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Breed Purity
and the Seppala Siberian Sleddog
Re
breed purity: is it present in the Seppala Siberian Sleddog? Yes
and no. Is it obtainable within a vibrant and diverse genetic base?
Yes, it is.
How so? How and where is it present?
How can it be maintained with genetic diversity and a lower
inbreeding coefficient? How and where is it not present?
Breed purity is possible, in fact it is
essential, but we need to get our thinking out of the present
institutionalized box. The Siberian sleddog race is a far greater
genome then we have considered heretofore. Within that greater genome
there is a real purity of breed and a genetic diversity sorely
lacking in North America.
Breed 'purity' is present within the
Seppala strain Siberian Husky in North America in very small numbers,
which possess a high COI (Coefficient of Inbreeding). Notably the
population bred by Jeffrey Bragg and Isa Boucher in Whitehorse, YT,
Canada, together with some individual dogs within the Continental
Kennel Club Registry, mostly with the ISSSC and a few yet with
kennels affiliated with the SHCA and the AKC.
Among the population within the ISSSC (International Seppala Siberian Sleddog Club) it is being diluted through successive outcrosses to other strains, with the outcrosses passing on genetics which are not part of the native Siberian Husky genome. The level of breed purity within the ISSSC population is being reduced with each input of the outcross dogs to the population. Continued use of percentage Seppala Siberian dogs in each generation will continually introduce non-Siberian Husky genes into the population through that percentage of non-Siberian genetics in each crossed generation. Rather than husband the Siberian genetics within the population, it will be diluted in each generation. Theoretically it could be possible in as few as ten generations to produce 'Siberians' without any Siberian genes at all.
The Yakutia
Laika or Siberian Husky is a group of types, 'Landraces,' spread over
an area as large as the continental United States. In genetic terms
Landraces are regional types that will breed true -- native breeds,
to state it in other terms. Some types are distinctly different from
others; our North American Siberian is from a few of the Landraces
picked from the early 1900s importations, but not from all of the
available Landraces present in Yakutia (Siberia). The Samoyed is one
Landrace from the Nenet Peninsula area which is quite different from
the Yakutia Laika. There were and are others.
If there is a 'breed purity' of the
Seppala Siberian Sleddog it is to the native types of Yakutia Laika
-- the Landraces of the early 1900s imports. Ill-advised
crossbreeding to non-northern type dogs will within a few generations
produce a very different strain of dog with little to none of the
present Seppala Siberian Sleddog type and characteristics.
The Seppala Siberian Sleddog is a
strain singled out and bred on which has retained the work ethic and
versatility of its progenitors in Yakutia. That versatility is
being restricted in the ISSSC breeding with narrow selection for a
limited sprint dog. This to me is ill-advised in the extreme.
The one clear path to maintain the work ethic of the Seppala Siberian
Sleddog, and to retain the characteristics of the Seppala as a
versatile working dog, is to breed within the genome it came from in
sufficient numbers to reduce the COI and to retain its distinctive
breed or Landrace characteristics.
In cross-straining back to the Yakutia
types we are maintaining breed purity in the strictest sense while
reducing the COI. That is a real breed purity worth going for. To see
the Seppala as a pure breed to be maintained in a closed gene pool
within its own population within North America is to greatly limit
the breed, in both its capabilities and its future. As the COI
further increases the breed's hardiness, even its vitality and
viability are further decreased.
It is obvious
that breed expansion of the Seppala Siberian Sleddog could be
achieved in the same way that was done with the AKC and CKC show
Siberians (with their inherent ingrained genetic defects) -- it is
just a numbers game. Population genetics shows that an expansion of
numbers among a limited genetic base merely projects the same genes
and gene frequencies onto a larger population model, with the
defective genes represented proportionately in the larger population
as they were in the limited population.
However, such a path is
ill-advised, as it simply projects the present high COI onto a larger
population base. What is both feasible and logical is to go back to
the source in Siberia. That would place real emphasis on breed purity
and maintaining genetic diversity within the Siberian sleddog
genome.
There are, as
I write today, healthy populations of native Landraces throughout
Yakutia among the tribal people, sleddogs that are distinctly of the
types from which the imports to North America of the early 1900s were
made. This is a fact, despite misinformation being bandied about by
scoffers in the ISSSC. It is unfortunate that they persist in being
part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
If Leonhard Seppala were alive and
breeding sleddogs today I am sure he would have made use of any
number of imports. That was exactly what was done in 1930 with the
import of Tserko and Kree Vanka. I think that an outcross to a
Russian import should be done about every 4th or 5th generation. In
any pedigree there should be at least two great-grandparents that are
Yakutia Laika imports.
This will reduce the COI, and maintain
the Siberian genome. The exact frequency of import breeding to
maintain breed type, characteristics and genetic diversity is a
matter to be pursued through test matings and testing of the progeny
along each generation to determine the optimal outcrossing of
strains.
Breed purity
is achievable and needed, but we must get our thinking out of that
institutionalized box. We need to look closely at what we have and
seek out how to maintain and preserve the breed characteristics that
we prize while reducing the inbreeding.
The present paths followed by the
ISSSC, the SHCA, the AKC and Canadian Kennel Club are short sighted
in the extreme. They carry the seeds of their own strains'
self-destruction, which they have planted and now nurture in their
ill-advised indiscriminate outcrossing (in the case of the ISSSC) and
in the closed studbooks of the American and Canadian Kennel Clubs.
Neither path is correct, because neither one can successfully reduce
the COI while maintaining the original Siberian genome.
If the Seppala Siberian Sleddog
as we know it today is to be still with us even in twenty years as a
genetically viable versatile working northern-type sleddog, it will
depend on choices that we make today. Will we dilute its
type with non-northern sleddog breedings or further inbreeding within
a closed stud book, or will we strengthen the type and
characteristics that we now have with selected breedings to its
ancestral Landrace and maintain or even increase its genetic
diversity within a healthy Siberian sleddog genome?
I think the best choice for the welfare
of the breed is self-evident.
=====
Jake Levi
Kennel Yakutia Laika
Seppala Siberian Sleddogs
email: jlevi_us@yahoo.com
Previous Articles:
Can't Get No Satisfaction? (How to get the most fun out of dogsledding...)"Breed the Best to the Best" (Getting a good start in sleddog sport...)
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Whitehorse, YT
Canada Y1A 6R1
email: jjeffrey@seppalasleddogs.com
