BCSA - Discussion

[Journey]

http://www.bordercolliesociety.com/comments_frm.htm

 

Strange but BCSA has set up a "discussion", open to everyone, on their site asking people what they think should be required/optional health testing in order for Border Collies to receive a CHIC number. Some people want CL/TNS DNA - though only those with known carriers can even get the TNS DNA test at this time.

 

Karen

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

You know, if they want to further restrict their very small gene pool further with superfluous and gratuitous health testing, they have my full blessing. They'll discover the result in a very few generations. And of course they'll blame it on the awful working breeders they got their original stock from. Maybe the fact that they can't get multiple generations of dogs tested out the wahoo from working lines, will scare them enough into circling the wagons.

[Eileen Stein]

Never heard of the CHIC program until now. Apparently OFA has left it up to the BCSA to determine what tests they will require of border collies to qualify for this chic designation, even though the AKC registers about 2,000 border collies per year (only a small fraction of whose breeders are BCSA members), while the ABCA registers about 20,000 border collies per year (all of whose breeders, except for imports, are ABCA members). To OFA, apparently, dogs not registered with the AKC don't count. If they want to guarantee minuscule participation in their chic program, that's the way to do it. I can't imagine anyone outside the BCSA will pay it any attention.

 

And what the heck is fioricet, which figures so prominently on the site Karen (thank you, Karen) linked to? My first thought was that it must be yet another recessive disease that's been found and can be flourished to prove how responsible the show breeders are for testing for it. But maybe it's just pharmaceutical spam.

 

ETA: On further reading, I see that this CHIC thing is a joint project of the OFA and the AKC. So naturally only AKC's parent club matters. Okay. I agree with Becca -- I think they should require every test known to man, including fioricet.

[Pearse]

ETA: On further reading, I see that this CHIC thing is a joint project of the OFA and the AKC. So naturally only AKC's parent club matters. Okay. I agree with Becca -- I think they should require every test known to man, including fioricet.

 

Fioricet is a drug; combination of Acetominophen, Butalbital (a barbiturate) and caffeine. Used in humans to treat complex tension and muscle contraction headaches (that one might get from reading about AKC testing hysteria).

 

Pearse

[Eileen Stein]

Thanks, Pearse. Huh. Wonder what it's doing in their CHIC discussion thread?

[Rosanne]

From the phrasing, it sounds like BCSA contacted OFA, rather than the other way around.

 

The OFA database online does recognize ABCA numbers, so I don't see how they would only acknowledge AKC dogs with the CHIC thing. My thinking is that even though the BCSA has charge of what tests are required, if an ABCA dog passed all of them it would probably get a CHIC# too. . . (I've never heard of it before, but I guess it's a good thing to encourage basic testing at least).

 

I do understand the one person's point about requiring CL and TNS testing (once it's widely available) in that some people who think they have dogs from 'working' or 'American' lines won't look back far enough to find the OZ dogs and know they might carry such genes. Compensating for Ignorance, you might call that. But I can't see CL and TNS becoming mandatory right away.

I'm all for Hips and CEA. CERF maybe, BAER if possible. I KNOW my dogs have no OZ dogs. . . . then again, if hips/CEA are all that's tested for this thing, there's going to be an awful lot of CHIC dogs out there, so what's the point??

[Eileen Stein]

What's the point anyway?

[Journey]

What's the point anyway?

 

 

$$ - I read the OFA site - they will charge a one time fee $25 for dogs with tests done outside of OFA and CERF, that are required per the parent club to receive a CHIC number.

 

Karen

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

What's the point anyway?

 

[waving hand frantically]Oooh! Oooh! Pick me! Pick me!

 

1) More money for OFA

2) More money for breeders who have the money to give to OFA

3) More money for AKC (not sure how, but if they support it, that's a given since their new motto of late has been Show me the money)

[Rosanne]

I dunno, all sounds like more AKC bull-hockey to me...

 

I love agility and all, and I STRONGLY believe in health testing as many dogs as can be afforded to, since pedigree depth in both horizontal and vertical directions is of the utmost importance. . . but this just sounds silly. I consider my dog to be thoroughly tested at CEA, OFA/PennHip, and BAER. Elbows? C'mon. CL? Nope. TNS? Well, none of his relatives had had litters that had little puppies that became sickly and died. . . or were from Australia. . .

 

Why do they require a fee? I thought it was just "pass all these tests and get a number" - and what tests would OFA recognize that aren't OFA tests? Optigen's CEA test?

[Lenajo]

[1) More money for OFA

2) More money for breeders who have the money to give to OFA

3) More money for AKC (not sure how, but if they support it, that's a given since their new motto of late has been Show me the money)

 

Add #4 Reason to charge more money for their puppies.

[Eileen Stein]

When you're looking to buy a pup/dog, why don't you just ask the seller what tests it's had? When you're looking to sell a pup/dog, why don't you just tell the buyer what tests it's had? If buyer wants to see the certificate, just ask. If seller wants to show the certificate, that's easy too. Somehow I don't think a CHIC number/listing is going to carry all that much cachet amongst the people I'd be buying from or selling to. But I guess it's a good marketing ploy.

[Deacon Dog]

"...pedigree depth in both horizontal and vertical directions is of the utmost importance. . ."

 

Not sure what you mean by this.

 

[Lenajo]

She means knowing about the siblings/half siblings/related lines of the ancestors as well as just the ancestors.

[Rosanne]

She means knowing about the siblings/half siblings/related lines of the ancestors as well as just the ancestors.

 

Exactly.

The closest genetic relatives to any dog are its siblings, and yet siblings' health tests are rarely mentioned when someone breeds a litter, only the dogs parents/grandparents. Siblings are actually more important than those. . .

 

Not that it's relevent to this topic, really.

 

I agree that if I want to know what health tests a litter's parents have, I will ask. No need to have a pretty certificate number.

 

Maybe they just wanted a CHIC to go with the HIC?

[SoloRiver]

The closest genetic relatives to any dog are its siblings, and yet siblings' health tests are rarely mentioned when someone breeds a litter, only the dogs parents/grandparents. Siblings are actually more important than those. . .

 

Well, dogs are not haplodiploid*, so the coefficient of relationship (or r) for a parent and offspring is .5, and for full sibs is .5 (r = the probability that individuals share genes at a given locus that are identical by descent), and therefore a dog is equally as related to either of its parents as it is to any full sibs. The point is well taken, however, that it is important to know about siblings and other "lateral" relatives if you're trying to assess genetic health.

 

*Haplodiploidy is the mechanism by which eusociality in insects (Hymenoptera, including honeybees and the like) probably evolved. Males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid, meaning they only have one copy of each chromosome. Females develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid, having two copies of each chromosome. When a female is born, she gets 100% of her dad's genes (since he only has one set to pass along) and 50% of her mom's genes. This makes her 50% related to her mom (r = .5), but 75% related to her sisters by the same male. Thus, she is more related to her sisters than she would be to her own daughters, which means that for her it makes more sense to help her mom (the queen) make and raise more sisters than it would for her to have her own daughters. This is the only mechanism I know of for siblings to be more closely related to each other than they would be to their parents.

 

For more info see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/

[DeltaBluez Tess]

Oh I got it....

 

My dog is a "CHIC HIC"

 

Loves those letters

 

Diane

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

And if my Zhi gets into someone's beer at a trial she'll be a *HIC* CHIC. I couldn't do it with Border Collies because I just realized I have all males here, even the "outside" dogs (trainees). Weird. I always think of Cord as female for some reason, I think because he's related to my old Trim dog and looks an awful lot like her. Poor Cord. Ed (rescue/trainee) is very feminine too.

[Bill Fosher]

Why does this matter? For the same reason that certified organic produce matters. Consumers are coming to expect third-party verification of marketing claims. Pet stores would be able to claim that their puppies come from breeders who use only CHIC dogs, and buyers would infer that this means better quality pups would come from them. Of course, if you're buying directly from a breeder, there should be no need for this, just as there's no need for organic certification if you're buying directly from the farmer. However, lazy consumers still like to have the organic certification because it lets them off the hook of thinking about how the food is produced. I suspect that the CHIC program would do the same thing for puppy buyers. It also gives the breeders a new way to define themselves as "responsible" and by implication those of us who use rational testing of breeding candidates "irresponsible."

 

In short, it's a marketing gimmick, or an attempt to "add value."