Siberia Imports Prohibited!
FOR THE LAST THIRTY OR FORTY YEARS in the history of the purebred dog fancy, The Canadian Kennel Club, the American Kennel Club and most other major registries have operated under a system in which their stud book registries are permanently closed. Originally this was not the case. For many decades it was possible to register animals that had no known pedigree or registration documents; they could be inspected by a knowledgeable person (often a licensed dog show judge) and entered in the stud book of an existing breed on that person's declaration that the animal inspected appeared to be a good specimen of the breed in question. That practice has long since been discontinued.
TODAY THERE IS no provision at all for fresh genetic input in purebred
dog breeds sponsored by the Canadian Kennel Club, though finally the
American Kennel Club has begun to allow limited re-opening of its stud
books by the request of individual breed clubs. Many if not most popular
breeds' registries were founded from sixty to one hundred years ago.
Quite often the breed foundation involved only amounted to a small handful
of parental generation animals, sometimes closely related or even all from
one kennel; in other cases the original diversity of bloodlines has undergone
attrition due to factors such as viral disease, war, or the popularity of
certain winning show bloodlines.
In the case of the AKC/CKC
Siberian Husky, for example, all of the dogs registered worldwide today
appear to be descended from around a dozen foundation animals. Even
that figure is misleadingly large, for as a practical matter five to seven
ancestors in the 1930s account for well over ninety percent of pedigree
lines for almost any given registered Siberian.
The CKC refuse to
accept a dog into their stud books that cannot be proved to have a
three-generation pedigree that consists exclusively of registered
animals of the breed in question. This was demonstrated in the mid
1990s when fruitless attempts were made to register Siberians from
Russia, bred from Chukotkan village stock. At that time a motion was
passed by the CKC Board that might have allowed the acceptance of
fourth-generation backcross descendants of such imports,
but no time frame for the measure was specified, so in the end nothing was
done to implement it. For many years Saluki
fanciers, too, argued in vain for acceptance of "desert-bred"
Salukis obtained directly from Saudi Arabia where that breed
originated; the desert-bred dogs have won only limited entry into AKC's
registry under stringent conditions.
THIS SITUATION will cause anyone trained in the principles of population
genetics to shake her head in despair! Geneticists realise that
limited populations cannot remain healthy and hardy indefinitely without
periodic fresh genetic input, particularly when inbreeding and artificial
election are also significant factors.
Many fanciers of purebred dogs are
actually proud of this situation. They claim that the closed-studbook
guarantee of "breed purity" is the most meaningful aspect of the
purebred dog system. One well-known racing Siberian Husky fancier
wrote in 1995:
"AKC registered Siberians are a closed gene pool and must stay that way. If we are not committed to the purity and integrity of our closed breed, we should can the whole thing and breed alaskans."
One can only describe this attitude as racist! When "purity and integrity" of a "closed breed" are valued more highly than hardiness and genetic health, what hope can there be, over the long term, for the survival of that breed? Already we have certain purebred registered breeds the majority of whose members cannot reproduce naturally, without artificial insemination and caesarean-section births. In some breeds, a majority of the dogs will suffer hip displasia, osteochondritis, or arthritis by the age of six or eight years. In others, blood defects or severe ophthalmic disease are widespread throughout breed populations. What is the value to these animals or to their owners of this sort of "purity"?
THE CLOSED STUDBOOK system is subject to what geneticists call "founder
effect." This, simply put, means that a breed population will reflect the
genetic input of the limited group that contributed to its breed foundation.
Thus if one or more founders out of a group of ten carry a recessive
"defect" gene normally found in only one in ten thousand dogs selected at
random, the resulting new breed can easily have a ten percent or greater
incidence of that defect, rare though it might be in the overall species
population.
Founder effect is greatly intensified
by the relentless inbreeding inherent in the closed studbook system. So
is "genetic drift," the process by which genes are gradually either
lost or fixed as homozygotes in small breeding populations, causing a
gradual, continuous loss of genetic diversity in a closed population.
These fatal genetic flaws are inherent in the present
breed-purity/closed-studbook system so rigidly enforced by major
registries; no amount of screening in the naïve hope of "eliminating
genetic defects" can compensate for that
fundamental defiance of the principles of healthy population breeding.
The awful truth is that the registry system used in the big all-breed
kennel clubs guarantees that genetic disease will be an ongoing
problem in most purebred dog breeds.
ANY BREED that is taken seriously as a practical working breed, any breed whose breeders are seriously concerned with genetic health and species soundness, simply cannot remain part of a closed studbook system indefinitely. Yet most so-called working breeds in AKC and CKC registries have now been in a closed system for many decades and scores of canine generations. Many of them, too, have lost all credibility as working breeds with those who really need a useful dog rather than a hothouse flower or a beauty contestant.
THE SEPPALA SIBERIAN SLEDDOG PROJECT and its sponsoring animal pedigree association, The Working Canine Association of Canada, have renounced the closed studbook concept in favour of a breeding and registry system designed to foster controlled new gene inflow, dynamic balance of genetic diversity, and increased genetic health. We are proud to be breaking new ground as a pilot project for the restoration of genetic health in purebred dogs.
