To begin with, we absolutely must open CKC [Canadian Kennel Club] stud books, in every breed, to new genetic inflow. There can be no long-term genetic health in small populations such as our registered breeds without the periodic infusion of new genetic material. The one big “sacrifice” we shall have to make, if it is really a sacrifice, is to abandon racist attitudes and the concept of rigorous breed purity. We must recognize that first of all, a dog is a dog, species Canis [lupus] familiaris, and that is his true identity. He is a dog first, before he is a Siberian Husky or a Foxhound or a Doberman; breed identity is subordinate to species identity. We must stop treating breeds as if they were species, abandon the rigidity and narrow typological thinking which has heretofore characterized the canine fancy. We must recognize that dogs are unique individuals and that there is no positive value in trying to create groups of dogs which are all clones or photocopies of a type specimen represented by a breed standard. This should not be too hard, since breeders and judges have never been able to arrive at agreed and consistent interpretations of breed standards anyway. Why, then, should we pretend that a standard, which as it now exists evokes a different imagistic interpretation in the mind of each individual breeder and judge, describes a single ideal type?
Canine breeds can and should be differentiated, bred and maintained on a dynamically balanced, heterozygous population basis without restriction to a closed, historic founder group. The closed studbook and the breed purity concept are, from a genetic point of view, simply unnecessary. Indeed, as we have seen, from the standpoint of maintaining a genetically healthy limited population, they are thoroughly counterproductive. Where is the logic in submitting each and every CKC breed to a registry system which guarantees ongoing, progressive genetic degeneration, loss of species vigor and hardiness, and saddles every breeder with the unwanted, unhappy responsibility of producing more and more unhealthy, flawed stock as time goes by? The notion that genetic disease can be controlled, much less eliminated, by screening programs and selection has not been borne out by general experience. Those who promote such a notion are engaging in a cruel, self serving deception. It may be that a breeder can sometimes improve his odds against producing defective stock in a given mating by screening the parents, but experience has proved that screening will not solve our genetic problems in any wider sense. Despite generation after generation of “clear” stock, bloodlines can still produce more and more affected animals. That is because our problems are inherent in the closed studbook/incest breeding system. In order to restore genetic health we shall have to adopt a different system.
—Jeffrey Bragg, founder of the Seppala Siberian Sleddog and noted thorn in the side of the pure-blood for pure-blood’s sake cult that is the modern dog fancy.
Deep thoughts for today
December 7, 2011 by SWestfall3
10 Responses
You just want to eliminate breeds and make all dogs mongrels!
And I also want to ban all guns and everyone to become vegan!
My archaeology professor has an old chart of human evolution. At the top the modern homo sapiens is divided into four different species: Homo sapiens americanus, Homo sapiens asiaticus, Homo sapiens afer, and Homo sapiens europaeus. This quote really brought that to mind, the breed clubs need to stop acting like dogs breeds are a bunch of different species.
oh course if you have huskies, you don’t believe too much in breed purity anyway! lol
We should all agree to the obvious: purebred dogs are subject to some horrific genetic problems, and some purebred dogs are appalling.
To go to the other extreme and proclaim that every dog is just an individual does indeed lead to an end state where every dog is truly a “mixed breed”/mutt/mongrel. And there are no distinctive traits to a particular breed, because there won’t be any.
What Jess is saying is that a common argument is that if you open registries, dog breeds will disappear.
I don’t think they will.
I think that the art of selective breeding will return.
Closed registries take away much of the art of selective breeding, and it means that people don’t actually have to know the genetics behind their favorite breeds.
No one in golden retrievers, for example, needs to know that their dogs are a recessive color, and that the genotype that keeps the recessive color also masks sable, tricolor, and brindle markings.
“To go to the other extreme and proclaim that every dog is just an individual does indeed lead to an end state where every dog is truly a “mixed breed”/mutt/mongrel. ”
Not only is this not true, it is a complete misrepresentation of what Jeffrey Bragg is actually saying.
First, selectively bred dogs are just that, selectively bred, no matter whether they are purebred or not. You will get always distinctive traits, just not necessarily traits that you can see, when you are selecting with a goal in mind. A la Alaskan Huskies. Lurchers and longdogs would be another example. You could even breed pet dogs the same way. In the case of Huskies and Lurchers you are selecting for a behavioral and performance phenotype, not so much a physical one, and you aren’t breeding for specific characteristics like ear set or eye shape, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t selectively breeding.
But ‘let’s just randomly breed all dogs together’ is not what Bragg is saying at all:
“We must recognize that dogs are unique individuals and that there is no positive value in trying to create groups of dogs which are all clones or photocopies of a type specimen represented by a breed standard.”
The kicker is the last part of that sentence. What he is advocating is loosening up the definition of breed type. Right now, if you are talking about conformation show bred populations, you basically have a very narrow range of dogs that are bred, and therefore a narrow range of genes available, because many of the dogs produced do not fit correctly into the current (or the current interpretation of) standard. They may be too tall, too short, wrong eye color (light eyes are penalized in many standards), imperfect markings, not flashy enough movement, too much white, etc. Two examples I have personally seen for eliminating dogs from the breeding population that fit perfectly into what Bragg is talking about were a Saluki bitch who did not have ‘perfect’ movement, and an Afghan with white toes. Basically, what Bragg is talking about is more like the pet population, where there is much greater variety in appearance, but the dogs are still recognizable as a specific breed.
This expands nicely on what I said above:
“We hear endless discussion about inbreeding and its evils, and rightly so; yet we hear very little about the dangers of sustained extremes of artificial selection, which are if anything yet more dangerous than inbreeding. Together these two factors become an engine for the destruction of genetic diversity. People’s constant obsession with having the “best” dog and with “breeding only the best to the best,” whether in dog-show terms, in dogsled racing, or whatever, creates a situation in which the best is definitely the enemy of the good. The endless repetition of the inbreeding/selection cycle in the quest for a dog that is better than last year’s best, has systematically stripped away most of the healthy genetic diversity from today’s purebred dogs. Stringent, sustained selection for cosmetic ideals (shape, number and intensity of the Dalmatian’s spots; shape and chiselling of the poodle’s muzzle; subtleties of colour and markings in an endless series of breeds) or narrow ideals of performance or athleticism (top sprinting speed in racing greyhounds or racing sleddogs) have for many decades taken absolute precedence over breeding to provide the kind of “genetic outfit” that will allow the dog to be healthy and hardy.”
From Bragg’s Canine Population Genetics in Practice: Principles for the Breeder:
http://dogdimension.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=shared:populationgeneticspractice
Bragg is (was?) actually a very strong proponent of selective breeding – just look at his website.
What he is apparently opposed to is what is called a “closed studbook” or “closed regfister”. That’s the way most dog breeds are maintained. It’s also the way the Thoroughbred (horse), the Abyssinian (cat),, the Angus (cattle), the Angora (goat), and a myriad of other domestic aniimal breeds are maintained.
The implication from some of the comments is that the only alternative is a uncontrolled breeding, i.e., no stud book at all. That’s just not true. Many animal breeds are maintained with a partially open or semi-open stud book. Some well-known examples are the American Quarter Horse and,the Appaloosa(horse). Even the AKC, with its, FSS Breeds, has what is in effect a semi-open stud book.
There is also what is called ROM or Registry On Merit. Most of the “warmblood” horse breeds*, such as the American Warmblood, are actually maintained in this way. I would suspect that is what Bragg is probably getting at for dogs.
On the other hand, one does have to suspect that there might be a bit of special pleading in that quote. After all, Bragg did sell a breed of sled-dog that was maintained with a partially open stud book.
if you go to his website you find this rather sad statement: “Twenty years of effort to bring a secure future to the Leonhard Seppala strain by obtaining status for it as a distinct dog breed in its own right, and to publicise it on the Internet under the name of the Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project, have now come to an end. ……it has not been possible to gather, educate and hold together an adequate cadre of committed, ethical SSSD breeders. ” And this is the problem. As with the LUA Dalmations and the African Basenjis (heavens! brindle dogs!!!), resistance can be so strong as to make such efforts impossible on a breed wise scale. Almost always, once a registry exists, those who push for “ours are better than yours” start looking for more and more restrictions as to what constitutes a breeding prospect. — Peggy.
I think his comments about each dog being an individual occurred in a diatribe against throwing away hundreds of dogs just to find the few that will win the 50K prize. He is arguing for valuing the whole breed and expecting and allowing for individual differences even if it means being less competitive in the short run. His ideal here, then, is the breed or bloodline that consistently produces good sled dogs.