And now for something completely different.

Today I'm going to do something a little backward on MoT. In fact, let's talk about the merits of mixed breeding by design.

Wait wait, don't stone me!

I want to talk about outcrossing. This is something I touched on briefly in this post, but I've started looking into it a bit more since...

We know there's a problem in the dog world (and if you'd rather think there isn't, move on because this blog ain't for you). Purebreeds are becoming increasingly defective and thanks to closed registries we're whittling the gene pools down to puddles. What's to be done? How can we fix this mess we've created? Two solutions should be staring us in the face - the third remains a little hazy. I'm talking, of course, about:

A) Changing the AKC breed standards

B) Switching from closed to open registries

C) ...And outcrossing.

To start with, let's cover the history of the bobtail boxer. International Kennel Clubs recognize more than fifty breeds currently, the boxer included, with docked tails. Tails are docked for reasons of hygiene (hair matting under the rump), or for practical reasons, mainly in gundogs (whose tails can become tangled, torn and injured in the field) and working terriers (who have to maneuver in tight spaces). And, of course, we dock to meet breed standards. There are plenty of people on both sides of the docking fence, but recently breeders have been under more pressure to stop docking and cropping. There are people who'd rather be left alone to dock their dogs, people who recognize that only trained and competent professional should dock puppies, and people who think it should be banned altogether.

In the face of such a ban, one boxer breeder decided not to sit at home and complain, but to do something about it. There are a handful of breeds with a natural bobtail gene: these include Boston terriers, Pembroke Welsh corgies, Polish Lowlands, English bulldogs and Australian Shepherds. Dr Bruce Cattanach, breeder and geneticist by profession, took one of his boxer bitches and crossed her with a Pembroke corgi. This was the result:

Dr Cattanach then began backbreeding with typey purebred boxers. By the fifth generation, he had produced this:

This article can tell you about the whole process and give a play-by-play of each generation. Ultimately, Dr Cattanach introduced the natural bobtail gene and managed to breed back to "show quality" boxers. Ta-da! Somebody smart and qualified saw something going on with his breed, and had the perseverence to change the situation. More bobtails. Not only are these boxers being spread across Europe and Australia, they're recognized by the UKC.

There are other backcross projects going on. Breeders have been trying for several decades to eliminate uric acid defect in Dalmatians, a breed riddled with genetic defects. Dalmatians have suffered from uric-acid stones for over a century now; no other breeds are affected. High levels of uric acid can result in bladder stones - this is an emergency. These stones often need to be removed surgically, and high uric acid hits up just about every Dalmatian.

In the 70s, Dr Robert Schaible, a geneticist and breeder (not unlike Dr Cattamach), bred a Dalmatian bitch to a champion pointer dog in order to introduce normal levels of uric acid back into Dalmatians. The resulting pups, though they didn't look a whole lot like Dalmatians, all excreted normal uric acid levels. Dr Schaible started backcrossing, selecting one pup from each resulting litter for Dalmatian traits and low UA levels. Only the one pointer has been used, but the AKC refuses to register the backcrossed dogs in spite of the project receiving support from the Dalmation Club of Northern California (home to the Backcross Project). This project quietly persists, producing more and more Dalmatians with normal UA levels; the AKC continues to ignore it. In September 2008 the very question of discussing registry for these dogs was shot down by the parent club.

Seventh-generation backcross.

I can't help but wonder why it is the backcross developed for largely aesthetic purposes is embraced so much more widely than the backcross designed to cut back on health issues...

Should more backcrossing projects be encouraged and nurtured? Is this really an alternative, in the hands of gene-savvy, qualified breeders? Are these problems ones that could be eradicated by changing the breeding policies of purebred dogs?

Until somebody changes my opinion, I'd like to see more careful, controlled, supervised-by-scientists out- and back-crossing projects for our "emergency" breeds. The pug may be too far gone to save itself; maybe beagle genes really are the answer. Maybe the Shar-Pei needs a serious face-lift in the form of a non-wrinkled mate. Maybe this is the only hope of the Neapolitan mastiff. Who knows?

It can't hurt our breeds more than we already have.

Salvation in sight?

First off, thanks so much to Terrierman for linking MoT in his blog! MoT is still just a baby blog, and any publicity it can get is appreciated. But hang tight, I'm not done singing your praises yet.

Today I want to talk about open registries, which are - apparently - little-known in the dog world. Stand still so I can condemn you (despite not fully understanding the concept myself until recently). If you already knew about open registries, you move to the front of the class. If you're a breeder and you work with open registries, you get a gold star! Two more and I'll let you pick something out from a box of garage-sale trinkets at the end of the week.

The concept of open vs. closed registries can be difficult to grasp if, like me, a lot of the medical genetical jargon goes over your head and genetic pedigrees reeling off numerous abbreviations and symbols lose you somewhere around the third generation. Just to double-check I had my facts straight, I did some extra research a couple days ago and - hallelujah! - at last, found an article I could understand, that cleared up a couple things for me. And then I reached the bottom of the article and guess who it was by! T-man, have I mentioned lately that you're my hero?

Anyway, I wanted to talk about registries because they tie in nicely with what I've been yammering on about lately; the health problems in purebreds. It goes like this:

Closed registries will tell you what health checks an individual dog passed. Think OFA and CERF: these are closed registries. If the dog was screened for health problems and is sound, it'll show up in the registries. So, obviously, you want to breed a dog that shows up sound.

Open registries don't just tell you what the dog passed. They tell you what the dog failed. They also tell you that, although this dog is free from eye problems, one of his parents has glaucoma, and so does his sister. (GDC is an open registry.)

So you see why open registries are becoming more favoured.

Inbreeding is indeed a raging problem in purebreds. And by using closed registries to select the dogs we breed, we are increasingly tightening the noose already wrapped around the doggy gene pool, slowly making that pool smaller and smaller - and more unhealthy. Switching to open registry flings open the door to a whole new pool, a big, diverse one. Open registry doesn't mean cross-breed and it doesn't mean lower your standards either. It means toss out this useless traditional method and breed healthy - I mean really breed healthy.

I searched long and hard for a pro-closed argument that would explain to me why we're still using this system if open is that much better. Terrierman can explain it much better than I can, but essentially: it comes from an old, outdated idea about genetics that we're still seeing now - that the best genes will out. The idea behind the closed registry goes along with the idea of "survival of the fittest". Problem is, of course, dogs aren't wild animals, and we choose their mates. The lesson here, basically, is that just because something's been done one way for a long time doesn't mean it's all good (hello, America! Letting gays marry won't cause Russia to invade).

So why hasn't it changed?

That's thanks to the AKC - that tall guy in the cape, twirling his moustache, over there. The AKC's closed registry policies are strangling our gene pools to puddles. They make the rules and we follow them so our dogs can go on proving their quality by trotting around the show ring and stacking nicely. Our dogs are WAY TOO UNHEALTHY and the AKC isn't facing up to that. We need an open registry system now.

On a similar note, could cross-breeding be the solution? NO. I'm tired of people pretending that they mix dogs up for the good of dogkind. Yes, F1 hybrids can be healthier than their parents, but they can also inherit the genes for defects from both sides. Mutts can be a disaster in the hands of people who don't know what they're doing.

Crossing and back-crossing, on the other hand... I'm inclined to say this could help the situation, when I think of especially unhealthy dogs that need change NOW. My thoughts always go to the pug and the Shar-pei first, but that may be just because I hate their Ori-pei offspring almost as much as I hate those stupid square blocks in Tetris that only show up exactly when you don't need them. Are we really on to something with mixes like the puggle? Could breeding in proper airways and breeding back to pugs be the breed's salvation? Or can they hang on till the Kennel Club gets its collective ass in gear and starts thinking about the dogs?

(Find out next week, on ...!)

I guess this forum is now open for discussion - I'd love to hear some opinions on this one, especially if you're more involved in registries than I am.