpe-Vargas did not have a list of qualified puppy buyers prior to the breeding of her bitch.
Thorpe-Vargas placed her puppies through an advertisement in the newspaper. She did not require even the most basic criteria of her puppy buyers, such as recommendations regarding their character and responsibility. She did not offer any guarantees nor did she have a puppy contract. (One point in her favor is that she did not sell her puppies to a pet store.)
Thorpe-Vargas let those puppies go out in the world with no help offered to the new owners and with no way to keep track of them.


Thorpe-Vargas did not breed dogs again for four years. She did a much better job the next time.

Some breeders object to selling puppies over the Internet or through the newspaper. In fact, they decry these practices and call them unethical. Others disagree. One thing we must stress is this: Under no circumstances should one sell puppies to a pet store, auction them off or offer them as prizes in any type of raffle. These sorts of events take the control of the sale from the seller and give it to the buyer.

Breeders should avoid any situation in which they have no control over who eventually receives the puppy after they have given careful consideration to the circumstances and have matched the type of dog to the type of buyer. The World Wide Web is one tool that can help bring breeders and buyers together, but it has drawn criticism because some feel the Web does not facilitate careful screening of the unknown prospective buyers. We suspect many who talk down selling over the Internet, however, have actually sold to buyers who were members of chat groups, breed lists, etc.

PLANNING A BREEDING

If you are a breeder, the purpose of having a litter is to provide yourself with a dog thatyou feel will better the breed or at least maintain a high status quo with the best.

However, every puppy produced is not a show- or performance-quality dog. One side effect of producing a show or performance dog is that one will always have pet-quality dogs to place. The breeder's responsibility to them is just as significant as it is for the dog or dogs the breeder is keeping - maybe even more so.

Thorpe-Vargas again has an example of what not to do. She bought a bitch puppy from a very well-known kennel. This puppy matched the phenotype of what she wanted to breed, but she came from a litter of six from which only two survived. (Warning bells should have been ringing.)

After this girl reached 2 years of age and had passed her hip and eye exams, she was bred to a dog that was related to her seven generations back. She produced eight healthypuppies, all of which survived. She, however, developed eclampsia, a life-threatening condition involving an imbalance in the blood calcium levels. She was pulled through this situation but shortly after weaning her pups she started to get seriously dog-aggressive. This behavior only worsened when Thorpe-Vargas started to show her again, and she became useless on the sled team. When Thorpe-Vargas complained to the breeder, she was told to return her, which she did.

Less than a year later, this dog had finished her championship and had been bred to her father. This bitch should never have been bred again. Her life was put in jeopardy by whelping for a second time, and such close inbreeding practically guaranteed an increased probability that she would pass her poor temperament on to her offspring.

One should breed only dogs that have good temperament and good health. If you have performance or working dogs, the next criterion is to produce dogs that can do the work they were bred to do. A sled dog should want to pull a sled, that is, it should be mentally and physically predisposed to the task.

Granted, not all breeds have jobs that still exist. To illustrate, bull-baiting is now illegal. Does this mean that Bulldogs no longer have a job? Unfortunately, this breed no longer has the conformation required to do its "job," but the loyal, rugged temperament should still be there.

So, choosing a mating pair should include not only matching the phenotype or the conformation you want to perpetuate, but also running all available genetic tests and some types of performance tests prior to breeding, too. At the very least, both parents should be mentally stable and have passed some type of temperament test.

WHELPING A LITTER

There is a lot to consider when breeding dogs, so those who have never done so should first get a mentor. Although most dogs of most breeds whelp freely and are good mothers, there will always be some that will have problems and may be poor mothers.

Ethical breeders will have prepared themselves properly for the procedure by training with another person experienced in the breed. The ethical breeder also would provide the best medical care possible and see that the dam has had the proper conditioning and nutrition she needs. There are services available that provide access to modern instrumentation and professional contacts during the whelping process. With the equipment and remote telemetry leased out by a breeding service, one can even tell if a puppy is in distress or if the bitch has finished whelping.

At the very least, a close relationship between breeder and vet is essential. Most experienced breeders and vets strongly advise checking for retained puppies by X-raying the bitch within 24 hours or so after the breeder thinks the dam has finished whelping. Many breeders have lost their bitches by neglecting this step.

The proper equipment, including a whelping box, warming pads and an overhead source of heat, is crucial. Remember that puppies have very little capacity for thermal self-regulation. Provide a safe and quiet place for your bitch throughout her pregnancy. Familiar, comfortable surroundings ease the transition of a first-time mother into her new occupation.

PLACING A PUPPY

Before the bitch becomes a mother, however, the breeder should have prospective buyers at the ready. In fact, the breeder should have buyers in line before the breeding even occurs.

A puppy should be thought of as a new addition to the family. Without that type of commitment, prospective puppy owners should be actively discouraged from getting a dog. But commitment alone is insufficient - the breeder has a responsibility to ensure that the potential buyer also has adequate resources and sufficient stability to afford and care for a dog. There also should be a reasonable degree of certainty on the breeder's part that these conditions will continue.

A breeder should not allow owners to set the puppy up for failure - instead, owners should be given reasonable expectations. The breeder should discuss the different stages of puppy growth and what behaviors to expect at these different stages. In fact, some breeders suggest books and quiz prospective puppy buyers on the material.

A dog can be very inconvenient and puppies especially are very destructive. An 8-week old puppy is probably the equivalent of an 8-month-old human child - they will chew everything. A breeder's job is to mentor puppy buyers and give them the tools needed to get through difficult puppy stages. Talk to them about the dos and don'ts of crating, housetraining, etc.

Did we mention that puppies chew everything? Safe chew toys should be provided, but most of them should be given to the puppy only when it can be supervised. Breeders should impress upon the new owner that anything ruined by the puppy is the owner's fault. Anything left out is fair game.

Breeders should also discuss ownership responsibilities and training. Some puppies need to be fed more than twice a day. Breeders should actively discourage people who work long hours from getting a puppy unless someone can be there to take it out to eliminate on a regular schedule. Perhaps an older or "rescue" dog would be more suitable for those individuals.

Some animals require a firm hand, others a gentle hand. We encourage the gentlest hand consistent with the bravado of the


Ethical breeders, if they really care for their breed, will rescue even others' dogs or will actively and financially support breed rescue efforts


individual animal. Some dogs, even breeds of dogs, will need an "external influence" to intrude on their "I have a mind of my own" mentality and vravado. If they don't get it and discipline is not established early on and maintained throughout the animal's life, there can be serious behavior problems.

One way to get a handle on how new owners will react is to watch them carefully with their own children. Children younger than 5 usually do not have any real concept of how to handle small animals unless they are members of a "doggy" family or are properly supervised. During visits with prospective buyers, breeders should note the guidance parents give or don't give to their children.

Breeders should insist upon some type of personal recommendations. Veterinarians and groomers are usually good contacts. What a breeder needs to determine is the long-term commitment a puppy buyer has. The goal is to find a puppy's "forever home." Dogs grow up and get old. Will these owners get rid of the dog when it gets to be inconvenient or medically costly? Potential owners should be made aware of the genetic diseases the breed is prone to, and medical insurance should be discussed. For a list of topics that breeders should address, see the "Finding Good Homes" sidebar.

MAKING A COMMITMENT

Breeders must deal with the public. This public is known to be capricious, sometimes irrational, sometimes enlightened and sometimes not. With this in mind, breeders are wise to use contracts.

Breeders should look at the contract as a "training tool," and it should include items that one would normally take for granted. Most experienced and ethical breeders include some type of clause about getting the dog back if for any reason the owners are no longer able to keep the animal or if they fail to live up to their obligations. How enforceable is this proviso? It is probably not very enforceable, but it does give buyers something to think about. See the sidebar "Crafting A Contract" for areas to consider.

Not only the new owner has such responsibilities to the dog - it goes without saying that breeders should take back their own puppies. Situations do change, however. Financial and health issues arise, not to mention that local dog restrictions (such as those limiting the number of animals on a property) sometimes make it impossible to legally take back a puppy. This is why it is necessary to be so careful when choosing your own puppy buyers. No matter how thorough we think we are, however, circumstances may arise that require the return of a dog.

If you are unable to physically take back the animal, what are your responsibilities? At the very least, you should work with your own breed rescue and provide some monetary recompense. Others to whom you have sold puppies may be able to provide some type of temporary foster care. Puppy people are a wonderful resource if breeders have chosen wisely. What is unconscionable is for breeders to keep producing puppies if they are unable to physically or financially take back what they have created. Ethical breeders, if they really care for their breed, will rescue even others' dogs or will actively and financially support breed rescue efforts.

SUMMARY OF SERIES:

In this series we have covered the place of the dog in history, in biology and in our hearts. We have looked at various ethical constructs ranging from "dogs are sentient life forms" to "man has absolute dominion." We have reviewed the differences between animal welfare and animal rights.

We believe in domestication, especially when it comes to the dog, but we have not made up our minds yet as to whether the dog domesticated humans or humans domesticated dog. We prefer to think they probably co-domesticated each other. Certainly early Homo sapiens did better after partnership with the wolf prototypes of domestic dogs, and, certainly, the domesticated dog did better than its remaining undomesticated wolf counterparts. Arguments can be made both ways.

Regardless of the moral stances taken, it seems to us that there is a very real responsibility to breed carefully to avoid creating a cadre of genetically sick dogs. We believe the national registries have a part to play in preventing this potential occurrence. Registries will be forced by population genetics realities to modify their views of what constitutes purebred dog as a group. Breeders will be forced to rethink their understanding of the benefits of line breeding and other such tight inbreeding schemes in favor of assortive matings to preserve genetic diversity. Those involved in vreeds with few founders will run up against genetic reality sooner than others.

It is nearly certain there will be a day of reckoning when the genetic choices made in the past will determine the dogs of the future. With the worldwide movement to ban many breeds of dogs (Germany is up to 42 breeds at the time of this writing), we feel there will be a requirement to emphasize temperament above all else in breeding schemes of the future.

We thank those who have provided input on this series. We did our best to offend no one, knowing full well from our experiences, however, that we probably offended just about everyone who read the series. Breeder ethics is an emotionally charged subject; it is difficult to know right from wrong, moral from immoral, and it is virtually impossible to find a neutral ground acceptable to all.

This series published (& copyrighted) articles are offered courtesy of the original authors. Thank you.