A Sign of a Wounded

 Breeding, Genetics, Swedish Vallhund  3 Responses »
Apr 192012
 

Over the course of the last year I have been assembling information on the Swedish Vallhunds. The starting point was my own dog with a five-generation pedigree. At first the state of the breed seems to be relatively positive with low Co-efficient of Inbreeding (COI) once I have plugged in data, provided through SVPedigrees maintained by Sharon Donaldson in Australia; using Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice Spreadsheet at first then later BreedMate PedX. However, there were many holes in his pedigree.

A much more comprehensive dataset was extracted from Worldwide Swedish Vallhunds – Västgötaspets Pedigree
Database once kept by the now-deceased Leone Darling. It is rather a shame due to the death of a predominant breed historian, the domain will one day be taken down once it expires since the information is much more complete with far fewer errors. Using the dataset from Ms. Darling provided a much clearer picture.

When Christopher Landauer revealed one must go back to the founders to get a more reliable calibration of a dog’s COI, a graph of why it is not enough to look at the COI(3) and COI(5) was produced. With Riley, we will take a look at the COI(29).

Distressed by the relatively high COI, more information on the founders and popular sires and brood bitches was needed. To understand why such a high COI was procured, we must first understand what a pedigree collapse is. However the entire tree is relatively compact and there are a few noticeable collapses at a glance. The good news is they are not frequent. The bad news is not all the known founders are included in his complete pedigree. This hints the possibility several lines died out.

Pedigree tree highlighting repeated ancestors generated with PedX.

When inquiring numerous breeders about this issue with Riley, it was learned he is very typical of the breed. In fact, he is a relatively accurate sample of the Swedish Vallhund population.

So what happened? The modern population of Swedish Vallhunds, in which there is approximately 500 registrations world-wide every year, once had a more diverse ancestral base. A great number of potentials were rejected due to poor understanding of recessives and lack of knowledge of concepts essential to population genetics and quantitative genetics such as allele frequency and polygenes when the breeding program first initiated even though the rejects had obvious influences or characteristics. Ontop of the inability to recognize suitors, many of the progeny were sold unregistered and only the ones who were seen as ideal for breeding were registered for many decades after the founding of the Swedish Vallhunds. In addition, there were a few kennels between 1960s and 1970s producing surpluses of puppies which coincided with the extinction of several dam-lines and a a couple of sire-lines in the 1970s and 1980s. The bleeding of the breed slowed down when the Swedish Kennelklubben mandated entire litters must be registered in the 1980s, and a rule was passed in the 1990s stating a sire cannot contribute more than 5% of the existing gene-pool. As the result, conductor was able to slow down the train to hell.

However using pedigree software are quite limiting and they don’t tell us a great deal of information. There are quite a few of them out there. One of the easiest software to utilize, often used in population genetics, ecology and conservation biology for visualization, although the original purpose of the software was for discovering new relations between proteins in biochemstry and genomic laboratories, is an open-source network analysis program such as: Cyptoscope, Gephi, Pajek, BioLayout Express3D. There are plenty of software floating around on the Internet which regurge useful information.

In the next post, an illustration using a node-mapping software will be provided and explained. We will walk through as we add more information to the dataset and change how it is processed, different interpretations arise. We will also explore why in a competitive world where everyone is more concerned with their self-image, a pedigree record is rather limiting. A pedigree is a tool which only becomes more useful as more hard data is added.

Struggling to Keep Head Above Water

 Genetics and Health, Shikoku Inu  8 Responses »
Mar 292012
 

Dogs as a whole are not endangered. They still retain the same diversity as their ancestors, the wolf. However the state of affair among individual breeds is disconcerting. Of course, with breeds within closed registry, all it takes to save them is to open the stud-book. Politics do not always allow for this though, so other tactics must be sought out.

The Shikokus, a breed native to Japan, are in grave danger. A few Nihon Ken enthusiasts in the know revealed these dogs need hormones and artificial insemination to produce new litters: a sure sign of severe inbreeding depression is underway. To add cherry to the top, bitches have a volalite irregular heat cycle: some come into season every three months, some have split heats, some skip heats and others have silent heats. To add to that, females are self-defensive to the extreme toward males. If a natural breeding is to be performed, the female must be muzzled and multiple people are required to assist the male to rape the bitch in order to conceive. Such hyper-aggression toward closely related individuals of the opposite sex are signs of inbreeding avoidance. If owners of the Shikokus are not careful, they will find that their bitches will eventually full-stop quit breeding and heat cycles become nil. There is only so much a biological entity can take.

A few days ago, it was released there are about 233 dogs registered with NIPPO in Japan in the year 2011. This is a huge drop from 357 two years prior. Overseas, in Europe and United States, where Shikokus are becoming increasingly more popular fetching astounding price-tags stemming from an incredibly small exported gene-pool, it is probably certain we will see the nastiness of auto-immune disorders arise in those bloodlines much sooner. In the irony of it all, while it is true Shikokus have been steadily decline in popularity in Japan heading toward extinction, which is no surprise considering the hassles, the breed is at the point where Japanese owners are literally giving away pups to new homes. Without knowing the effective population size, which its true number can only be found from deep pedigree analyses, and sampling to measure the effective genome, where the zygosity can be overseen, the situation may be far more dire than one realizes.

When one sees comments like this, it is rather scary:

I really love Shikoku breed, I wouldn't mind keeping him/her intact if the dog is of good health, temperament and of breeding quality..

 

In a situation when the registration number is so low, and people refuses to outcross, every single dog is of breeding quality. Temperament can be restored through careful selective breeding. Recessives can be controlled with a good understanding of genetic drift and allele frequency and keeping disorders at bay may not be possible if the MHC diversity is already lost. The breed has already lost its reproductive fitness and it is a fast-track to hell if the spay-neuter mantra continue to be regurged. Gradually, polygenetic traits such as auto-immune disorders will be fixed, become a feature of the breed and normalized for the most hardcore gaurdians. It will be impossible to breed away from these disorders within such a narrow gene-pool. This is not the time to gripe about puppy-mills or backyard breeders. Gene losses cannot be recovered.

Now is time to stop the bleeding and to perform a triage. It is irresponsible to eliminate potential candidates by desexing them. Although not every dog should be bred, every dog should be treated as a genetic reserve. In an ideal world, every dog would have its genome sequenced and filed in a database to be matched with the best potential breeding partner. However we are still quite a bit away from this being a reality. In the absence of advanced genomic technology, with every castration and tube-tying, the breed takes a tremendous hit.

Some people are literally brain-washed by society. To be fair, they are not exactly brain-washed. The commenter means well, she believes in what she was told. How could they know better? The amount of information out there is paranormal and mind-bogging in which it is intimidating to absorb all the knowledge out there. To be able to synthesize and apply the knowledge is a daunting task in itself.

Over the last year, a new concept was learned: qualzucht [trans. torture-breeding]. It is a concept coined in Germany during the 1990s when animal husbandry started to rear its ugly head. In fact, in some countries, there are now laws for when breeders or an institute knowingly produce defective animals in the presence of better scientifically-documented alternatives.

When it is known that a genetically-bottlenecked breed is struggling, it is a form of qualzucht to not advocate keeping every dog intact. It is torture-breeding to continue a bloodline when the alternatives are effectively eliminated through ideologies. Considering it is unethical to desex a pet in Europe without medical reasons, it is clear North American  believers in the pedigreed world are being spoon-fed what it means to be a responsible breeder or a responsible owner without a clear understanding of population genetics.

Since breeders regard the Shikokus next to primitive and appear to be close to nature, they are believed to be natural and healthy. Due to shrinking population and hyper-selection for type, although people cannot see on the outside, internally, at a genetic molecular level, the dog is just as unnatural as the Bull Terrier, Neopoltian Mastiff, the English Bulldog and other breeds with phenotypical extremes. People interested in the Shikokus owe it to themselves to take agricultural science, quantitative genetics and conservation biology for the welfare of the breed.

There are five options for the Shikokus at this point: let go of the breed; outcross to restore reproductive fitness and open the studbooks to accept any unregistered individuals; treat every individual as sacred; start again from scratch; or bend over and prepare for even further symptoms of inbreeding depression. Time will tell if the dog has chosen a wise ally or not over the few decades or if the contract between the Shikokus and mankind will be revoked. The fallout is coming, and it is rather interesting to watch people patch the leak and to clean up the aftermath. Let this be a lesson for other dog breeds.

Demystifying Rare Phenotypes

 Genetics, Karelian Bear Dog, Tahltan Bear Dogs  5 Responses »
Oct 052011
 

Within the Swedish Vallhunds, the bobtail gene is well-documented. In fact, they are one of the more popular breeds used in genetic research for mapping out loci due to the cooperative nature of the breeders with thirst for wanting to understand more about their own dogs. Without the Vallhunds, we would not understand the interaction of the bobtail allele.

Now, it is true the Pembroke Corgis pioneered the research of the C189G mutation initially with Dr. Cattanach’s Boxer-Corgi project and amongst Norwegian breeders. However it is with the Swedish Cattle Dogs we understood it is an incomplete dominant, or better comprehensible by the public: semi-lethal due to observable decrease in litter sizes. Supposedly, homozygous are rejected from being implanted, so the pups we see today only carries one copy.

However with cross-breed spectrum results, we also understand the bobtail attribute of the Swedish Vallhund and Pembroke Corgi are not unique. It shouldn’t be surprising seeing the old guards understood the natural bobtail is a dominant trait. However, such frivolous traits are used to establish theoretical relationships between breeds. Over 23 breeds have been identified with having the short-tailed phenotype; and 17 to date are known to carry to the C189G mutation.

Table 1. Genotyping results of the T gene mutation (C189G) for 23 different breeds harboring the short-tail phenotype Total number of dogs Number of long-tail dogs Genotype at C189 Number of short-tail dogs Genotype at C189 17 breeds with C189G mutation Australian Shepherd 70 42 C/C 28 C/G Austrian Pinscher 2 1 C/C 1 C/G Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog 2 0 2 C/G Bourbonnais Pointer 25 16 C/C 9 C/G Brazilian Terrier 17 7 C/C 10 C/G Brittany Spaniel 18 4 C/C 14 C/G Croatian Sheepdog 3 1 C/C 2 C/G Danish/Swedish Farmdog 2 1 C/C 1 C/G Jack Russel Terrier 10 7 C/C 3 C/G Karelian Bear Dog 6 3 C/C 3 C/G Mudi 10 5 C/C 5 C/G Polish Lowland Sheepdog 28 10 C/C 18 C/G Pyrenean Shepherd 64 57 C/C 7 C/G Savoy Sheepdog 17 15 C/C 2 C/G Schipperke 12 4 C/C 8 C/G Spanish Waterdog 7 3 C/C 4 C/G Swedish Vallhund 22 6 C/C 16 C/G 6 breeds without C189G mutation Boston Terrier 4 0 C/C 4 C/C English Bulldog 5 0 C/C 5 C/C King Charles Spaniel 22 13 C/C 9 C/C Miniature Schnauzer 6 4 C/C 2 C/C Parson Russel Terrier 3 2 C/C 1 C/C Rottweiler 5 3 C/C 2 C/C

("Ancestral T-Box mutation is present in many, but not all, short-tailed dog breeds", 2009, 236-240)

There is a conspiracy theory going around circulated by Native American Indian Dog breeders, the Tahltan Bear Dogs of northern British Columbia and Yukon territories had been mongrelized and tainted by Karelian Bear Dog by Russian fur traders. It is easy to see why such a wild speculation was made. Courtesy of the Hunting Museum of Finland, click to enlarge:

Compare those Karelians to this Tahltan, “Chips” from 1935:

A chihuahua-sized dog with black coat and a half-tail.

However one shouldn’t give any credence to the breeders of Amerindian dogs suggesting the fur traders of Siberia contaminated their dogs with a Nordic strain. After all, some of them believe there was a second domestication event of dogs where the North American aboriginals tamed the coyote which has largely been debunked long ago; nevermind all the economical and logistical fallacies behind bringing a dog from Karelia to Alaska.

However the longer one studies the genetics of dogs and their phenotypical expressions, the more one realizes how common all of the alleles are throughout the entire world; and exactly how nebulous each individual breeds are. It is the frequency of those alleles which shape a breed or a strain.

Sources

Ancestral T-Box mutation is present in many, but not all, short-tailed dog breeds 2009. Journal of Heredity, 100(2): 236-240

Images

Karjalankarhukoira Töpö on talvella ulkona lasten kanssa. Museovirasto. http://suomenmuseotonline.fi/fi/kohde/Suomen+Mets%C3%A4stysmuseo/SMM+1552%3a72  (accessed May 5, 2011). [Suomen Metsästysmuseo]

Karjalankarhukoira. Museovirasto. http://suomenmuseotonline.fi/fi/kohde/Suomen+Mets%C3%A4stysmuseo/SMM+1552%3a132 (accessed May 5, 2011). [Image: Suomen Metsästysmuseo]

Karjalankarhukoira. Museovirasto. http://suomenmuseotonline.fi/fi/kohde/Suomen+Mets%C3%A4stysmuseo/SMM+1591%3a19 (accessed May 5, 2011). [Image: Suomen Metsästysmuseo]

Karjalankarhukoira. Museovirasto. http://suomenmuseotonline.fi/fi/kohde/Suomen+Mets%C3%A4stysmuseo/SMM+1591%3a89 (accessed May 5, 2011). [Image: Suomen Metsästysmuseo]

Dr. Karen Wonders. 2009. Tahltan First Nations. http://www.firstnations.eu/mining/tahltan.htm (accessed July 17, 2011). [Image: B.C. Archives, 1935]

 

Getting Down to the Basics

 Breeding, Closed Registry, Genetics and Health, Open Registry, Ponderings  No Responses »
Oct 032011
 

One of the criticisms surrounding the dog’s eye view of breeding stemming from an earlier post, “Re-framing”, is it  either paints them as social parasites or strips down their best assets to veneer. Both are the furthest from the truth.

In fact, the re-framed perceptive is not really from the dog’s point of view. No life-form has control over its own fate. The English Bulldog didn’t ask to be in the state it’s presently in. The Neapolitan Mastiff doesn’t desire to drown in its own folds. They are simply genetically programmed to be that way. It is more accurate to say it’s from the DNA’s point of view.

The cold hard truth is we are all vessels for our genes. All living things only exist as vehicles to replicate themselves. The problem is this implies genes are selfish. They are not; that’s anthromorphism. Thinking of genes as such leads to dangerous ideologies with unforeseen consequences.

Genes are not conscious. They don’t will themselves into existence. They are either there or they are not; and either those genes will succeed in replicating themselves or the collective fails to thrive. In no way can they predict dead-ends.

Let’s go back to the basics: physics is constantly struggling to reach an equilibrium; molecules are bound to the laws of physics; molecules attempt to stabilize themselves through chemical reactions; DNA are made up of chemicals; DNA replicates because it is a stable form for molecules to bond. Therefore, the final product is stable within its environment, and evolution is a force which allows the population to re-stabilize. In turn, artificial selection is a form of co-evolution.

To tie it back with the dogs: the English Bulldog only exists because its environment permits the current form. Saying the English Bulldog is meant to be tortured in order to be pampered is like saying cattle willingly go to the slaughter because their existence rests solely on cultivation. They don’t. It’s just how reality pans out.

It is also grasping at straws dogs are not aware of their own existence. It is like saying humans are not aware of their short-comings. If when we interact with others, our weak areas become obvious, then dogs are also aware of their limitations. If the English Bulldog could breathe, they would take it. However they know they cannot make things better, so they do the best in what they do– catering to their owners.

The best example of illustrating how dogs are aware of their limitations is how a pack of hounds are constructed for the purpose of chasing cougars or bears. Oftentimes, Airedale Terriers and Coonhounds or Plott Hounds are paired together. The job of the Hound is to keep track of the game in order to keep the pressure on the run and to bay. The Hound takes the backseat to the Terrier when the cat or the bear takes the final stand. It is the Terrier’s job to confuse their foe to prevent the end-game from being a massacre. The two works beautifully together making up for each others’ weaknesses.

The same can be said about many dogs and stability within their nichés: Border Collies are best tailored competing in sheep-trials; the English Shepherds inhabit small farms; the Saluki excels in coursing; the Curs are well-rounded for the non-affluent; and the English Bulldog are well-cared for under owners doting over them. If the individual are unable to fulfill their niché, they spill over into neighbouring niches. If related niches cannot be found, they cease to exist.

It’s why breeds are dynamic. It is safe to say most Border Collies are enrolled in a sport of some sort. Unlike their predecessors, the Finnish Spitz now specializes in treeing. Similarly, the sensitive nature of the Golden Retriever lends to their excellence as service dogs. There’s no shame in shift of purposes as it is what enables the dogs to continue their existence.

That being said, the gene-centric view explains many behaviours why dogs are the way they are in their coalition with mankind. However to fullly grasp the awesome power it habours, we first must look past our tendency to humanize the unconscious.

In fact,  the gene selection theory can be generalized. Dogs engage in pack dynamics because it divides the labour. They are altruistic; not because there is a hidden agenda where the individual self-benefits, but because it keeps the environment stable for them to thrive. The interdependence of one individual with another is for the whole of the species. Otherwise there is no foundation to build on.

With the genetic point of view in mind, it is pitiful none of us can truly ever shake off our perception. There is so much potential left untouched.

 Posted by at 4:00 pm

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]

 

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]

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