I am pleased one of my Labs has the 'wrong tail' as, if I fear someone is about to steal him I can shout, 'don't bother, he is a CollieX'
Is the ability to swim well, steadiness around loud noise and retrieving ability tested in Australian show labs, Rachael?
All of this is tested in the UK show dog working certificate, but the next thing you'll say is that's too easy! I do see this in my everyday life, taking my show dog to gundog training....he probably will never achieve the standard required for the show working certificate - and neither would half the working line dogs I train alongside! I met a chap the other day, that spent 20 minutes rubbishing my show Lab, then told me the only fault his 'working' dog had was a fear of loud bangs and that was only because the dog had inherited this fear from his mother who was just the same!!! And I regularly watch people with working line dogs leave the introduction to shot sessions while my show line Lab yawns, bored (or tries to go jump on the person firing the gun, which I admit is probably a worse fault....). That is a sample of one show line dog though, as I'm the only one there - natch. My show line dog does leave most working line dogs shivering on the bank when it comes to swimming as he crashes through the ice just for fun...also if I'm being very fair, he is a keen but not fast swimmer - I think if he had a longer neck he would swim better. His neck is a little short and he would do better if his head was slightly more vertical out of the water. Steadiness has been a massive challenge, and I've worked my socks off on it (I also @heidrun wished I had listened better to the advice you gave me when Charlie was much younger ). My own show line dog is not steadier than the average working line dog I meet, not at all, but he is also very different from a lot of show line dogs in his chase drive generally.
No. But shows are not just about appearance - they are also about movement (while running), and to some degree temperament (as the dog has to be happy and confident in the ring and steady to being handled by the judge). Wouldn't bother me to see retrieving, swimming and calmness in the face of noise added to the test though or a demonstration of the above outside the show ring added as a requirement. I think that, at the least, breeders should be mindful of the characteristics I mentioned. My dog's breeder was and my dog is steady to noise, loves to swim (and has a proper water shedding coat) and retrieves all day (at Flyball competitions).
Does anyone have stats on the number of valid breeding Labs there are? At which point are all our Labs related, sharing the same grandparents for example? And at which point does this make the breed worse due to inbreeding?
@MF can't answer your question but did read in one of my course books - Dogs, A New Understanding of Canine origin, Behaviour and Evolution by Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger - some interesting thoughts on inbreeding. Whilst at a Seeing Eye meeting in New Jersey, R Coppinger was discussing in-breeding with a geneticist, John Pollak, from Cornell, who came up with formula to work out when inbreeding occurred. Their discussion started that if you have one founding sire, then in the first generation all will be siblings or half siblings. In the next generation, all will be inbred. If there are two unrelated founding sires then the third generation is inbred. So the formula goes, if the stud book is closed with 500 males, you get 10 good years of breeding if all males are used equally. If breeding begins to focus only "Champions" then inbreeding occurs quicker. If the books close on 500 males but every female is bred to that years champion, inbreeding occurs the following year. Interestingly he also argues that the elimination of dogs that exhibit retinal atrophy or hip dysplasia from breeding programs increases the inbreeding coefficient more quickly
Carol Beauchat runs online courses on breeding science through the Institute of Canine Biology if anyone would like to learn about all this stuff. There are facebook pages and a website for the ICB.
@MF you're welcome. It's quite interesting what my course covers through the essential and recommended reading.
@MaccieD thanks for your post, I'm going to look for that book. I always did think it's a bit scary how often and in how many Labs here and in the U.S. a certain stud dog shows up in the pedigree. I hope he was as perfect health wise as so many breeders seem to think he was conformation wise because he's in Oban's pedigree.
@Snowshoe the book may be available on amazon and it goes in and out of print. You do have to watch the price of it though, sometimes it's quite exorbitant. It's not a recently written book but lots to read and think about. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll have a look over here for you. I know what you mean about the use of some stud dogs. I can trace Juno's lines back to the first recognised chocolate male in the UK and he appears on both maternal and paternal lines.
@Snowshoe @MaccieD I was looking at Snowie's lines and I was shocked when I saw a particular dog show up all over the place! When I first thought of buying a Lab, I sent Snowie's pedigree line to a vet (in the family) and asked if he would assess the lines and let me know what he thought. He sent back an email saying all looked okay. At that stage I didn't quite know how to make out all the breed names (at that stage, it was all so confusing -- I am little more educated now on the topic!) and I didn't see the crisscrossing of genes. The dog that showed up all over the line is Sh Ch Sandylands Gad-About. I wonder how many on this forum also have him in their dog's genes?
Hi @MF - it is very common to see common ancestors in a pedigree. At some point, the number of ancestors for all pedigree dogs will converge onto just the dogs that were the foundation dogs for the breed or the dogs that registered when the registers were closed. Sandylands dogs were very popular over a long period, and most Labradors will have Sandylands ancestors. Here is some information: http://www.sandylands.net/history2.html If you want to know Snowie's Coefficient of Inbreeding, then you need to calculate this. Does the South African Kennel club have a tool to allow you to do that? Such a tool exists in the UK, it is here: http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/services/public/mateselect/Default.aspx You can type in any pedigree name and find the CoI of the dog, and even of the resulting puppies from a mating, or the results from dogs that lived a long time ago.
@MF When I get the opportunity I'll have a look to see if Gad-About appears in Juno's lines, it doesn't ring any bells though. I know when discussions have been around before Juno didn't appear to have any recent links with the UK dogs. She's a real European with a mix of several nationalities.
It's $18.48 used on Amazon.ca and $77.77 new. And only $17.95 new from Dogwise but that ships from the U.S. where the exchange rate and duty will be high, and on top of shipping. The books I bought for my Dognition course were available in Canada, shipped from Toronto, but still cheaper when I ordered them from the U.K., including shipping. Weird. The U.K. place doesn't have this one though. Think I will see if anyone I know has it and will let me borrow.
@Snowshoe This is the site I bought my copy from after a seller on Amazon still hadn't despatched after having my order for a week. I've bought several books from them with no problems and they ship worldwide and in multiple currencies. Just seen that there is another Coppinger book I may order...... https://www.bookdepository.com/Dogs/9780226115634
Well that's weird again. It was Book Depository I bought my Dognition books from and that is where I looked again. Must have done the search wrongly. Thank you. Must check the pets/animals sections of the local thrift stores too. I've picked up a couple of dog books for a few $ that way.
Rory has what is called, in some very old old lab conformation books I have "A Gay tail" due to its high carriage and curl. Its lovely it catches snow in it in bad weather and is more like a Dobermans tail. Love it! its so silly. He looks like a lemur travelling through a forest
