Ol’ Shep

 Australian Shepherd, Collie, English Shepherd, Russian Mennonites, Sotch Collie  1 Response »
Sep 302011
 

Part of the reason why it is so intringing to read up on the history of the Russian Mennonites is because they were largely agricultural and the Anabaptist influences can be found almost everywhere in Canada. To the East, the Swiss-German settled down, which we now know them as Amish, Old Order, Old German. On the Prairies, the Mennonites of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union immigrated alongside the Hutterites; and to the West, the Dutch of the lowlands took up residence in the valleys. Most of them took up Canadian citizenship during the land rush from mid- to late-1800s.

On the Prairies, there is a joke going around about how everyone has a Russian grandmother due to the widely-accepted practice of pairing pierogi [trans. "dumplings"] and kelbassa [trans. "sausages"] for dinner. However the jab is a bit of a misnomer as most of the settlement blocks are either Swedish, Norwegian, Ukrainian or Polish at the very base of their foundation. The Russian exodus didn’t come until after the Second World War; and the bulk of it stems from the fall of the Soviet Union. So, most people are of mixed ancestry of German, Polish, Ukrainian and several others.

When people move, they tend to bring their dogs with them. For this reason, it is not unusual to find Jindos in the classifieds with the onset of Koreans immigrating to Vancouver. Whether or not the imported dogs have any staying power remains to be seen.

One of such effect is the German Shepherd Dog. They are fairly popular among chicken farmers as yard-dogs. However it is not plausible the early immigrants brought the dogs with them since the German Shepherd is a recently contrived breed at the turn of the 20th century. It is more reasonable to assume the dogs were imported sometimes in the late ’20s, early ’30s; and later caught on among the German farmers simply out of ethnic pride.

On the other hand, if one goes through the archives at Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, they will see numerous photos of collie-types from the late 1800s and early 1900s predating the formalization of the Border Collies as a trial breed. What these photographs have to tell us have vast implications.

Click to view date and information attributed to the photographs.

If there were any dogs from central and eastern Europe, they were absorbed by collies and farm shepherds as those are the only ones left standing today. For practicality, we can refer to these dogs as American Collies or American Farm Shepherds as many strains were not recognized as individual breed until about the 1940s-1950s  and afterward. It is from this genetic admixture stewed since the 16th century onward with gradual infusion of dogs from all corners of the world, came fore the English Shepherd, the Scotch Collie, the McNab and the Australian Shepherds in the mid-20th century. Since it was not uncommon for dogs to free-roam and to be unfixed, we can then infer this admixture as a new landrace as the morphology and personality of the dog were maintained through selection by their owners.

In fact, if one talks to the elders, the collies were the mainstay for hunting cougars and bears in British Columbia in 19th and early 20th century. The farm dogs were also expected to retrieve ducks and grouses or run rabbits, as well as guard the homestead, hold the hog and herd livestock. They were the go-to dogs prior to the rise of materialist culture and strong sense of individualism. The Labrador Retrievers were newly imported at the turn of the century, and the Canadian kennels did not procure a litter until around 1930s-1940s. Similarly, Coonhounds weren’t imported into the western provinces until about 1920s. Since farm shepherds persist as gundogs into the 1950s, it is clear what is now popular in dog sports of this decade were once strains only the affluent kept and bred. The strong emphasis on the value of pedigree papers from both trial and show breeders threw these working dogs into obscurity; but the Farm Shepherds are all but extinct as an all-purpose dog as one can still find the occasional rare Treeing Shepherds in the Appalachias. So it is best to be wary of claims a particular breed is best for a particular function.

If there were any dogs kept by the immigrants to the New World, it would had been collie-like in appearance with the working quality of a shepherd. Likewise, if there were any brought along with them from the heartland of Prussian and Russian Empires, they were cannibalized. Resistance is futile.

This is where the journey ends. If one wishes to learn more about the farm shepherds of North America and their faucets, there is a resourceful blog maintained by Andy Ward at Old-Time Farm Shepherd weblog. There are also oodles of resources added by owners and associations with a focus on Australian and English Shepherds.

Find the Grouse

 Dogs, Hunting, Hunting  2 Responses »
Sep 282011
 

Let’s the Capercaillie takes the role of Waldo for a minute, shall we? Okay. We are looking for a sihouette of a bird roosting in a tree. It’s sort of shaped like a turkey.

So, where’s the grouse?

Clue: Look at where the dog is positioned and how he is positioned. Neck angulation tells all.

Click on “Pages: 2″ to reveal the answer.

Dwarf Meets Giant

 Riley  1 Response »
Sep 272011
 

I came across these photographs from February 4th, 2011 on my BlackBerry’s microSD card while looking for images to post for diary-esque posts. The quality is horrifying, but I do think the size disparity of a 7-months old Vallhund and a 5-months old Bullmastiff, according to the owner, is interesting to note. Click to view.

The only time I see dogs dig is when they are thirsty, which occurs when the water valves have been turned off to prevent freezing of the pipes resulting in the fountains and pumps being placed out of commission.

 Posted by at 4:00 pm  Tagged with:

Re-framing

 Breeding, Genetics  13 Responses »
Sep 262011
 

It is rather foolish to think of humans domesticating the dogs. In fact, it would be more accurate to say they engaged in a pact with us. Now, in order to explain this, one must first dislodges the Judeo-Christian view-point of the world where mankind has domain over nature.

For eons, we have a self-centric view of the Universe which has been proven to be false: the Earth is at the center of the Universe; mankind is the only one capable of developing tools, languages and cultures; humans are the only sentient beings; and we are the only one who broke free of the shackles of evolution. Of course, none of this is true: Johannes Kepler debunked the geocentric view of the solar system; chimpanzees are also capable of fashioning tools; dolphins and whales have complex way of communicating in compositions of low-frequency sounds; elephants have been shown to recognize themselves in mirrors; and the war on viruses and micro-organisms is a constant reminder we are still at the mercy of nature. Let’s go one step further: the delusion of domestication is dependent on who view themselves as gaining the most benefits.

A drawing of two men, one with a spear and the other stumbled, with a black spitz-type dog facing a bear.

Bear-hunting in winter.

Dog and man have co-evolved together, however neither one of us actually see it this way. From our point of view: we dominated the wolf; employed them to share the load and search games; sculptured their flesh and bones; manipulated their behaviours in our favour; and they are objects of status-elevation. From the dog’s point of view, they domesticated us. The hounds see us as an asset in a hunt, delivering the killing blow to the boar or the bear. The team of huskies request us to hunt for them, to partition the shot moose or caribou, and load up the sled with our opposable thumbs to haul the meat back to their dens. The farm collie struck a bargain with the farmer for a bed’n'breakfast deal in exchange for manual labour. The Chin leads a lofty lifestyle sitting in the imperial palace as a figurehead, with servants swooning all over him; and he is protected from the elements by the sleeves of the kimonos of his escort in the outside world. From their point of view, we are the ones who have been domesticated by the dogs.

With the alliance forged between wolves and humans several millennia ago, a contract has been signed and the two of us has been bound ever since. Once in awhile, the contract is re-negotiated. In the last 200 years, dogs have agreed to an addendum allowing show breeders to sculpt their offspring to be reimbursed with a guaranteed sex life. In the last 50 years, a clause was written in, asking the dogs to become surrogates in absence of kinship among our own kind. No longer are dogs and humans comrades working toward a common goal, but rather as brothers or sisters; or daughters and sons. While they are not our blood relatives, the relationships have manifested as such.

Now, an alternative view to domestication is not entirely a new concept. It was recently touched on by journalist Michael Pollan in his lecture, “Plant’s-Eyed View”, at a TED conference in 2007; which is now subtitled in a multitude of languages. For those whose browser cannot load or view the video, the transcript is attached to the blog post here in a .TXT format. Now, a lot of people have problems with Pollan for political reasons surrounding one of his earlier works. It’s understandable.

Here’s a little known secret: the concept is actually borrowed from a 1991 lecture series hosted by Richard Dawkins designed by the Royal Institution in London for children, “Growing Up in the Universe”; in particular, the fourth installation, “The Ultraviolet Garden”. A captioned version on YouTube can be found here in Engish. For those who do not have access to videos, once again, a .TXT copy of the interactive transcript is already here. The episode itself is worth watching as there is a lovely narrative excerpt by Douglas Adams from one of his novels.

However Dawkins’s frame of thought stems from one of his books published in 1978 called The Selfish Gene, in which misconceptions were later clarified in his first documentary, “Nice Guys Finish First”, airred by BBC Horizon in 1987. One can find the full hour-long clip on YouTube here via WhyEvoutionisTrue channel. For those who don’t have access to YouTube, or wish to follow along via transcript here.

A side by side view of a monsterous-looking Morlock beside a human-like Eloi woman.

From the 1960 film of The Time Machine

Actually, Dawkins wasn’t the first one to come up with this. H.G. Wells touched on it in The Time Machine in 1895 with the Eloi believing they enslaved the Morlocks in subterranean factories; and the Morlocks believing they domesticated the Eloi for the slaughter to fill their bellies. However for many decades, among naturalists, convention follows nature is red in teeth and claws. It wasn’t until within the last few decades evolutionary biologists began looking at things in a new light.

Now, most people have a problem with Richard Dawkins, not because of his books or his findings, but because of his aggressive anti-theist stance, ongoing since the mid-’90s, advocating for militant atheism. Fine, it is acceptable some find him offensive. However there are no shortage of mutualism and symbiotic relationships such as the clownfish and the sea anemones or the shark and the remora. In that respect, Dawkins’s abhorred political stance does not invalidate the truth of his lecture.

Nevertheless, here is what Dawkins has to say about the bees to his audience of school children in “The Ultraviolet Garden” lecture:

Earlier this year, I was driving through the countryside with a little girl of 6 and she pointed out some flowers by the wayside. I asked her what she thought flowers were for. She gave a very thoughtful answer. Two things, she said: “To make the world pretty and to help the bees make honey for us.” I thought that was a very nice answer and I was sorry that I had to tell her that it wasn’t true. Her answer is not too different from the answer that most people throughout history would have given. The very first chapter of the Bible sets it out: “Man has dominion over all living things.” The animals and plants are there for our benefit. This attitude was unquestioned throughout the Middle Ages and it really persists to this day.One pious man in the Middle Ages thought that weeds were there to benefit us, because it’s so good for our spirit to have to go and pull them up. And another reverend gentleman thought that the louse was indispensable, because it provided a powerful incentive to cleanliness. There’s also been the suggestion that animals positively want to do their bit for the good of mankind and even want to be eaten by us.

[...]

We need to find an entirely new view of the world. We need to try to see things through the eyes of other creatures, instead of all the time through our own self-interested eyes. Flowers, the bees might say, are there to provide us with pollen and nectar. But even the bees haven’t quite got it right. They’re a lot more right than we would be, if we think that flowers are there for our benefit. The fact is that flowers, or at least the bright and showy ones, are there because, in a sense, bees have cultivated them, domesticated them. When I say bees, I include butterflies and other sorts of pollinators.

This is why I used the word “garden” in the title of this lecture. But why the ultraviolet garden? Well that’s a parable, like the parable of the Good Samaritan, or the sower. Ultraviolet light is a kind of light that we can’t see. It’s just like ordinary light except that it’s a different wavelength and we can’t see it. Bees can see it, they see it as a distinct color and bees cannot see red. So, flowers are bound to look very different through the eyes of bees. And in just the same way, the question ‘what are flowers good for?’ is a question that we have to look at through the eyes of bees.

Well as I say, we can’t see ultraviolet and it’s no use trying to capture what it would be that a bee would see if it looked at flowers. ll we can do is to play with a few tricks to get some flavor of what it might be like. Now, here is a row of tubes containing white substances, all different white substances. They all look alike, they all look white. But if we now expose them to ultraviolet light for a while, they glow different colors. Now, this is a bit of a cheat. We’re not actually seeing ultraviolet and none of those colors is actually ultraviolet: those are all visible colors that we can see. What we are doing though is using this as a kind of metaphor to show how what we see is changed in ultraviolet light. That isn’t what bees would see but it gives us an idea of how different things might look through the eyes of bees.

Actually, flowers probably look even more different because when bees see shape they see shape in a very different way from us. When a bee sees a complicated shape like this set of leaves here, or any of these flowers, it probably doesn’t see it as a shape like that. It probably sees this as something that we should call “flicker.” You see little light bulbs flickering in the flowers now and once again, that almost certainly isn’t quite what the bees see. But it’s likely to be a bit more like what the bees see than what we see when we see complicated shapes like that.

[...]

And in any case, we’re only using this strangeness as a parable for changing our point of view about who or what it is that flowers and all other living creatures are for the good of. So let’s now ask what bees are good for from the point of view of flowers? Well, flowers are sex organs, designed by natural selection to make male and female cells and bring them together. There are good genetic reasons that apply in most flowers, though not all, for making sure that they don’t mate with themselves. It would be all too easy for a flower to mate with itself: it’s got pollen and a stigma in the same physical flower, and they use bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators to transport the pollen from one flower to another. The usual way to do this is to bribe them with nectar. Here you see a hummingbird feeding from a flower with nectar. The bright colors are like Piccadilly Circus, it’s an advertisement telling the hummingbirds or bees to come and feed from here. Nectar is made specially for the purpose and it’s costly.

[...]

The pollination services offered by bees are truly massive. Somebody in Germany calculated that in Germany alone honeybees pollinated about 10 trillion flowers in the course of a single summer day. It’s also been calculated that about 30% of all human foods depend on bee pollination. If bees were wiped out, 30% of our food plants would be wiped out as well. The world of bees is totally dominated by flowers. I don’t just mean honeybees. There are lots and lots of species of bees, many of them are solitary, not living in hives. The larvae of bees are almost all fed on pollen.

[...]

So that’s what bees are doing, millions of times over, every day. They feed their larvae on it, their aviation fuel is nectar, and that’s entirely provided for them by flowers. They work hard for their nectar award. To make a 1 pound jar of honey, it’s been worked out the bees would have to visit about 10 million clover blossoms. So, flowers use bees and bees use flowers. Both sides in the partnership have been shaped by the other. Both sides, in a way, have been domesticated, cultivated, by the other. The ultraviolet garden is a two way garden. But just because flowers and bees have evolved towards partnership we mustn’t assume that creatures in general work in a friendly way for one another’s good. There are people who think that antelopes are there for the benefit of lions and lions are there for the benefit of antelopes, to keep their population down. And that’s just as much nonsense as the idea that oxen come willingly to the slaughter for the benefit of us.

[...]

We began by asking, what flowers were for? We considered various answers and eventually concluded that flowers are for the same thing as everything else in the living kingdoms: for spreading “copy me” programs about, written in DNA language. Flowers are for spreading around instructions for making flowers. Bees are for spreading around instructions for making bees. Elephants for spreading instructions for making elephants. And birds for making more birds.

And macaw’s colored feathers are for spreading copies of instructions for making more colored feathers. And that works, because the colored feathers are an advertisement that attracts macaws of the opposite sex. So genes that make colored feathers tend to get passed on to future generations because they are an effective advertisement to get mates who like those colored feathers. And you could say the same about wings. Wings, too, are tools for spreading genetic instructions for making wings into future generations of birds. They work by saving the lives of birds that have good wings and so they are good at flying, good at catching food, good at avoiding being eaten. So genes that make good wings get passed on and that’s why most birds have wings that work. [...]

Plants don’t have wings. Plants can’t fly. But from the plant’s point of view, it doesn’t need wings since it can borrow the bees and butterflies and hummingbirds’ wings. But now let’s shift our perspective and look at it from the point of view of the plant DNA. From the point of view of the plant DNA the bees’ wings might as well be plant wings.The bees’ wings are organs of flight that carry the plant’s genes about. Just as a macaw’s wings are organs of flight that carry macaw’s genes about. And we can say the same about the colors.

Flowers use bright colors in very much the same way as macaws use their bright colors. Both kinds of color are advertisements, both are used to attract winged-gene vehicles. In one case those winged-gene vehicles are female macaws, in the other case they are bees. But in both cases the result of the attraction is that genes are carried about. The macaws mate, so the genes that made that the male have attractive feathers are carried off in the female’s body. The bee gets dusted with pollen from a flower. So the genes that made the flower attractive to the bee are carried off on the body of the bee into the future, into future generations. So if you look at them in the right way, bees’ wings can really be called plant wings.

Now, that really is a different way of looking at things, isn’t it? A strange, and unfamiliar way. Yet it is a way that makes perfect sense when you think about it. A way of looking, which matches the strange otherworldliness of the ultraviolet garden.

In the context of the bees and flowers, one ceases to see domestication as artificial selection, but as rather various examples of self-feeding co-evolution. Suddenly, one begins to see canines in a very different light. Those who retain the belief we choose which dogs to mate are only deceiving themselves.

This was the system which worked for hunters and shepherds over the ages. As our society shifts from the back-breaking work of the fields to pushing papers around, the contract between dogs and men must be brought back to the negotiating table.

In the new draft two centuries ago, several groups of dogs forefeited their liberty for promise of safety. In the virtue of selfishness of propagating their genes, several breeds have gone to the extremes; and the English Bulldog has been very selfish indeed at the expense of their own health. The Bulldog sold the ability to cool themselves to capitalize on the tendency of humans equating anything with a squished-face as infantile. The appeal to flat face is so successful, no longer are the Bulldogs required to birth naturally as they can only exist through Caesarean sections; and once civilization crumbles, the bulldog is extinct. The dependence on technology will either be pivotal to their existence or their very undoing. In fact, the fate of Bulldog is so intertwined with technology, we believe they are worth propping up on a pedestal. Truly, the Bulldogs are the master of manipulating the middle-class.

However there is still hope in all of this. Lineages of moderate dogs will outlast the corrupted: the dogs who sacrifice themselves to the whims of the elites will run into a wall and will pay for their mistakes of not reading the fine lines; and those who found the right allies will prosper for many generations to come. However it is clear very few see the dog world in this manner as we, in our arrogance, only consider things from our point of view.

Images

Chris McGrath. 2009. Champion Dogs Compete At Westminster Dog Show Zimbio. http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/VO0oly_xjGV/Champion+Dogs+Compete+Westminster+Dog+Show/8NtZoUHDuZl/Scott+Sommer (accessed September 16, 2011). [Featured Image: Chris McGrath]

Growing Up in the Universe. YouTube. Directed by Stuart McDonald. 1991. Oxford, UK: Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, 2007. [Stills: Richard Dawkins Foundation]

Maamme Kirja 1876. Finland: Zacharias Topelius. [Illustration: Zacharias Topelius]

Marvin Pierce. 2010. Working Dogs Pierce’s Cow Dogs. http://www.piercesstockdogs.com/stories/ (accessed September 16, 2011) [Thumbnail: Marvin Pierce]

The Time Machine.  DVD.  Directed by George Pal. 1960. Culer City, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, 2000. [Photo: Metro Goldwyn-Mayer Studios]

 

Homework for the Weekend

 Genetics and Health, Ponderings  No Responses »
Sep 242011
 

It seems unreasonable to ask people to read a few books, so a rudimentary documentary will have to do. “Nice Guys Finish First” by BBC Horizon is a good place to start.

For those without access to spoken English: it took awhile to find a video which is subtitled or captioned in full, but there is one. Google Translate does a half-assed job of transcribing or translating the Portuguese softsub, but it’s bearable.

There are people who cannot view videos, so please ask via e-mail for supplementary materials; a transcript is available.

Enjoy.

Throwback to a Common Ancestor

 Coat, Pembroke Corgi  4 Responses »
Sep 232011
 

Brindling and merling are part of the standards for acceptable colours regarding Cardigan Corgis. However they are not desirable in Pembroke Corgis, and if one crops up in the litter, the breeder is accused of out-crossing; thus contaminating the gene pool. Such accusations do not go unheeded as the Corgis have a very murky history, and there is a conscious effort to keep the distinctions clear.

Prior to 1934, Pembroke and Cardigan Corgis were one unified breed. It wasn’t uncommon for a litter of mixed types to occur. In fact, what was typically done was designate puppies by types and thus they were registered as such. The dialogue probably went like this: “Oh, that one has a long back– Cardi; not sure what that one is supposed to be, but he has a bobtail– Pemmie.” Of such small differences, the breed was split out of regional pride.

For the following decade, brindling became rare in registered Pembrokes. In the edition of her book published in 1937, The Welsh Corgi: Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire Types, acclaimed Corgi fancier Thelma Gray of the Rozeval Kennel wrote:

 Blue merles are practically unknown in this type today, and brindles are also comparatively rare, though the brindle colour, which comes from one particular strain only, is very dominant and usually produces itself in every brindle-bred litter.

A black and white photograph of a brindled Pembroke Corgi.The strain was maintained by John Holmes of Formakin Kennel, one of the founders of the Welsh Corgi League. With an incompetent terrier unable to exterminate the rats which plagued his land holding in Scotland, Holmes followed up on the Corgis’ reputation for being excellent rat-catcher by approaching Sid Bowler of South Wales for a dwarfed cattle dog. The pup will be later known to us as a bitch named “Nippy of Drumharrow,” the first brindled Pembroke Corgi to receive a champion title. Captured by the amour of the Pembrokeshire on his farm, Holmes set out to be a major player in the world of dogs.

Nippy was bred to the dogs of Rozeval Kennel repeatedly, and brooded ten litters of 41 puppies; 22 were brindled. So, Thelma Gray was correct in her observation the brindle patterning is dominant. However Nippy’s offspring will have a long and rocky road ahead of them.

Around 1948, the Welsh Corgi League held a conference over a revision of the standards. Both Gray and Holmes fought to keep the brindling in the standards as they argued it wasn’t in the best interest in the dogs to narrow the coat colours as it was observed the Corgis were starting to lose their working temperament. The movement to keep the brindle was overruled twice in a thinly-veiled justification to keep the Pembroke as far distinct from the Cardigans as the breeders possibly can. Understandably, Holmes’s interest in the show ring waned and he turned to dog sports as an outlet for his lifelong ambition in studying animal behaviours.

A modern picture of a brindled Pembroke Corgi.

A few months ago, Jess of DesertWindHounds directed me to the attention of a particular Pembroke Corgi, Burtman Jody, from the late ’70s, who happened to be brindled. It was not the first time the brindling cropped up in a litter as a litter occurred twenty years prior in the mid-’50s; it was said the parents of the brindled litter were eight and ten generation removed on either side from a noted brindled Cardigan Corgi in the pedigree. The pedigree of the ’70s freak-of-nature remains unexplored.

In theory, one could root out the pedigrees to expose frauds by tracing back to unknown carriers of the merle alleles or brindling as the puppy and their grandchildren cannot continue to burden the lie about their parents’ or grandparents’ genetics. However, we first must ask themselves how many generations of being masked can evade the eyes of attentive breeders and swoop under the radar. It is highly improbable.

We know brindle (kbr) is always dominant in the absence of black (K); on the other hand, like how merles can be cryptic, brindling can be masked by other genes such as the recessive reds (ee). Brindling is not always easy to detect, as if the coat is dark enough, sometimes it is difficult to see traces of lines. Dilutes may also be hidden within light coats. So, one must be careful before accusing another of crossing a breed.

What is particularly interesting is some loci are prone to breaking. Abnormal traits observed in canines might be in fact a de nevo mutation. Dr. Cattanach described one such incident with a trio of Boxers where the brindle allele hypothetically has mutated. We shall never know the answer to the mystery Corgi of three decades past as brindling is only a recent subject of research.

Sources

The Row About the Brindle Pembroke 2011. Welsh Corgi News. http://www.welshcorgi-news.ch/Leseecke/InfoCorgi/Brindle_Pems_eng.html (accessed June 24, 2011).

Dr. Bruce M. Cattanach. Finding the Gene for Brindle 2006. Steynmere Boxers. http://www.steynmere.com/gene_brindle.html (accessed September 12, 2011).

Images

Brindled Cardigan Corgi Mailbox 2009. Morgan Home Accents. http://www.morganic.com/mha/mailboxes/animail/dogs/mb_mc_brind_cardigan_corgi.html (accessed September 12, 2011). [Thumbnail: Morgan Home Accents]

The Row About the Brindle Pembroke 2011. Welsh Corgi News.http://www.welshcorgi-news.ch/Leseecke/InfoCorgi/Brindle_Pems_eng.html (accessed June 24, 2011). [Article Image #1: Unknown, circa 1930s]

The Row About the Brindle Pembroke 2011. Welsh Corgi News.http://www.welshcorgi-news.ch/Leseecke/InfoCorgi/Brindle_Pems_eng.html (accessed June 24, 2011). [Article Image #2: M. Welsch, circa 1980s; courtesy of Laurie Savoie]

Wiki. 2009. Latest pack member & new friend wiki the corgi. http://wikithecorgi.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/latest-pack-member-new-friend/ (accessed September 12, 2011). [Featured Image: Bea, 2008]

His Dog, Skip

 Coat  No Responses »
Sep 212011
 

Awhile ago, I made the erroneous assumption Finnish Spitz are AyAy ee based on transference of knowledge on the coat genetics behind Australian Red Border Collies, Golden Retrievers and Duck-Tolling Retrievers. The theory was sound, the application was off-base. Quite frankly, it is surprising no one corrected it after all these months until recently.

An deep red Finnish Spitz with dark whiskers.

A Finnish Spitz with black whiskers. Click to enlarge.

There is one fatal flaw: ee recessives harbour white whiskers. Most Finnish Spitzes have black whiskers and black leather; so they are really just a red sable with minimal white. If they were ee, then the whiskers would had been washed out. Now, it is not impossible for eerecessive dogs to have black whiskers as subtle somatic mutations is common in Golden Retrievers. To expect the same from the Finkies, however, does not explain the breed-wide consistency.

However people who think this way shouldn’t be blamed. It is not an uncommon practice in the show ring to trim the whiskers to tidy up the dog, and oftentimes white whiskers are washed out in the flash of the photographs. Given even pet groomers are in the habit of trimming, one should be in the habit of waiting for a photograph which clearly demonstrate the whiskers.

On paper, all Finnish Spitz should be AyAyBBCCDDEEGGmmSStt. However this is not necessarily the case. Turn the SS into a spsp, one has a Norrbottenspitz on their hand as it is well-documented in breeding for Finnish Spitz, the non-solid alleles were culled; and some of the Swedes purchased piebald dogs from Hugo Roos, which later split into their own breed. Or at least that’s the version cited by a few Finns over e-mail exchanges; the Swedes, on the other hand, have a lovely romantic story about piebald dogs being undiscovered on small farming land holdings and rescued from the onset of pre-war extinction. Now, the frequency of the piebald allele must be extremely low as a spotted spitz thrown from a Finnish Spitz is unheard of in this day and age; but it is foolish to say it has been effectively filtered out of the gene pool since the frequency remains unknown; and the two breeds, Norrbottenspets and Finsk Spets were once considered as one breed and registered as such a century ago up until early 1900s. So it stand to reason it is entirely possible there are sp carriers, just the necessary pairing haven’t has their lottery number pulled. It is more fair to assert the Finkes are AyBCDEGmmStt.

However we do know Finnish Spitz are actually Ee breed-wide. Meet Skip:

A light pale Finnish Spitz with pale whiskers and a grey nose with a slight pink hue.

Meet my... er... his dog, Skip.

Contrary to what some may believe about the nose, he is not an albino. Sometimes a double-merle will have pink noses, but the merling is a dominant trait and merle is frown upon; so it’s a no-go. Skip has a snow-nose, which indicates he is either a liver (b) or a blue-dilute (d). Now, not all bb have distinctly brown noses or eye leather as a handful are dark enough to appear black; and with the blue-dilute, while the nose is normally grey, it can appear to be black In both scenarios, sometimes this fade with age into a pink. There seem to be other factors at play determining the shade. We do know “snow nose” is more prevalent in dogs with yellow pigment. From going through the archives of Skip on Walks N’ Wags, we can conclude he is most likely a blue-dilute.

Now some believes he is a mutt or a mongrel. Not necessarily so. When we are talking genetics, in regard to recessives, frequency and probability must be taken into account. Simply failing to conform to the standards does not make a dog a mix as selecting against an allele doesn’t make it disappear; it is just simply reshuffling to the point where the presence of homozygous is presently virtually unheard of. The other thing to take into account, there are several Russian-registered Finnish Spitzes who appear to be a fawn. However, at the same time, there are also plenty of honey-pale Finkies with black whiskers. Since the quality of Russian photographs are poor, we are limited to what we can see and conjecture; but they do give us plausibility.

In conclusion, the deep auburn Finkies don’t have the same genetic makeup as the Golden Retrievers. The whiskers alone are an indicator. Keeping that in mind, as seen in Skip, it is entirely possible to have the same genetic code of a Golden in a spitz body.

Sources

Dilution or Pale Colour 2009. Sheila Schmutz. http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dilutions.html (accessed September 8, 2011).

Nose Color 2008. Jess Chappell. http://abnormality.purpleflowers.net/genetics/noses.htm (accessed September 8, 2011).

The B Locus in Dogs 2010. Sheila Schmutz. http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogbrown.html (accessed September 8, 2011).

Images

Finnish Spitz « Walks N’ Wags 2011. Calley. http://balmaindogblog.com/tag/finnish-spitz/ (accessed August 1, 2011). [Images: Calley, 2011]

Finnish Spitz Picture File Index. http://www.breederretriever.com/photopost/pindex/655/ (accessed September 8, 2011) [Image: Unknown]

 

Many Colours of Summer

 Riley  8 Responses »
Sep 202011
 

The autumn equinox is approaching, and soon summer will be over. Over the summer about two dozens bandannas were acquired since the West Coast is known for its scorching heat. Although a cooling vest could be purchased, the classic handkerchief is more traditional. Most of the neighbourhood probably think I am a homosexual now.

So far this year has been mild. Over the last two years in Victoria, it was tortuous to keep the ferret cool since they don’t sweat or pant. However at least none of the mammals had to go into the beer fridge like the cold-weathered geckos of New Caledonia, the frogs and skinks of Solomon Islands and mountainous Indonesia; and the native salamanders of the Prairies back when keeping reptile was the hip, cool thing for every young adult. Although the Pacific Northwest has a similar climate to the  coastlines of the Scandinavia, Riley can vouch he prefers playing in deep snow instead.

Originally this collage was supposed to be more like a super-model in a rainbow portfolio, however given two things recently hit the fan in July, there haven’t been any additional photographs since. So this is what I have to show for the upcoming last day of summer.

Click to enlarge and to view the titles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shorter Is Better

 Breeding, Ponderings  4 Responses »
Sep 192011
 

I am willing take the fall for this. If the co-author wishes to reveal her- or his identity, then by all means go ahead.

This satire was written a few months ago when shit really hits the fan for the Neapolitan Mastiff owners on Jemima Harrison’s Pedigree Dogs Exposed blog. For awhile, I considered not publishing this; but initially, this was co-authored with someone else and the travesty was meant to be leaked anonymously on a list-serv for circulation around the net; then pekingeseman from Pedigree Dogs Are Fine showed up, and threw the timing off, so it was never pushed. Such dry humour shouldn’t be seen in the same vein as excessively over-the-top caricatures.

However, in hindsight, there is not much to lose by publishing these fictional works villianizing the ribbon-chasers. Sadly, I wish I could say these are entirely fictional, but if I chose to directly re-post some of the things said in closed groups on Facebook and on forums, which would makes anyone vomit in their mouth, most people would dismiss the atrocities as lampoons; but truth really is stranger than fiction. The fictional works seem more realistic than reality in these cases, and thus are easier to stomach.

Why publish these if I might be ostracized? First off, breeders will always be in the marginal minority and are at the mercy of tax-paying pet owners. Judgement Day will come. Secondly, if I really need a dose of testosterone and actually feel compelled to possess a mastiff-type, there are already a few Livestock Guardian breeders out there, ranging from Great Pyrennes and Spanish Mastiff to Anatolian Shepherds and Caucasian Ovcharkas, who are more than glad to help me gets my rocks off. The people who breed these shepherd-types know they cannot afford to lose ties with the agricultural community as most urban districts are not appropriate homes. So there are self-checks in place.

However since I seem to have good rapport amongst both most show-ring spitz owners and among the purpose-bred breeders, might as well put this one out there. I am sorry, but if someone can turn an aboriginal strain of a landrace, which the Cane Corso also originates from, into a dog resembling Ron Jeremy’s scrotum, they deserve to be ridiculed.

I give you…

Shorter Is Better

5 blue-dilute mastiff puppies in a yard running toward the camera.

Beautiful, cute puppies.

Internationally, Animal Rights activists are claiming Neapolitan Mastiffs have a life expectancy of 2 point 33 years. This is factually wrong. The survey was done by the United Kingdom’s Kennel Club and only 9 of 90 sent out were returned. This is not universal.

USNMC CH Ironstone Bittume, bred by Dr. Sherilyn Allen and owned by Rosemary Rosensteel, lived to be over 12 years of age. She was one of the offspring of NMCA CH Islero del Bonrampino and Ironstone Andiama. Islero lived to be over 9 as did Andiama. All were large and type for their time.

While the Neapolitan Mastiffs in the United States of America are relatively long-lived, in Britain, the Neapolitan became popular among chavs. It became ethical to breed for short life expectancy to deter the youths from using these as status symbols and to spare the mature dogs of a harsh and perilous life of neglects and absence of veterinary care.

Good breeders should not be burdened to feed and care for dogs after their show career is over and dried up on the breeding circuit. With the Animal Rights people fighting at every turn to take our dogs away, a dog with a short lifespan is a blessing.

The majority of puppy buyers purchasing from a petstore are not ready for the burden of a life-time commitment to dog ownership. However petstores obtain their stocks from puppy-mills. It is an obligation to provide inquirers an alternative and safer venue with health guarantees. We are giving them a shot of having joys of puppyhood, and sparing them the mundane years of owning an senior dog.

The flame that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. And the Neapolitan Mastiffs burn so very very brightly.

— Deedee, United Kingdom

Images

Flickr. “We are coming” Accessed March 10, 2011. http://www.flickr.com/photos/22388776@N06/2156460667/ [Image: Nancyk2008]

 Older Entries