Do you breed ? - if not why not ?- I'll tell you why because you don't have the impetus to do so - breeding is hard, messy, sometimes heart breaking and always all consuming - I do it because I have a passion for my breed and all it's unique qualities THATS my impetus and no I'm not willing to deliberately breed those qualities away and then wait 30 years to get them back again !

...of course I'm not stopping you from breeding cross breeds if that's what you think is the ethical thing to do - just don't expect most pedigree dog breeders to do so !

Bijou you have taken this personally, it wasn't intended.

You'll tell me why????? I am a dog breeder! a pedigree dog breeder that believes HEALTH, minimising suffering and putting the needs of the dog (their wellbeing) before their perceived looks and characteristics for the benefits of humans is basic compassionate, common-sense!

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Lulu cavalier, MRI scanned 'clear' of syringomyelia grade 'A'
Current clear cardiologist heart certificate
Current clear opthamologist eye certificate for HC and MRD

Don't get me wrong - I understand why pedigree breeders wdo not want to cross breed unnecessarily - but when the health of their breed is at stake I don't see what the big deal is?

The LUA dallies are the obvious example - research showed that unlike any other breed, EVERY pedigree dalmatian has high levels of uric acid. This problem could not possibly be eradicated using only pedigree dalmatians. Bringing in a dog of another breed, with normal levels of uric acid, was the ONLY way to solve this problem.

No one denies that the first gen crosses were not dalmatians - of course they weren't. But by repeatedly backcrossing back to pure dallies they still very quickly (in the grand scheme of things) came back to pure dallies - only better (ie Normal!). The early mixed breed pups were not sold as pure dalmatians, nor as designer crossbreeds, and guess what? They haven't become some stupidly popular puppy farm mutt either.

I personally find it outrages that anyone would suggest these breeders were wrong, and that dalmatians should be kept "pure" rather than healthy!

Of course, crossbreeding produces crossbreeds - but surely in the long term, this would be well worth it for the greater good?

I appreciate that the HUA issue in dallies is a rare example, but I still maintain that certain other breeds could also benefit from a similar scheme.

Some dog breeds today are genetically less diverse than the giant panda! They simply do not have a wide enough gene pool to be able to effectively deal with health problems that exist. This problem is made worse in breeds where a very high number suffer from hereditrary disorders. Just one or two well planned crossbreedings, before breeding back to purebred dogs, would massively increase genetic diversity and help to reduce health problems without elimiating half the already tiny gene pool.

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"For all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world"

It may seem as if I'm taking it personally but I'm really not - I'm just fed up with the sheer impracticality of what so many 'instant experts' advise us to do and the hypocrisy thats involved- OF COURSE we all want to breed dogs that are as healthy as possible but should we be throwing the baby out with the bathwater whilst attempting to do so ? - if cross breeding is the only way forward then at the risk of sounding like a stuck record I'll say again that this will mean the end of most of the breeds we curently enjoy -

Pedigree dog breeding is by definition breeding within a closed gene pool - and not just for dogs but for EVERY other pedigree animal - those of you that disagree with this and tell us to cross breed are very welcome to put your money where your mouth is and have only mongrels or cross breeds - pedigree dog breeders will not deliberately throw away generations of their breeding in this way and lose the characteristics that make each breed so unique and special.

My breed is numerically small with a limited gene pool -however even with these constraints I only use fully health tested dogs with COI's of under 6% , I import and use Ai, my dogs live on average 12-14 years and are healthy, well constructed and unexaggerated as well as being unmistakingly typical of their breed -most importantly I know the history of the dogs in tehir pedgrees and know what to expect in terms of temperaments, size, coats, etc etc - if I'm doing it 'wrong' because i'm not willing to cross breed then I just give up !!


if the aim is increased genetic diversity then surely outcrossing would have to be repeated every 4-5th generation to maintain diversity- breeding for diversity is NOT the same as breeding to eliminate a specific health problem and would require a different kind of programme than that used by the Dally people ....and sure as night follows day if you repeatedly cross breed you will lose breed characteristics and subsequently individual breeds will be lost.

For the record I thought I would just re cap the total post as you seemed to only quote a small part.

good health should be part breed purity/

in the early days of my own breed the gwp without going into too much detail. MAJOR wilkinson got permision to mate his import bitch to ch blitz of longsutton a gsp and the offspring where allowed class 2 kc registration allowing two from the litter to be mated back to full gwp, as a result these dogs from memory can be seen in pedigrees as CHANG AND HELOISE. thier is no doubt this outcross helped the breed survive and thrive at that time .and the gsp and gwp are two seperate breeds although similiar and not merley a coat variant of each other

sorry I'm mising the significance of this ? - ( perhaps it's me having a senior moment though )

Yeah thats interesting. Are you talking her 4 generation pedigree? Please tell me how you know she doesnt go back on show lines even if its way back?
ohh and just because the dogs havent been shown, doesnt mean the dogs from that line have not come from previous dogs/lines who were shown.