Lua Dalmatian At Crufts

[shortstep]

http://www.thedogpress.com/ShowShots/LUA-D...22_Mitchell.asp

Do all dalmatians (the dogs without the bennifit of the purpose bred 15 generations of disease free lines) carry this disease?

Does ANKC allow these disease free dogs to be registered?

Just interested in what others would say as to how many generation of back breeding before saying that a dog is now purebred again?

These dogs ow have 15 generations of breeding back to purebreds.

Edited February 9, 2011 by shortstep

[The Spotted Devil]

This issue split the Amercan Dally Club in half.

All Dalmatians are predisposed to produce these uric acid stones. It's somewhat like gout in humans and we control it by feeding a low purine diet (not low protein necessarily) - white meat diet, no liver or organ meat, no brewers yeast etc. It's no guarantee though. The problem is that there must be other triggers, which is why the Dally community is divided.

In the UK, LUA Dally offspring will have a note next to their name for a certain number of generations. I'm not sure how the ANKC view them but I would hope the offspring are recognised. Personally I think it's a fantastic start. It may not be the perfect solution but we must start somewhere and be proactive before someone else starts making the decisions for us.

[becks]

There are similar arguments with the boxers and the introduction of the bob tail gene.

[shortstep]

Interesting, thanks for those comments.

Adding the bob tail gene is not removing a disease, it is adding the potential of a new disease (spinal deformaties). This risk would have to be weighted against the risk of injury in having a tail vs the concept of discomfort with docking. I am not sure I see this as the same as the dalmatian, unless there was a big risk of introducing another worse disease across the whole population that came from the breed used for the cross.

I wonder if more people buy UKC disease free dalmatians than AKC diseased dalmatians in the US? I would never choose the puppy that has the disease when I know there are puppies that do not have the disease. Being in a different registry would not be an issue for me. Same would be if I was a breeder, I would not hesitate to leave the American kennel club if being a member prevented me from breeding healthy dogs.

Has anyone imported a disease free dog to get these healthy lines of dals going in Australia or NZ?

Any thoughts on this topic?

I wonder what dal breeders will do if there comes a time when the Aus government steps in a says they have to introduce the disease free genetics into their puppies or they can not breed. Taking the stance that it is animal cruely to knowingly breed a pup with great risk of disease when they have the ability to not breed that risk? This would be just like what has already been done in Victoria with the state regulated DNA testing and breeding proticals to prevent disease.

Edited February 9, 2011 by shortstep

[sas]

There are similar arguments with the boxers and the introduction of the bob tail gene.

Mind you, that's to create a cosmetic thing, in the Dallies it was about the health of the breed.

[The Spotted Devil]

The LUA Dal has not long been in the UK - I'm not sure whether there are progeny??? It will take a little while for the dust to settle, I suspect.

From what I've seen and read, there are Australian Dally breeders on both sides of the argument. I wouldn't be surprised to see imports happening in the future. I think what happened in the US was a real shame. The other difficulty, I guess, is that Dals in the US are permitted blue eyes in the show ring whereas that is considered a serious fault here, as it's related to deafness. There are some breeders in Australia that are rightly proud of the lengths they go to to reduce the incidence of deafness through careful selection. I imagine they would be very, very careful about breeding to a complete unknown. An outcross program conducted locally would be very exciting...

ETA: Hey shortstep! Sorry to be a complete pain in the @r$e but would you mind correcting the spelling of Dalmatian (not Dalmation) in the title please

Edited February 9, 2011 by The Spotted Devil

[shortstep]

The LUA Dal has not long been in the UK - I'm not sure whether there are progeny??? It will take a little while for the dust to settle, I suspect.

From what I've seen and read, there are Australian Dally breeders on both sides of the argument. I wouldn't be surprised to see imports happening in the future. I think what happened in the US was a real shame. The other difficulty, I guess, is that Dals in the US are permitted blue eyes in the show ring whereas that is considered a serious fault here, as it's related to deafness. There are some breeders in Australia that are rightly proud of the lengths they go to to reduce the incidence of deafness through careful selection. I imagine they would be very, very careful about breeding to a complete unknown. An outcross program conducted locally would be very exciting...

ETA: Hey shortstep! Sorry to be a complete pain in the @r$e but would you mind correcting the spelling of Dalmatian (not Dalmation) in the title please

OPPS! If I did that elsewhere let me know. Brain is old.

I do not think the blue eye argument would stand up as a logical reason to refuse to let in the cross dogs that are disease free. Unless the Australians are claiming they have bred out the blue eye gene in their population and I think that could not be the case. Since the blue eyed gene is already in the population of Australia dalmatians, they simply can not show or breed blue eyed dogs, nothing would be changing the current deafness situation by using the crossed dogs. However one could also argue that allowing lots of big dark patches does seem to lower the risk of deafness ( correct me if I am wrong, I just remember reading this not too long ago). So if they wanted to breed in large patches then that would be taking an active step to reduce deafness in pups correct. The cross bred dogs might even help in that area. if any breeder did desire to to do that.

Though deafness may bring the same solution and arguments again. We can all hope that deafness may become a non issue in the next several years, as there is some promising work going on that may enable breeders to breed right away from it. However with a 25% affected rate (again correct me if that is wrong) it is possible all dals will carry the deafness gene/s and it may take another outcross to bring in non defective genes. The same same arguments will come around again.

Edited February 9, 2011 by shortstep

[shortstep]

There are similar arguments with the boxers and the introduction of the bob tail gene.

Mind you, that's to create a cosmetic thing, in the Dallies it was about the health of the breed.

I am not sure that is the case and really it just diverts the topic. Still, most docked tail breeders I know say that their dogs need to have docked tails for various reasons, that is not cosmetic.

However, the underlying difference in bob tail vs the Dals disease is that the lack of bob tail gene is not a disease, and that was my point.

Working to eliminate a disease that in a population of dogs by cross breeding is not the same goal or argument as the animal rights issue of docking tails being needed or should be banned.

Edited February 9, 2011 by shortstep

[The Spotted Devil]

Thanks - stops my brain hurting

Deafness is a tough one as it is not about a simple dominant-recessive gene. It's related to the piebald gene which accounts for spotting. So you can't remove one without removing the other. I know some breeders select for dark eyes, BAER tested bi lateral hearing parents, dark spotting pigment and don't mind a few patched pups - bi lateral deafness is almost unheard of and uni lateral deafness is rare. I think 25% sounds very high as far as Australian breeders go. Big issues after 101 Dalmatians with BYB which impacted deafness and temperament. There was a Dal breeder on PDE that was happy to breed a unilateral hearing Dal because he was a ring winner.

So, pardon the pun, but it's not a black and white issue!

[shortstep]

Thanks - stops my brain hurting

Deafness is a tough one as it is not about a simple dominant-recessive gene. It's related to the piebald gene which accounts for spotting. So you can't remove one without removing the other. I know some breeders select for dark eyes, BAER tested bi lateral hearing parents, dark spotting pigment and don't mind a few patched pups - bi lateral deafness is almost unheard of and uni lateral deafness is rare. I think 25% sounds very high as far as Australian breeders go. Big issues after 101 Dalmatians with BYB which impacted deafness and temperament. There was a Dal breeder on PDE that was happy to breed a unilateral hearing Dal because he was a ring winner.

So, pardon the pun, but it's not a black and white issue!

I can not find any rate published for Au, is there a datebank we can look at?

I just took a look at the UK and it was, over all 18% of dals were born deaf, uni or bilateral, that was a several years ago (don't have time to look round more right now). Australia of course being a very isloated gene pool could have very different numbers. However world wide deafness is very common in dals and due to this it is very likely that most dogs carry the gene/genes that cause the disease to be expressed.

(On a side note I would think that the reported affected rate of bilateral deaf dogs is very much under reported, as it is pretty easy for an exprienced breeder to tell if a pup is deaf and this pup would likely not make it to be BAER tested at 8 weeks old).

However there is some reserch right now, and it may turn out to be very different to the assumptions we have now. Time will tell.

But back to my point, if it is discovered that the only way to remove deafness in a breed of dogs is to cross out to another breed, will purebred breeders happily take that action to prevent breeding deaf pups?

Edited February 10, 2011 by shortstep

[The Spotted Devil]

I can't speak for other breeds but in Dals the gene predisposing deafness is known and understood although there are things that happen in the womb that may also affect it (to do with pigmentation). Can't see the piebald gene removed to prevent deafness (spotting being the most recognised feature) anytime soon but breeders should be doing those things I mentioned previously IMO. It can have a major impact on deafness rates. Unilateral hearing dogs make fine pets but I don't think they should be bred from.

ETA: I think there is some research being conducted in Aus now and a number of breeders and owners have volunteered DNA to the study. If it's anything like my PhD we could be waiting a while for the results

Edited February 9, 2011 by The Spotted Devil

[Jed]

shortstep

Adding the bob tail gene is not removing a disease, it is adding the potential of a new disease (spinal deformaties).

That is incorrect

Here is the website, if you would like correct information

www.steynmere.com

4th generation is accepted as genetically pure, so I suppose it was accepted for the Dalmations too, by the governing body -- and I suppose some breeders will embrace it, and some will continue to state the dogs are crossbreds, and should not be registered

[shortstep]

shortstep

Adding the bob tail gene is not removing a disease, it is adding the potential of a new disease (spinal deformaties).

That is incorrect

Here is the website, if you would like correct information

www.steynmere.com

4th generation is accepted as genetically pure, so I suppose it was accepted for the Dalmations too, by the governing body -- and I suppose some breeders will embrace it, and some will continue to state the dogs are crossbreds, and should not be registered

Sorry Jed I do not know what you are saying that I said is incorrect. I was speaking to the concept of adding a gene for bobtail to a breed of dogs is not being done to prevent disease, which is not the same as adding normal genes to Dals to prevent kidney disease.

The deafness is a seperate issue in dals.

Can you tell me what you are saying I said that was incorrect?

Here is the info from your link which is dated late 1990's and has to do with potential sex patterns seen in affected dogs.

Deafness in Dalmatians: Does sex matter?

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.

J. L. N. Wood* and K. H. Lakhani

Epidemiology Unit, Centre for Preventive Medicine, Animal Health Trust, P.O. Box 5, Newmarket Suffolk CB8 7DW UK

Accepted 26 March 1998. Available online 14 July 1998.

Abstract

Recent studies on the prevalence of deafness in Dalmatians have reported vastly different gender effects on the prevalence. The diverse conclusions in these reports cover all possibilities, higher prevalence in males, no difference between genders and higher prevalence in females. Much of this confusion about the effect of gender on the Dalmatian's hearing status is due to the unsatisfactory statistical interpretation of the available data. Careful analysis of a large (n=1234) composite database on Dalmatians in the UK has provided a reliable assessment of the effect of gender on deafness. The overall rate of deafness in the tested Dalmatians was 18.4%, of which 13.1% were unilaterally deaf and 5.3% were bilaterally deaf. The overall deafness in females (21.1%) was significantly higher (p=0.014) than that in males (15.5%). In all subsets of the full dataset [subsets obtained by partitioning by testing locations, colour (black or liver spots), parental hearing status (normal or untested) and time (year of test)], the prevalence was higher in females compared with males. Unlike other studies, the confounding of the gender effect with other factors, particularly the parental hearing status, was avoided in the large, composite UK study. Because dogs from the same litter might be correlated with respect to their deafness status, the data were analysed further to take the random litter effect into account. This further emphasised the difference between genders. We believe that the reason for the prevailing confusion in the literature is that the unwary referees and readers give the same amount of credence to ‘not significant' results from small scale studies as they give to significant results from large scale studies and do not always recognize the absence of sound statistical methods.

Not sure what I said that was disagree with this study.

Here is another one, 2002 says that something more than colour is going on.

Analysis of systematic effects on congenital sensorineural deafness in German Dalmatian dogs

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.

K. Juraschkoa, A. Meyer-Lindenbergb, I. Nolteb and O. Distl, , a

a Institute of Animal Breeding and Genetics, School of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Bünteweg 17p, 30559, Hannover, Germany

b Clinic for Small Animals, School of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Bischofsholer Damm 15, 30173, Hannover, Germany

Accepted 24 September 2002. ; Available online 7 March 2003.

Abstract

We have analysed the systematic influences, phenotypic colour markers and the additive genetic variation for congenital sensorineural deafness (CSD) in German Dalmatian dogs in order to help elucidate the importance of phenotypic breed characteristics for genetic differences of CSD. Linear animal models using restricted maximum likelihood methods were employed to estimate variance components. Data were obtained from all three German Dalmatian kennel clubs associated with the German Association for Dog Breeding and Husbandry (VDH). CSD was recorded by standardized protocols for brainstem auditory-evoked response (BAER). The material included 1899 German Dalmatian dogs from 354 litters in 169 different kennels. BAER testing results were from the years 1986 to 1999. Pedigree information was available for up to seven generations. The animal model regarded the fixed effects of sex, coat colour, eye colour, presence of patches, litter size, percentage of examined puppies per litter, kennel club, and inbreeding coefficient. The common environment of the litter and kennel as well as the additive genetic effect of the animal were taken into account as randomly distributed effects. The fixed effects of eye colour, percentage of puppies examined per litter and kennel club were significant in the mixed model analysis. A significant proportion of additive genetic variation could be shown despite corrections for phenotypic colour variants. The heritability estimate for CSD in German Dalmatian dogs was h2=0.27±0.07. The additive genetic correlation of CSD with presence of blue eyes was rg=0.53±0.41 and with presence of patches rg=−0.36±0.24. We concluded that additional genes other than those associated with phenotypic colour markers in German Dalmatian dogs significantly contribute to the occurrence of CSD.

The thing is, no one really knows what is going on and what is causing it, though white dogs dogs, dogs with spotting genes, dogs blue eyes, all seem to have more deafness than dogs without those triats. However they have now found an area of interest and I hope that something good soon will come from this.

The new method of looking for genes is making a lot of progress possible on some of the diseases that have been very stubborn to solve in the past. It is not going to work for all of them, but there are going to a number of break throughs in the next few years. For example they think they have found the area that is causing adult onset deafness in some breeds, more work is being done but they are very hopefull this puzzle will be solved in the next few years. I think we will see lots of break thoughs in the next 5 years.

Edited February 10, 2011 by shortstep

[Souff]

Mind you, that's to create a cosmetic thing, in the Dallies it was about the health of the breed.

Ho hum. Broken and painful tails on young Boxers are cosmetic too I suppose.

Souff

[Kirty]

Yes, but what about broken and painful tails on young Dals?

[Jed]

Shortstep - the bobtail gene is not adding the potential for spinal deformities, as you mentioned. There is no liklihood of that happening. Sorry to seem disagreeable, but it is a biggie for boxers and their breeders.

Please read the website.

The bobtail gene was introduced so breeders who would not continue with tailed dogs would not abandon the breed. Many breeders will have neither bobtails or long tails and a wealth of knowledge and expertise has walked away from boxers.

Kirty - Dalmatians have different tail carriage and set from boxers, thus reducing the potential for broken tails. RSPCA seemed to believe that every breed carries the tail exactly the same.

The LUA issue has divided the dalmation community in the US, and many breeders do not believe the LUA issue is genetic and believe insufficient research was done prior to introducing the pointer. And of course, many dalmatian breeders will not accept the dogs as purebred. There was recently a vote in US - not sure what the result was.

Shortstep, don't worry, when animal rights insists on backcrossing, and no line breeding, so many breeders will walk that the state CCs will finally come to their senses and jump up and down. That's if they have enough income to continue.

Edited February 10, 2011 by Jed

[Kia]

Interesting thoughts on a "gene" being responible for deafness in the Dals. In the breed I have, aussies, deafness is due to lack of pigment in the ear.

[The Spotted Devil]

Interesting thoughts on a "gene" being responible for deafness in the Dals. In the breed I have, aussies, deafness is due to lack of pigment in the ear.

That is the understanding in Dallies also - as I said it's related to the piebald gene. Perhaps there is a gene that further predisposes the dog.

[becks]

shortstep

Adding the bob tail gene is not removing a disease, it is adding the potential of a new disease (spinal deformaties).

That is incorrect

Here is the website, if you would like correct information

www.steynmere.com

4th generation is accepted as genetically pure, so I suppose it was accepted for the Dalmations too, by the governing body -- and I suppose some breeders will embrace it, and some will continue to state the dogs are crossbreds, and should not be registered

My point was about how many generations it took to breed a pure dog after introducing another breed for a reason. I was making no comment on the reasoning behind introducing the new breed into the mix.

[Jed]

Becks - 4 generations is accepted as pure in any species - genetically. The rest of that paragraph was a statement of what happened "genetically" --- I have some idea what is happening with dalmatians, but am not involved

Goes by percentages. The only registry which will never accept "upgrades" is the Arab Horse Society - 15/16 is a good as you can get no matter how many crosses you do.

The piebald or white spotting gene can be responsible for deafness in dalmatians and boxers -- and maybe other breeds that I don't know about. There is plenty of information on the net and in books about it. Deafness is due to lack of pigment on the ear drum.

Edited February 10, 2011 by Jed