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Pedigrees - NZ/AU Show Lines in ABCA?


Katelynn & Gang
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Originally posted by Pipedream Farm:

Glenn, shouldn't you be: "terminal velocity practitioner" or "terminal velocity experimentalist" instead of "terminal velocity theorist"?

No, it was theory. I argued to the esteemed Professor Torre that terminal velocity with regard to the Earth's gravity is actually a matter of constant deceleration given that as air pressure increases, so does drag, resulting in T.V. constantly changing.

 

This question came about as a result of the Professor asking some arcane question about ballistics.

 

Ultimately, he threw up his arms and agreed with me but that may have been solely because I had the beer.

 

Glenn

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Originally posted by Denise Wall:

Inbreeding, such as is common in show breeding, changes those odds drastically. Hence, a rare mutation like CL shows up as affected individuals in the showdog community and not, or more rarely, in the working community.

Denise,

 

Thanks for your great post, and I especially appreciated that you explained your thought processes for keeping conformation ch. out of the ROM process. (I disagree, but I see your point of view).

 

The only part I disagree with is the quote above. I'm not sure about the early development of the conformation BCs in Australia/NZ. However, in the current lines, I see a lot more inbreeding going on in ISDS/ABCA working dogs than in conformation dogs.

 

As an example, the MOST used AKC Border Collie stud dog of all time is my dog's sire, Borderfame Choc Chill. The BCSA website was down a few minutes ago so I can't check for sure, but I believe he has sired about 10-12 litters, representing about 50-70 puppies. This is a massive amount for an AKC BC, and as I mentioned, he holds the record. It is much more common for a conformation champion dog to have a lifetime 3-5 litters, if in fact he is used at all.

 

At the same time, the ISDS used to list their "most used sires" on their site (I can't track down that list at the moment either--they've moved it). As I recall, there were several well known Internationals winners that produced over 100 litters and over 500 puppies each. This is how dogs like Wiston Cap and Wisp end up in pretty much every BC pedigree... even the AKC conformation dogs.

 

Show dogs may be inbred to standardize the looks. However, competition stockdogs are equally inbred (or heavily line bred) on big international winners. They may not be all alike in external appearance, but their "alikeness" is in their working abilities.

 

Furthermore, the majority of BCs bred throughout history are from farmers who are likely to inbreed dogs simply because they are using a small breeding population located within 10 miles of where they live and are likely to be breeding to a close relative of their own dog.

 

I do not believe that any perceived difference in the two lines of dogs is due to the degree of inbreeding. Both populations are inbred, as are any purebred dogs.

 

I feel it was simply the luck of the draw that Aus/NZ-lines conformation BCs ended up with the CL gene being expressed first. (I'm not convinced the gene is absent in working populations).

 

And regarding epilepsy, that was similarly the luck of the draw (or maybe inbreeding on an international winner?) that it wound up mainly in the working BC population. Epilepsy is almost never mentioned on these BC Boards, but 16% of all BCs in the USA have been diagnosed with it--BCs are the #1 breed in the country for epilepsy. And note that working lines dogs here outnumber conformation-lines dogs by over 100:1.

 

And there is a whole line of BCs living near me that have hypoglycemic seizures at cattle trials anytime they get excited or get kicked. The owner gives them some corn syrup and they're "as good as new." Nobody but me seems to see this as any kind of issue. These dogs are routinely bred from and the puppies are purchased by stockdog trial people in this area.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to voice my opinion that I am totally for 100% outcrossing or VERY light linebreeding in any line of BCs. I would personally like to see all stud dogs on earth limited to producing 10 litters per lifetime. However, I do not think that genetic problems like CL are uniquely caused by breeding for conformation, but are found in any lines that are routinely inbred or heavily linebred.

 

Columbia, MO

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Charlie,

 

Breeding aside, depending on one's goals, I don't know why people would register any dog with any registry.

 

My guess about the ABCA membership requirement for the finals would be that is is like many other competitions venues I have been involved with -- certain memberships are required to participate. ABCA does shoulder the bulk of the expenses for the finals, I think.

 

Denise (a mere shadow of her former self)

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Originally posted by Firchow:

quote:
Originally posted by Pipedream Farm:

Glenn, shouldn't you be: "terminal velocity practitioner" or "terminal velocity experimentalist" instead of "terminal velocity theorist"?

No, it was theory. I argued to the esteemed Professor Torre that terminal velocity with regard to the Earth's gravity is actually a matter of constant deceleration given that as air pressure increases, so does drag, resulting in T.V. constantly changing.

 

This question came about as a result of the Professor asking some arcane question about ballistics.

 

Ultimately, he threw up his arms and agreed with me but that may have been solely because I had the beer.

 

Glenn

Since velocity is a vector and in ballistics the vector is always changing due to gravity, of course you'll have deceleration. But I doubt it would be a constant; I'd expect deceleration to be constantly changing.

 

Mark

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I'm not sure about the early development of the conformation BCs in Australia/NZ. However, in the current lines, I see a lot more inbreeding going on in ISDS/ABCA working dogs than in conformation dogs.

 

As an example, the MOST used AKC Border Collie stud dog of all time is my dog's sire, Borderfame Choc Chill. The BCSA website was down a few minutes ago so I can't check for sure, but I believe he has sired about 10-12 litters, representing about 50-70 puppies. This is a massive amount for an AKC BC, and as I mentioned, he holds the record. It is much more common for a conformation champion dog to have a lifetime 3-5 litters, if in fact he is used at all.

 

At the same time, the ISDS used to list their "most used sires" on their site (I can't track down that list at the moment either--they've moved it). As I recall, there were several well known Internationals winners that produced over 100 litters and over 500 puppies each. This is how dogs like Wiston Cap and Wisp end up in pretty much every BC pedigree... even the AKC conformation dogs.

You are comparing the number of litters for a small gene pool, the show border collies, to the number of litters for an exponentially larger gene pool, the working border collie. You cannot extrapolate meaningful information without correcting for the total number of dogs in each group.

 

That ISDS dogs are not heavily inbred is not my personal opinion. Since the beginning of the breed being registered with ISDS, there is a documented over all COI of ~ 7.8. Someone actually entered in the entire ISDS studbook and calculated it. It's the lowest known COI for any purebred breed of dog.

 

Your impressions seem to come mostly from your own personal experience and observations. I think if you had all of the information on both sectors, the show dog population vs the working dog population, you would come to drastically different conclusions regarding which group is the most inbred.

 

I would love to know where you're getting those figures for epilepsy. I've been working on epilepsy in the border collie for a decade and the information you're relating is totally foreign to me.

 

It's a known problem in border collies, as it is in many breeds and breed mixes. We on the ABCA Health and Genetics Committee are working on this problem as the highest priority.

 

Denise

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Columbia MO,

 

Furthermore, the majority of BCs bred throughout history are from farmers who are likely to inbreed dogs simply because they are using a small breeding population located within 10 miles of where they live and are likely to be breeding to a close relative of their own dog.
For this thought and the Winston Cap contribution to the gene pool to both be correct; then Winston Cap must have bred every female within 10 miles of home. I suspect you're underestimating the affect big trials had/have on mixing geographically separated genetic lines.

 

Mark

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Originally posted by Katelynn & Gang:

Isn't your "rescue" dog from the dogs that they auctioned off from "Awesome Border Collies?"

Yes, he's one of that batch. They were turned over to the MO Dept. of Ag, who then put them up for auction at Southwest Auctions, a puppy mill auction house.

 

The first 14 Awesome dogs were sold intact to other puppy mills and a few local farmers before MoKan BC Rescue was notified of where they were being held/auctioned. Between MoKan and myself, we got the remaining 12 dogs.

 

Despite the fact that the ABCA had registered all 40 of the breeder's dogs, no ABCA Rescue group came forward to clean up the mess afterwards. Luckily, the BCSA (AKC club)'s Rescue Committee provided a $500 grant to pay for my expenses in rescuing my group of dogs, and MoKan covered the rest.

 

Columbia, MO

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Originally posted by Pipedream Farm:

Since velocity is a vector and in ballistics the vector is always changing due to gravity, of course you'll have deceleration. But I doubt it would be a constant; I'd expect deceleration to be constantly changing.
At that point we weren't talking about projectiles but about objects dropped toward the earth.

 

GF

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Originally posted by Firchow:
quote:
Originally posted by Pipedream Farm:

Since velocity is a vector and in ballistics the vector is always changing due to gravity, of course you'll have deceleration. But I doubt it would be a constant; I'd expect deceleration to be constantly changing.
At that point we weren't talking about projectiles but about objects dropped toward the earth.

 

Adding: Projectiles influenced solely by the earth's gravity, Like a ball bearing dropped from a hot air balloon.

 

GF

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Originally posted by Columbia MO:

I'm not sure about the early development of the conformation BCs in Australia/NZ. However, in the current lines, I see a lot more inbreeding going on in ISDS/ABCA working dogs than in conformation dogs.

Originally posted by Columbia MO:

Whether you like it or not, Australian and New Zealand conformation lines dogs are 100% Border Collie from 100% ISDS dogs. My dog's great-great-grandparents are EXACTLY the same dogs on the pedigree of top working ABCA dogs (Blwych Taff, Wiston Cap, etc.).

 

The CL gene is HIGHLY unlikely to have been a mutation that just suddenly popped up in the past 20 years. This gene is virtually certain to have been in the BC gene pool since before the breed even had a name.

 

The gene was only discovered because the original gene pool from the conformation lines in Australia began with a limited number of ISDS dogs. Therefore, each pair of dogs that were bred were likely to have at least one of the same ancestors in the pedigree. All it would take is one "bad ancestor" from the ISDS to introduce CL.

I missed something?

 

You said, as quoted above, that the CL gene was only discovered because the original gene pool from the conformation lines began with a very limited number of ISDS dogs. This to me means that it was discovered because there was a ton of inbreeding going on to fix looks that win in the breed ring, plus that you are sure about at least some of the early development of the Border Collie in AU and NZ.

 

Also, Savvy?s Great Grand Sire, Kaspers, does not have ?Bwlch? Taff or Winston Cap within his five generation pedigree, so I am guessing Savvy also has some working lines in his pedigree if he has them as Great Great (fourth generation) Grand Sires somewhere? Could be where he inherited his working ability.

 

Katelynn

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Originally posted by Denise Wall:

Well, to start with, I'm a scientist and I can't understand what in the hell you guys are talking about.

Oh. Well, neither do we.

 

Otherwise, lets just say it's been a rough summer...
Sorry.

 

charlie

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The BSCA granted $500.00 and didn't make sure the dogs were spayed/neutered? It was nice of them for the grant but I'd think they'd request all the dogs be fixed.

 

If he came with ABCA papers, ROM isn't something you need to do. You can just trial and have fun.

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Glenn,

 

The terminal velocity of an object falling towards the ground, in non-vacuum, is the speed at which the gravitational force pulling it downwards is equal and opposite to the atmospheric drag (also called air resistance) pushing it upwards.

 

Source: Terminal Velocity

By this definition terminal velocity is not a fixed speed.

 

Nuff geek speek

 

Mark

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Originally posted by Denise Wall:

I would love to know where you're getting those figures for epilepsy. I've been working on epilepsy in the border collie for a decade and the information you're relating is totally foreign to me.
I'm glad that you're working on epilepsy in the ABCA community.

 

My figures come from Ned Patterson, DVM,

University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. He is one of two vets working on a huge AKC-funded epilepsy research project. Dr. Patterson was the keynote speaker at the BCSA National Specialty a year or two ago, and used the 16% figure during his talk.

 

Purely anecdotally, the ABCA people I see at trials all tell me that they have owned or known a number of BCs with epilepsy... AND none of them consider epilepsy to be a problem that would cause them to stop breeding from a dog!

 

Conversely, AKC people I know would count epilepsy on par with severe hip dysplasia and would have an affected dog spayed/neutered on the spot.

 

As it is, I have never heard of a single conformation-lines BC with epilepsy (though I don't deny that it could be found in those lines), even though it is the AKC breed club that is supporting the research.

 

I know that ABCA says they are "interested" in the epilepsy problem. Are they financial sponsors of any research right now?

 

Columbia, MO

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"My figures come from Ned Patterson, DVM,

University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. He is one of two vets working on a huge AKC-funded epilepsy research project. Dr. Patterson was the keynote speaker at the BCSA National Specialty a year or two ago, and used the 16% figure during his talk."

 

 

We are currently working with the MO group. They are affiliated with Patterson's group. I will contact them to confirm those figures.

 

However, I can tell you, and not from an anecdotal position, that there is *no* possible way that every one in 6.25 border collies in the working community is affected with epilepsy. That is approximately one per litter. The incidence cannot be anywhere near that high based on my experience.

 

 

************

 

"Purely anecdotally, the ABCA people I see at trials all tell me that they have owned or known a number of BCs with epilepsy... AND none of them consider epilepsy to be a problem that would cause them to stop breeding from a dog!

 

Conversely, AKC people I know would count epilepsy on par with severe hip dysplasia and would have an affected dog spayed/neutered on the spot."

 

 

Really? Because I hear the opposite.

 

****************

 

 

"As it is, I have never heard of a single conformation-lines BC with epilepsy (though I don't deny that it could be found in those lines), even though it is the AKC breed club that is supporting the research."

 

I can't comment on this because people do not submit pedigrees from AKC conformation dogs to me for any reason, only ABCA ones. I do know it's in obedience lines though.

 

************************

 

"I know that ABCA says they are "interested" in the epilepsy problem. Are they financial sponsors of any research right now?"

 

For the past several years ABCA has funded collection and storage of blood and DNA from selected dogs from affected pedigrees. This was done until such time as we could decide on the appropriate breed-specific research project to join forces with. We have recently decided to go with the U of Mo group headed by Dr Gary Johnson and have been sending samples there. Their funding request will follow a specific assessment of our situation.

 

As I'm sure you know, odds are overwhelming that there will be more than one gene or set of genes that cause epilepsy in different breeds of dogs. Our efforts are directed to finding the specific cause(s) in the working border collie population.

 

Denise

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As it is, I have never heard of a single conformation-lines BC with epilepsy (though I don't deny that it could be found in those lines), even though it is the AKC breed club that is supporting the research.
Columbia, you say the above and yet then you say that you know CL is in the working border collie lines w/o any proof. It is proven to be in the "show" lines. Sounds as though you believe in the show bred border collie over the working bred on many levels.

 

My question still stands though - if you disagree with how ABCA deregisters conformation champions why do you want to participate in the ROM program? Why do you want a ABCA registered dog?

 

Karen

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Originally posted by Denise Wall:

there is *no* possible way that every one in 6.25 border collies in the working community is affected with epilepsy.

I do know it's in [AKC] obedience lines though.

First of all, that is wonderful that the ABCA is participating in the Missouri/Minnesota epilepsy study. Yay!

 

Second of all, I agree that the 16% figure I cited does not mean that 16% of all BCs have epilepsy. (But it is higher than the average for all breeds of dogs, which is 4-5%).

 

The study the 16% number came from was likely based on numbers of visits to clinics at vet schools. I'm sure that many farmers, trial people and conformation people vaccinate their own dogs, as I do. So healthy dogs that are vaccinated at home would not have even been counted. So maybe a truer translation of the statistic is that "16% of BCs going to a vet school for a presumably serious physical problem" were there because of epilepsy.

 

Regarding the obedience lines quote, above, you are absolutely right. I forgot to count that line (I think OTCH "Val" was the dog's name?). I had been thinking only of AKC conformation-lines dogs when I mentioned not knowing of any dogs with epilepsy. Obedience lines are a kind of "no man's land" where conformation people consider them "working lines" and working people consider them "AKC dogs." :rolleyes:

 

Columbia, MO

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