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So what you're saying is trainers cannot be creative enough in finding new ways to teach without the results of a genetic test.

 

Nope. Not saying that at all. Of course they can be, and are.

 

What I am saying is that the more information one has, the better. More knowledge opens the door to new ideas. I'm surprised that seems like a strange concept.

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So what you're saying is trainers cannot be creative enough in finding new ways to teach without the results of a genetic test.

 

Canine Personalized Training DNA Test

 

If you look at the original link posted on page 1 in the 2nd post I believe, Linda Mecklenburg lists training suggestions that have helped a few dogs I think, but not all.

 

I think some people have also tried contacts for their dogs (no joke).

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Laura,

The short answer, speculation only (and my opinion only), is that sound sensitivity (meaning sensitive hearing, not necessarily being afraid of noises) was a trait that was selected for so that the dogs could hear over long distances, a necessary ability for work. It's possible that one side effect of selecting for that trait was a tendency toward oversensitivity.

 

 

Makes sense. Very plausible (and interesting!) theory.

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Nope. Not saying that at all. Of course they can be, and are.

 

What I am saying is that the more information one has, the better. More knowledge opens the door to new ideas. I'm surprised that seems like a strange concept.

 

Again, i'd like to know how knowing a dog's genetic markers is helpful information for anything other than breeding since you can't change the DNA on a currently living animal.

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If you look at the original link posted on page 1 in the 2nd post I believe, Linda Mecklenburg lists training suggestions that have helped a few dogs I think, but not all.

 

I think some people have also tried contacts for their dogs (no joke).

I knew that trainers would be trying many things to work with these dogs AND the results of a genetic test are not needed to search for different training methods. All a genetic test tells you is if a dog carries the genes being tested for; it does not tell you how these genes are expressed (i.e. affects the dog's behaviour or health). In fact, as part of the development of a genetic test one has to first clinically identify those dogs with the condition; in order to determine if the markers are associated with a condition the condition MUST first be reconized (without a genetic test).

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Again, i'd like to know how knowing a dog's genetic markers is helpful information for anything other than breeding since you can't change the DNA on a currently living animal.

 

So, go find out.

 

Knowledge is a great thing.

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The utility of a genetic test is in assessing the risk of a future condition developing (if the condition develops with age like early onset adult deafness) and in making breeding decisions to minimize passing the suspected genes onto the next generation.

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Nope. Not saying that at all. Of course they can be, and are.

 

What I am saying is that the more information one has, the better. More knowledge opens the door to new ideas. I'm surprised that seems like a strange concept.

 

Yes, i suppose it's true that someday we may have a magic DNA remixing machine so we can fix those poor dogs currently afflicted with genetic diseases/syndromes. Until then i suppose we'll be forced to live by the laws of science....:rolleyes:

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Yes, i suppose it's true that someday we may have a magic DNA remixing machine so we can fix those poor dogs currently afflicted with genetic diseases/syndromes. Until then i suppose we'll be forced to live by the laws of science....:rolleyes:

 

Right, and people who have a genetic predisposition for cancer or heart disease have no real and practical ways of lowering their chances of developing those conditions.

 

Science isn't about pretending that realities don't exist.

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If, in fact, this is a genetic problem, the entire overall approach to the issue will change - to the benefit of the dogs and handlers. To put it simply, the constant banging of heads against a brick wall will stop.

 

Knowing that the issue can't be "fixed" through training, that the issue can't be "fixed" through handling, that the issue can't be "fixed" through common medical or therapeutic means will actually open the door for other approaches to be discovered.

 

I know this firsthand because I do Agility with a dog who has a highly limiting issue that I personally believe to be genetic - Noise Phobia. I personally don't care if that fact has been scientifically proven or not. I approach Agility with him as if this is fact and it changes a lot about the way I train and handle him. That doesn't mean that I'm sitting around lamenting his limitations (OK, I'll indulge in that from time to time - I'm human!) but that I put an effort into finding new and "outside-the-box" ways of working with and around the issue.

 

Suppose a strong correlation was found between dogs who had certain gene variations and dogs exhibiting the symptoms of Noise Phobia (not very likely, based on the data so far, but suppose). How would that change what you are able to do for or with your dog that exhibits Noise Phobia? How would your situation be different then, with respect to your dog who already exists?

 

I think that's the point people are trying to make. It really only makes sense to try to isolate a genetic cause for something if you are going to use that knowledge to breed away from it. Otherwise, it adds little to what you already know -- that this is a phenomenon which cannot (or can only to a very limited extent) be fixed through training, fixed through handling, or fixed through common medical or therapeutic means. You know that already. You know that even if a genetic cause is never determined. Same with "ETS."

 

Right, and people who have a genetic predisposition for cancer or heart disease have no real and practical ways of lowering their chances of developing those conditions.

 

Science isn't about pretending that realities don't exist.

 

They have the same real and practical ways of lowering their chances of developing those conditions as everyone else does.

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So, go find out.

 

Knowledge is a great thing.

 

Genetic markers (regions of chromosomes) won't tell you anything about cause and effect and potential interventions. You have to isolate and then sequence the involved gene(s). From the sequences, you can deduce the function of the affected protein, but then you have to delve more deeply to determine how the gene(s) effect/cause the disease state (perhaps someone will make a transgenic mouse with ETS). I think that it is pretty likely that multiple genes (and markers) are involved in "ETS" making this really complicated. And all of this assumes that you can accurately identify affected and unaffected animals in sufficient numbers to find your markers. None of this is a trivial undertaking from a scientific standpoint.

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Suppose a strong correlation was found between dogs who had certain gene variations and dogs exhibiting the symptoms of Noise Phobia (not very likely, based on the data so far, but suppose). How would that change what you are able to do for or with your dog that exhibits Noise Phobia? How would your situation be different then, with respect to your dog who already exists?

 

Knowing that Noise Phobia most likely is genetic has changed a lot for my dog who has it.

 

- I am no longer trying to fix the problem through methods that often work for dogs with fears that are learned.

 

- In performance (and yes, I know that is "trivial" to some, but important to us), I don't set expectations that I would set for a dog who had an issue that I could have a reasonable expectation of eventually overcoming.

 

- I have obtained and give him appropriate medication, and I understand that he will most likely be on it for life.

 

- Approaches to the issue are intended to manage the problem, not try to make it go away. After all, you can't change DNA.

 

- I use whatever I can to help him with the problem and I don't worry about those things becoming a "crutch" because he is never going to be without this problem and whatever helps is good.

 

- Even the way that I train him is different in many regards. I'm not going to detail those here, but I do quite a lot in a different way.

 

If I did not work off of the basis that this is a genetic condition, I would still probably be trying to "fix" it and I would not clearly see that this is a lifelong condition that will never go away, so I strive to make his life better instead of trying to make the problem vanish. Of course, I help him so it improves (and it has), but I don't treat it as if there is a "cure".

 

I know the difference might seem subtle, but in the life of a performance dog, these are bigger things than they seem to be outside of that context.

 

I think that's the point people are trying to make. It only makes sense to try to isolate a genetic cause for something if you are going to use that knowledge to breed away from it.

 

So, why no objections to the genetics study on Noise Phobia?

 

That affects a bigger gene pool, including Working Bred Border Collies.

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So, why no objections to the genetics study on Noise Phobia?

 

That affects a bigger gene pool, including Working Bred Border Collies.

Perhaps it's because no one is talking about breeding away from it? If I have an excellent working dog who shows mild noise phobia (i.e., doesn't make our lives miserable or affect work) then I'm not likely to try to breed away from it. As I noted in an earlier post, unless there's a clear way to separate noise phobia from hearing acuity, and that may not be possible with the research being done now, then I don't think working breeders would breed away from it based on a genetic marker. As I also noted in an earlier post, dogs that exhibit noise phobia to the point where it interferes with work are likely culled from the breeding population anyway. So in this case, the breeder is using the phenotype (external expression of the genes) rather than genotype (the genes themselves) to make breeding decisions. The subtle difference is that by culling only truly seriously affected individuals, you are less likely to remove from the gene pool any genes that work in concert (and may code for other important characteristics) with the gene(s) in question (because dogs who carry the genetic marker but don't exhibit the problem would remain within the gene pool).

 

If I have understood correctly (per the comments here), LM has noted that she would breed away from the genetic marker for ETS if one is found. But I don't think anyone has stated that a goal of the noise phobia study is to breed away from the genetic marker if it is found (for the reasons stated above).

 

I think the same thing would work for dogs with ETS. Just don't breed those individuals that exhibit the trait externally (have problems jumping). That way you're not removing any other traits that might be associated with the gene(s) and whose loss might be deleterious to the general population of dogs.

 

J.

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I think the same thing would work for dogs with ETS. Just don't breed those individuals that exhibit the trait externally (have problems jumping). That way you're not removing any other traits that might be associated with the gene(s) and whose loss might be deleterious to the general population of dogs.

 

This is what I don't get....Simply not breeding affected individuals is a heck of a lot easier and cheaper than finding genetic markers.

 

Which tells me that they haven't thought this thru very carefully or are trying to breed away from ETS while retaining the good traits of these dogs (I presume speed and drive). And of course no one would care very much about ETS if these dogs were otherwise untalented.

 

These dogs live in a world where fractions of a second are very important. I can't help but wonder if expections were reduced and they were given to less ambituous handlers, if they would perform better and make their new handlers very happy.

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Perhaps it's because no one is talking about breeding away from it?

 

If the only reason for finding a genetic marker is to make breeding decisions, then why test for it at all?

 

That question has been raised many times regarding ETS. Why was the same question not asked when the study on Noise Phobia began years ago?

 

If there is no intention, as you say, to breed away from the marker, why try to find it if there is absolutely no way no how no other value in finding it?

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I figure someone has raised this question before in the thread, but I can't recall a straight answer to it if it was.

 

Those who adhere to the philosophy of the board hold that Border Collies should not be bred for Agility, correct?

 

Those who adhere to the philosophy of the board are not adding Agility bred Border Collies into their breeding programs for stockwork, correct?

 

Those who adhere to the philosophy of the board hold that Agility bred Border Collies currently in existence should not be bred since they are not being bred for stockwork, correct?

 

ETS, if it is genetic at all, affects only those breeding for Agility, correct?

 

Then why is this even an issue? (Strictly from a breeding standpoint, not from the standpoint of it not being as important as cancer, which, of course, it isn't. I don't think anyone here disagrees that cancer is more important)

 

If a marker for ETS is found, it will limit the gene pool among Agility bred Border Collies. Am I not correct that according to the philosophy of this board, those Border Collies should not be bred since they are not being bred for stockwork?

 

So, if a certain population of those Border Collies are not bred, why does it make any difference?

 

This is the cake and eat it too question.

 

If Border Collies should not be bred for Agility at all, why object to a portion of Agility bred Border Collies not being bred? Isn't that actually what you want? For them not to be bred?

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If the only reason for finding a genetic marker is to make breeding decisions, then why test for it at all?

 

That question has been raised many times regarding ETS. Why was the same question not asked when the study on Noise Phobia began years ago?

 

If there is no intention, as you say, to breed away from the marker, why try to find it if there is absolutely no way no how no other value in finding it?

I have no idea, Kristine. The people to ask would be the people who are doing the study. As far as I know no one stated that the plan was to breed away from it (unlike ETS) and I personally don't think most working breeders would use the information for anything in particular since they already probably wouldn't breed dogs who are noise phobic to the point that it affected their work, which I've already stated. The genetic testing that the folks in the working dog community seem to be most interested in are the epilepsy and early-onset deafness studies, but even then, no one has talked of eradicating the gene from the gene pool but rather using the information to make informed breeding decisions so as not to produce affected dogs (vs. carriers). I imagine if a gene is found for noise phobia, it would be treated the same way in the working community: if you have a dog who is an exceptional worker, even while scary noises noises happen, but the dog is so freaked out at other times as to be a danger to itself, then you could always breed that dog to a dog who doesn't carry the gene for noise phobia and save the good working genes while not producing affected dogs. In reality, I'm sure it won't be as simple as that because noise phobia is likely a more complex (genetically speaking) phenomenon than, say, early-onset deafness.

 

The key here is that identifying an affected dog when it comes to issues like deafness or epilepsy is straightforward. A dog either hears or it doesn't. A dog has seizures or it doesn't. With issues like noise phobia and ETS, the diagnosis is certainly more subjective. For noise phobia, "diagnosis" depends largely on what an individual defines as phobia and whether the actual issue manifests itself in a very severe way. For example, I have dogs that are noise sensitive, but that I would not consider phobic. I bred one of those noise sensitive dogs and none of the pups are noise sensitive (at going on 5 years old, they are pretty much past the age where onset occurs).

 

Unless there are enough dogs with ETS for someone to clearly define/identify those dogs that truly have the problem vs. those dogs who have other issues that might look like ETS, then I don't know how searching for a genetic marker is going to help. You have to have a clearly affected population whose genome you can compare with a clearly unaffected population. And I haven't read anything here that suggests that there's a large population of dogs with ETS or that it's always obvious that certain dogs with jumping issues clearly have ETS vs. something else going on.

 

As a more concrete example, my Phoebe is epileptic. She has seizures. She has a littermate who has seizures, and has unaffected parents, siblings, and numerous unaffected relatives. It should be fairly straightforward to compare the genes of the affected dog to those of the unaffected dogs and see if there are any obvious differences. Finding a difference doesn't mean that they've found the gene for epilepsy. They would then have to compare all epileptic genomes to see if there were matches (same gene or group of genes) that all those dogs share compared to all the unaffected dogs, who would not share that gene or genes with the affected dogs. I'm sure you already know all that. I'm just reiterating it all because it points up the problem with looking for a genetic marker for ETS, which is that you first have to be sure you can clearly ID dogs with the problem and make sure that you look at only dogs with that problem, or you're going to muddy the waters, so to speak, by looking at the genomes of dogs who don't actually have ETS (assuming it's a real syndrome) but just have something that looks like ETS.

 

Back to your original question, I wonder if you couldn't go to the Canine Behavioral Genetics website (at UC Davis?) and read what they state about why they're doing the study and what they hope to accomplish with the information they gain.

 

J.

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In regards to your (Kristine's) most recent post--don't feel like quoting, I have two answers:

 

1. As a matter of practicality, crossing over between working lines and sport lines happens, whether we like it or not. So from a practical standpoint, changes in the genome of the sport bred border collie could affect the working population because no one can control what individuals do with their dogs (specifically when it comes to breeding, and we have had examples here of sports breeders who do use working lines, so we know the mixing occurs).

 

2. I'll refer you to Denise's dartboard analogy, which discusses population genetics and explains why there needs to be some larger pool of dogs who still retain the genetics for work even if they are not great workers themselves in order to maintain a healthy gene pool for the working-bred dog as a whole. If you search "dartboard" you'll find the multiple discussions in which it has been presented.

 

J.

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Knowing that Noise Phobia most likely is genetic has changed a lot for my dog who has it.

 

- I am no longer trying to fix the problem through methods that often work for dogs with fears that are learned.

 

- In performance (and yes, I know that is "trivial" to some, but important to us), I don't set expectations that I would set for a dog who had an issue that I could have a reasonable expectation of eventually overcoming.

 

- I have obtained and give him appropriate medication, and I understand that he will most likely be on it for life.

 

- Approaches to the issue are intended to manage the problem, not try to make it go away. After all, you can't change DNA.

 

- I use whatever I can to help him with the problem and I don't worry about those things becoming a "crutch" because he is never going to be without this problem and whatever helps is good.

 

- Even the way that I train him is different in many regards. I'm not going to detail those here, but I do quite a lot in a different way.

 

If I did not work off of the basis that this is a genetic condition, I would still probably be trying to "fix" it and I would not clearly see that this is a lifelong condition that will never go away, so I strive to make his life better instead of trying to make the problem vanish. Of course, I help him so it improves (and it has), but I don't treat it as if there is a "cure".

 

I know the difference might seem subtle, but in the life of a performance dog, these are bigger things than they seem to be outside of that context.

 

And yet, you have achieved all these good results without any research evidence that Noise Phobia is genetic, or any identification of the genes involved. Just the belief that it's genetic. So just believe that Early Takeoff Syndrome is genetic too. :)

 

So, why no objections to the genetics study on Noise Phobia?

 

That affects a bigger gene pool, including Working Bred Border Collies.

 

Well, it is recognized as a widespread problem throughout the breed, its consequences can be serious, and depending on what might be found, it could be beneficial to breed away from it. But I should make clear that the impetus for the Noise Phobia study did not, so far as I know, come from anyone other than the researchers.

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I have no idea, Kristine. The people to ask would be the people who are doing the study.

 

Makes sense. Just as the place to go for more information about ETS, what has been done, why genetic studies are starting, and what they hope to accomplish would be the people who are actually working with the issue.

 

I have no personal objection to the Noise Phobia study. I think it's great that they are studying it. Any information that can lead to help with this highly debilitating condition is, in my book, a good thing.

 

Unless there are enough dogs with ETS for someone to clearly define/identify those dogs that truly have the problem vs. those dogs who have other issues that might look like ETS, then I don't know how searching for a genetic marker is going to help.

 

That's an excellent question to take to Linda Mecklenburg, et. al. I believe they can be contacted - her website is something like awesomepaws, and it wouldn't be difficult to get a look at the Clean Run article. I think the best source of this kind of info are the Clean Run list archives. That is free and anyone can join. A lot of the Agility folks had these same kinds of questions and Linda herself answered quite a lot of them.

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If Border Collies should not be bred for Agility at all, why object to a portion of Agility bred Border Collies not being bred? Isn't that actually what you want? For them not to be bred?

 

My comments about this have been descriptive rather than prescriptive. As I said in my post #88 so many pages ago:

 

(1) Excluding dogs who take off early on their agility jumps and all their relatives from breeding, and seeking a genetic test to use to eliminate dogs with this "syndrome" from breeding, are a good example of how dogs bred for agility will and do become a different breed from the traditional border collie, bred for work. . . . (3) Research into genetic causes of Early Takeoff Syndrome is not something the ABCA has funded or would be interested in funding.

 

Just stating facts.

 

Beyond that . . . well, I don't like to see research money, time and effort spent on this when there are so many more important things to be investigated. I don't see a positive result coming from it. Its sudden addition to other much more well-delineated and well-founded studies seems half-baked and detrimental. That about covers it, for me.

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I said:

Unless there are enough dogs with ETS for someone to clearly define/identify those dogs that truly have the problem vs. those dogs who have other issues that might look like ETS, then I don't know how searching for a genetic marker is going to help.

 

Your reply:

That's an excellent question to take to Linda Mecklenburg, et. al. I believe they can be contacted - her website is something like awesomepaws, and it wouldn't be difficult to get a look at the Clean Run article. I think the best source of this kind of info are the Clean Run list archives. That is free and anyone can join. A lot of the Agility folks had these same kinds of questions and Linda herself answered quite a lot of them.

 

Sigh. I didn't ask a question--I simply stated my thoughts about why *I* think finding a genetic marker for ETS would be tricky compared to, say, finding one for epilepsy. You're the one asking why the noise phobia study is being done and what they hope to find. I pointed out where you could get that information. I don't see why you then feel the need to point out LM's site to me, since I didn't ask why she's doing the study but simply pointed out the difficulties as I see them. But it's more of the same I suppose. I just won't bother to attempt to answer any more of your questions since it's clearly not productive to do so.

 

J.

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