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J. Jeffrey Bragg |
What is a Canine Breed?
WHAT IS A BREED? To put the question more precisely,
what are the necessary conditions that enable us to say with conviction,
"this group of animals constitutes a distinct breed?"
In the cynological world, three separate approaches
combine to constitute canine breeds. Dogs are distinguished first by
ancestry, all of the individuals descending from a particular
founder group (and only from that group) being designated as a breed.
Next they are distinguished by purpose or utility, some breeds
existing for the purpose of hunting particular kinds of game, others for
the performance of particular tasks in co-operation with their human
masters, while yet others owe their existence simply to humankind's
desire for animal companionship. Finally dogs are distinguished by
typology, breed standards (whether written or unwritten) being
used to describe and to recognise dogs of specific size, physical build,
general appearance, shape of head, style of ears and tail, etc., which
are said to be of the same breed owing to their similarity in the
foregoing respects.
The preceding statements are both obvious and
known to all breeders and fanciers of the canine species. Nevertheless
a correct and full understanding of these simple truisms is vital to the
proper functioning of the entire canine fancy and to the health and
well-being of the animals which are the object of that fancy. It is my
purpose in this brief to elucidate the interrelationship of the above
three approaches, to demonstrate how distortions and misunderstandings
of that interrelationship now threaten the health of all of our dogs
and the very existence of the various canine breeds, and to propose
reforms which will restore both balanced breed identity and genetic
health to CKC breeds.
In order for canine breeds to fulfil their destinies
effectively, the three distinct axes along which breeds are distinguished
must have equal importance and consideration, otherwise serious problems
arise. Breeds cannot be distinguished by ancestry alone, by purpose alone,
or by typology alone. Unless these three vectors of breed identity
interrelate fully and co-operatively, the fulness of that identity is
missing or marred. Unfortunately, this full and co-operative interrelationship
is a rarity in our contemporary dog world. The criteria of ancestry are
applied rigidly and mechanically; the criteria of purpose and utility
are subordinated or not considered at all; the criteria of typology are
applied in a highly exaggerated, obsessive fashion. The interaction
of the three approaches is seldom considered and almost never is a
sustained effort made at the integration of the three.
The Origins of Dog Breeds
CANINE BREEDS come into existence in many different ways and their beginnings are
very often shrouded in obscurity. Let it not be thought that the three or
four hundred-odd dog breeds now extant are the only ones possible, or that
there cannot be any more truly new breeds. Such is the genetic plasticity
of the dog that there is no end to the possible unique variations of which
the species is capable. New breeds are born and old breeds die periodically.
The genetic transformation of the dog goes on ceaselessly, and for that
reason it is impossible that any breed should remain frozen, with all its
characteristics fixed and unchanging, for any appreciable length of time.
It must be realised that canine breeds are manmade, created by artificial
selection out of the endless diversity of the canine gene pool. Breeds must
not be confused with species or even subspecies, which occur naturally under
the influence of natural selection; dog breeds are only unstable manmade
varieties which would not survive unchanged in the natural world without human
management.
An important characteristic of breeds is that they are
created by breeders -- not by registries or protective organisations such as
The Canadian Kennel Club. The origin and course of a canine breed is in the
hands of its breeders, first, last and always. It is the business of cynological
associations to facilitate and support the work of dog breeders and not vice
versa. The purposes of the Animal Pedigree Act, under which CKC is incorporated,
are the promotion of breed improvement and the protection of those who breed
and purchase animals; such is the mandate of the Act and therefore of the Club
(Animal Pedigree Act, Section 3(a,b) ). All else is secondary.
Ordinarily a breed has already existed for an appreciable
length of time before it reaches the point of becoming a recognised breed served
by a registry. Nonetheless, the event of its "recognition" by a registry such as
CKC is always a crucial one in the history of a breed. As things now stand,
breed recognition is far more crucial (and ultimately damaging to the welfare
of the animals) than it need be or ought to be, but more of that anon. First let
us examine what is needed to start a new and unique canine breed.
FOUR ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS usually distinguish the origin in the genetic sense of a new breed (as opposed to the discovery, popularisation and "recognition" of, for example, an autochthonous breed which may have existed in a particular region for a long time without connection to formal cynological structures). The first and most crucial characteristic is the founder event, in which a finite number of individual canines is chosen to contribute genetic material to found a new and unique canine population. They may all be quite similar, or they may be widely divergent one from another (as when Bulldog and Mastiff specimens were used to create the Bullmastiff breed). What matters is that a finite and sometimes quite small number of individuals are selected from the existing canine population and set apart so that their genetic material alone forms the gene pool for the new breed. That is in fact the next characteristic: isolation. If the founder group continues to exchange genetic material at random with the general canine population, a new breed will not result. Without genetic isolation of the new founder group, the differentiation that creates a new breed cannot take place. The logical consequence of this isolation is the next characteristic: inbreeding. If the founder group is of small or moderate size, such inbreeding cannot help but occur. Even if the founder group should be quite large, ordinarily those who guide the breeding which creates the new breed will find it necessary at some stage to employ a strong degree of incest breeding or inbreeding, to facilitate the weeding-out of undesired characteristics and the fixation of desired traits. Particularly if individuals of widely divergent type and physique are involved, inbreeding will be required to set up a stable genome in which random variability is kept within limits defined by the breeders. The final essential factor is artificial selection, since inbreeding alone will not serve to fix type characteristics and to eliminate unwanted traits. The breeders must select among the individuals produced in early generations so that only those displaying the desired characteristics are allowed to produce subsequent generations. Without the four factors of the founder event, isolation, inbreeding and artificial selection, new breeds ordinarily do not come into existence. These four tools are used to define a new genome which, hopefully, contains only the traits desired by the creators of the new breed and is able to reproduce itself, with its distinguishing characteristics, to a fair degree of stability and consistency.
The Healthy Continuation of Breeds
PUREBRED DOGDOM is even now in serious trouble through a general failure to
distinguish between what is necessary to establish a breed and what is
desirable to continue that breed in perpetuity. Most registered breeds
are less than a century old qua registered breeds; many are but fifty
or sixty years old. Yet nearly all breeds now show levels of expression
of genetic defects that must be considered unacceptable. Over 500
distinct genetic defects have been catalogued in various breeds of
purebred dogs and more continue to come to light regularly. Some of
these have reached very high levels of incidence, creating problems for
breeders and dog owners, threatening the health of entire breed
populations. What is worse, in many instances organised control
programmes seem relatively ineffective. Although such programmes
successfully identify affected animals, in some cases individuals with
several generations of "clear" ancestry stubbornly continue to produce
affected stock. Let us try to examine what has gone wrong and what must
be done to correct the situation.
First of all it must be recognised that practices which
were essential for the differentiation and establishment of a new breed may
not necessarily be desirable for its continuation over time and may in
fact be prejudicial to a breed's continued existence over the long term.
Let us take isolation, for example. Without genetic
isolation, it would not be possible to control the genome of a new breed
still few in number. It takes time and careful breeding to fix a new
combination of characteristics; while that is being done, the regular addition
of new genetic material would generally be counterproductive. Yet in the long
term, if genetic isolation is maintained, it will necessarily lead to
degeneration through genetic drift. Similarly inbreeding, if it continues
to be practised after the need for it is past, will lead to a steadily
increasing state of homozygosity which may well destroy the genetic health
of the new breed. Even artificial selection, if carried on too strongly for
too long, can combine with isolation and inbreeding to reduce drastically
the effective breeding population, thus eroding the genetic health of the
breed.
The Fallacy of Breed Purity
THE PRESENT STRUCTURE of The Canadian Kennel Club's studbook registry (and others like it) embodies a fallacy which is directly responsible for the current genetic crisis in purebred dogs: the fallacy of breed purity. The ideal of the purified lineage is seen as an end in itself; accordingly, the studbook has been structured to reflect and to enforce that ideal rigidly and absolutely. This insistence on absolute breed purity arises from nineteenth-century notions of the "superior strain" which were supposedly exemplified by human aristocracies and thoroughbred horses; this same ideal, pushed to an illogical conclusion on the human plane, resulted in the now discredited "scientific racism" of the Nazis, who tried through selective human matings to breed an Aryan superman. The idea of the superior strain was that by "breeding the best to the best," employing sustained inbreeding and selection for "superior" qualities, one would develop a bloodline superior in every way to the unrefined, base stock which was the best that nature could produce. Naturally the purified line must then be preserved from dilution and debasement by base-born stock. There is no support for this kind of racism in the findings of modern genetics -- in fact, quite the opposite: population groups that are numerically limited and closed to new genetic inflow are now thought practically certain to be genetically inferior. Certainly towards the close of the nineteenth century it became embarrassingly obvious that the human aristocracies of Europe were degenerating rapidly under their own version of the "closed studbook."
THE IDEAL OF BREED PURITY as applied to purebred dogs has resulted at the end of the
twentieth century in a subculture that holds "purebred," registered animal stock
to be qualitatively superior to crossbred or "mongrel" stock. (The word "mongrel"
is in fact part of the vocabulary of racism, being applied equally to canine stock
of no recognisable breed, to animal crossbreeds, and to persons of mixed race!) In
this subculture -- presided over in Canada by the CKC -- it is thought to be of
paramount importance that purebred stock be maintained unsullied by any genetic
influence external to the supposedly superior strains that are produced by registered
breeding in a closed studbook from a small group of foundation stock. New members of
the CKC are required to subscribe to "Conditions of Membership" whereby they promise
to have nothing to do with "dogs which are not purebred" (with the exception of family
pets and boarders), "purebred" being specifically defined as referring only to dogs
"registered individually or eligible for registration in records of the CKC." Litters
which are made the subject of complaints that they may not be purebred are investigated
and in many cases ceremoniously withdrawn from the registry by resolution of the Club's
Board of Directors. Whether you like the word or not, this is effectively a special
variety of racism in concept and in practice.
Not all dog breeders are in agreement with the proposition that
breed purity is more important than anything else, particularly when they are confronted
with the problem of breeding dogs to demanding performance standards. Mostly such
dissenters are obliged to carry on their breeding without the benefit of centralised
pedigree record keeping and official certificates of registration -- for example, those
who breed "alaskan huskies," the high-performance racing sleddogs that dominate both
short and long-distance dogsled racing, keep pedigree records and maintain sophisticated
breeding programmes, but only as individual breeders. Yet sometimes even participants in
established purebred registries engage in a subtle kind of rebellion, quietly breeding
according to their own judgment in defiance of formal restrictions. Thus the Racing
Greyhound Club of Australia, when it recently subjected a broad sample of stock from
its registry to DNA testing, is rumoured to have discovered that many pedigrees failed
to match DNA ancestry findings and that considerable interbreed crossing had apparently
occurred. Similarly most Siberian Husky fanciers are aware that some CKC bloodlines may
have received surreptitious infusions of genetic material from non-purebreds or
from other breeds. In some circles one even gets the distinct impression that "it's
OK to crossbreed occasionally if you have a good reason for doing it and you manage
it in such a way that no embarrassingly obvious mongrels are produced" -- i.e.,
"just don't get caught!" Thus the sanctity of breed purity may sometimes be less
than inviolate in actual practice.
Population geneticists insist that limited populations under strong
artificial selection, subjected to high levels of incest breeding -- such as our own CKC
purebreds -- simply cannot maintain genetic viability and vigour in the long term without
the periodic introduction of new and unrelated genetic material. They are referring,
moreover, to true outcrossing, the introduction of stock unrelated to the breeding line,
not merely the use of a dog which might be from someone else's kennel but is derived from
exactly the same foundation stock some generations back.
The Demise of Typological Thinking
DNA RESEARCH has radically changed zoological concepts of species, subspecies and varieties.
In the nineteenth century and the first half of this century it was thought that a
species could be represented by a type specimen, that the vast majority of individuals
of a species were virtual photocopies of the type specimen, genetically speaking, and
that the genetic norm for most species was homozygous at most loci. In the mid-1960s
the credibility of that idea was shattered as electrophoresis protein studies revealed
extensive protein polymorphism that had not been previously suspected (Carson, 1983).
Today the concept of a species in a satisfactory state of genetic health invokes a state
of "dynamic balance" in which the species genome contains an array of genotypes with a
high degree of heterozygosity, with multiple alleles at many gene loci. Natural selection
is now thought to favour heterozygotes in a way which tends toward a high state of natural
variability, preserving the greatest variety of possibilities with which a species can
meet new environmental challenges. Conversely, species which have lost most of their
genetic diversity, often through accidental population "bottlenecks" similar to those
which regularly occur in purebred dogs, are held to be in high risk of extinction through
the loss of adaptive capability. (The most notorious example is the cheetah, which is
almost totally homozygous and is thought to have undergone at some time a bottleneck
reducing its population to a tiny handful of specimens.)
There is no reason why dog breeds also cannot be maintained in a
balanced state of heterozygosity, analogous to that of healthy wild animal species, if
typological thinking in the dog fancy could somehow be replaced (or at least tempered)
with population thinking. Fanciers will generally admit that no dog conforms perfectly
to its breed standard. Thus the concept of the perfect type specimen, to which an entire
breed ought to conform as closely as possible, is really as foreign to dog breeds as it
is to animal species in the wild.
THE FANATICAL PURSUIT of breed type to the exclusion of other more important factors (more important to the dog, to his owner, and to his veterinarian) has led to a distinctly unhealthy situation in most breeds. Since the majority of breeders within CKC seem to direct their efforts toward the production of a winning exhibition specimen, and since many breeders therefore breed their females to the males that do the most winning at dog shows, a situation has arisen in which continued effort to produce show winners leads consistently to greater and greater exaggerations of "type," that being the factor most susceptible to the off-the-cuff three-minute analysis of the breed ring. It is an accepted fact that strong incest breeding is the fastest route to this kind of "success"; here is one successful show breeder's recipe for "excellence" (de Boer and de Boer, DOGS in Canada, April 1994):
"My approach would be to identify an outstanding, dominant stud dog. Let's call him 'Shadrack.' To improve the odds, I'd buy or lease three bitches whose grandsire on the dam's side was the same as Shadrack's sire. Let's call the grandsire 'Fashion Hint.' I would breed the Fashion Hint bitches to Shadrack.
"Assume, in this first generation, that I get three nice bitches. For the second generation, I'd breed them to a half-brother of these three bitches (Shadrack's son, also a dominant sire). For the third generation, several 'mix and match' options include going back to Fashion Hint or Shadrack. I could also do brother-to-sister or father-to-daughter breeding."
Thus the quest for more and more refined breed type leads directly to a state of advanced homozygosity, rising inbreeding coefficient, low effective breeding population and consequent impoverishment of the gene pool in most CKC breeds, through rampant uncontrolled incest breeding.
THE SHOW RING has also been largely responsible for the decline of breed purpose, working ability and temperament in a great many breeds, notably sporting breeds, herding breeds and sleddog breeds. The quick and easy gratification of blue ribbons and gilt trophies all too readily supplants the hard work necessary to preserve and advance canine working abilities. If our dog breeds are to conform to the ideal of "a sound mind in a sound body" (as advocated by the proponents of the Advanced Registry), the fancy must find some way of ensuring that less dog-breeding takes place along the lines of least resistance and cheap gratification, so that greater attention is paid to working characteristics, temperament and trainability. A balanced outlook on breed identity must be restored by integrating canine function with the ideals of conformation, beauty and "type." All kinds of dogs, toy breeds not excepted, can perform useful functions and respond to training. Those aspects of the fancy should be accorded an importance at least fully equal to that of type and conformation instead of being regarded as merely optional. For example, breeding and exhibition of utility breeds such as gundogs and sleddogs merely for sale as pets and for dog shows, with no effort made to maintain and advance their working capabilities, is an obvious abuse which must lead inevitably to mental and physical degeneracy in those breeds.
Abandoning Natural Selection
THE BREEDER of domestic stock often assumes that he has abandoned the realm of natural selection and that only artificial selection plays a significant role in his breeding programme. Nothing could be further from the truth. The breeder may attempt to abandon natural selection; natural selection, however, will not abandon his stock. As one geneticist puts it:
. . . Man-imposed characteristics, however, like the flower colours and forms selected by the plant breeder, usually do not perturb the deep-set genetic variability systems of the species. Most such changes are reversible when a less restricted gene pool is restored. The 'balance' system appears to be retained by natural selection, which, perhaps paradoxically, pervades most systems of artificial selection.
--Hampton L. Carson, The Genetics of the Founder Effect, 1983
Those who attempt to set aside the balanced genomes arrived at by
natural selection must struggle thereafter to attain and to maintain fitness in
their stock. There is more to this than mouthing platitudes about "soundness."
Artificial selection alone, such as that used to produce winning exhibition dogs,
involves breeding in a way which flagrantly disregards most of the gene loci in
the canine genome. Since genes assort in groups on chromosomes (a phenomenon known
as "linkage"), inbreeding and selection for desired traits of superficial appearance
unavoidably affect many other genes which are inadvertently selected and often fixed
in a homozygous state in total ignorance of what is happening. This may be a major
factor in the current prevalence of genetic diseases. Thus natural selection, baulked
for a season by artificial selection, high-level nutrition, and advanced veterinary
care, reasserts its primacy at a deeper and more serious level when the new genome as
set up by the breeder proves flawed through genetic unsoundness, so that healthy and
hardy animals can no longer be produced, however typey and attractive to the eyes of
the judges the result may be.
Declining vigour caused by the inadvertent fixation of sublethal and subvital alleles will not be made up for by breed points. Fitness criteria may not be replaced with impunity by aesthetic criteria. The animal's environment is the ultimate arbiter of its fitness and will not be denied its say. You may vaccinate the dog and dose him with antibiotics, feed him with vitamins and minerals as you like, enclose him in a sterile pathogen-free laboratory environment if it comes to that! Still natural selection may not be avoided; it only emerges at a deeper level. In a sense the dog's environment includes his own physical body; if the genes which blueprint his physiology are flawed, then the dog is doomed regardless of his beauty and classic breed type. The truth is that the "superior strain" cannot be produced by manmade breeding programmes and artificial selection; the breeder's decisions are subject to nature's veto at all times.
WITH WHAT, THEN, will the breeder replace natural selection? If he replaces it with profit,
the degeneracy of his stock will in the end put him out of business as veterinary costs
and death eat up his profit margin. If he replaces it with beauty contests, in the end
his beautiful contest winners will engender weaklings and degenerates. If he replaces
with screening programmes for the "elimination of genetic defects," in the end his
stock will succumb to inbreeding depression as bitches fail to whelp naturally and
puppies die in the nest. If he replaces it with veterinary care, in the end his stock
will die prematurely of incurable cancer, or the young will fall prey to viral diseases
despite repeated polyvalent vaccinations. If he replaces it with work and austerity,
his stock may endure awhile longer, but in the end it will turn out to be afflicted
with genetic ills that slipped through his demanding programme, or its performance
will mysteriously decline as the inbreeding coefficient creeps upward. In the end,
natural selection cannot truly be replaced with artificial criteria. The breeder must
find a way to work with natural selection, within the framework of what is now known
about the biological operation of the natural world. We in the canine fancy must begin
to take lessons from wildlife biologists, from evolutionary biologists, from population
geneticists.
In our quest for breed purity, the superior strain, and classic type,
we have made a sad mess of our dogs -- with unhappy, neurotic temperaments, epilepsy,
blindness, deafness, immune system weakness, skin diseases, blood disorders, endocrine
system malfunctions, crippling bone disorders, deliberate deformity, and often even the
inability to reproduce their kind without breeder and veterinary intervention. How
clever we have been!
Can we not now take a clear-sighted view, as the millennium turns
slowly over, of what we have done -- of our own pitifully-flawed creation in our world
of purebred dogs and, like mature, intelligent people, clear away the mess and try to
do better? Can we not learn from bad experience? If we would be truly clever, we
might attempt to imitate more closely the methods of nature, to work within the natural
system, albeit for our own ends. That would indeed be clever. I think that that is now
possible, if we would but step outside our own incestuous little purebred world and
learn something of what people working in other zoological fields of endeavour have
already learnt.
A Century of Nineteenth-Century Dog Breeding
HOW, THEN, may we set about correcting the accumulated errors of over a century of what we might call nineteenth-century dog breeding? First of all it might be wise to attempt a short-list cataloguing the errors and abuses of which we are aware, the areas known to be deficient in one way or another.
• Dog shows must come high on the list. They began as an arena for the evaluation of breeding stock, they continued in the form of the "bench show" as a public showcase for purebred dogs. Both functions are now ill-served if not virtually abandoned. Championship shows are now just that, mills for the production of Champions, Best in Show and Group winners, little more. They contribute almost nothing to the true welfare of dog breeds; they have few lasting positive values to offer breeders, only ephemeral fads and fashions.
• Breed purpose and the cultivation of canine utility have a low status in the fancy, compared to what one author called "the glitz and hype of the show world." Those who concern themselves with the working ability of their dogs exist mostly in ghettos where little communication takes place with other branches of the fancy.
• Obedience work, begun as a way of initiating dog owners into the fascination and technique of training one's pet to be a pleasant, well-behaved companion, has become largely ritualised and sterile. The pursuit of "Club 200" (the perfect point score) has become an obsession. Intelligent and useful training on the owner's part, intelligent obedience on the dog's part, are now beside the point. What matters all too frequently now is the minutely-perfect performance of a set ritual. Here again we find a canine ghetto.
• The worship and exaggeration of type, as already noted, is responsible for a multitude of ills.
• Modern registries based on a rigidly-closed studbook are throttling the genetic health of all registered dog breeds. Genetic impoverishment is now a real and present threat. Many breeds now bear a genetic load of defects which has grown totally unmanageable as their respective gene pools have become more and more narrow through imprudent breeding and selection practices.
• Incest breeding, once a convenient tool for the rapid fixation of type in newly-registered breeds, has become virtually standard practice for those who seek success in dog breeding. The net effect has been the decimation of gene pools, widespread homozygosity and the unintended fixation of unknown scores, hundreds or thousands of alleles, many of which are proving to be harmful or lethal to the animals that bear them.
• The CKC, born in the height of the Victorian era, seems to cling to cumbersome structures, making it difficult for the Club to respond in a timely fashion to external challenges or internal needs. The entire By-Law and Amendment structure could do with modernisation. Many members feel there is little justification for such practices (for example) as the three-year member apprenticeship proviso, under which new members (or old ones who for whatever reason have let their membership lapse for a year or more) are completely disenfranchised for anywhere from three to five-plus years (inasmuch as elections and referenda are triennial), costing the Club dearly in lost members and wasted talent. Many members also feel that Board of Directors initiatives are frequently arbitrary and undertaken hastily with insufficient grass-roots consultation, while initiatives from the general membership must go through a slow and cumbersome multi-stage routine before they can be acted upon. One feels a general atmosphere within the Club of elitism and ultra-conservatism, as if those in power felt that only they themselves, the "old hands," knew what is good for purebred dogs and the fancy, and that newer members should not be entrusted with the franchise.
• Breed clubs seem to possess little real power to represent breeders or their breeds effectively. Special measures which they may feel essential for the health, development, and protection of the breeds whose breeders they represent must be put through the centralist CKC system and approved by the Board before they become effective; often such measures have little chance of approval because they are felt to conflict with the rigid all-breed norms of the Club. Since breed clubs have relatively little real power, they often tend to be less than fully representative of all breeders of a particular breed. Frequently they are more or less run by cliques; they waste much time and effort in wrangling and personalities, being perhaps inadequately supervised and not taken terribly seriously.
• Breeders, as well, are sometimes far from free to make their own responsible decisions for the best interests of their own dogs and bloodlines, being closely constrained by CKC By-laws and by the Animal Pedigree Act. Little discretion is given them regarding matters such as the withholding of registration papers, delaying registration of stock until it reaches physical maturity, the introduction of new genetic material when in their judgment it is needed for genetic health, etc.
MANY OF THE ABUSES and deficiencies not rooted in outmoded attitudes such as racism and elitism arise from misunderstandings of genetic realities. Let us now examine briefly a few points of up-to-date genetic theory as they relate to purebred dog populations.
Continue to read Part Two: Lessons from Population Genetics