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Date Posted: 07:39:04 03/22/10 Mon
Author: Norman Epstein
Subject: Re: Why either or?
In reply to: Jenny W 's message, "Why either or?" on 01:28:17 03/22/10 Mon

Then if I understand you those farmers were breeding dogs with medical issues not because they were irresponsible but they just weren’t aware of them “at that time”, which is for the most part IYO why we find them in the numbers we find them today. That said I do agree with you in that these medical issues didn’t “come out of thin air” but I don’t agree with you that they were there because of ignorance of the breeders and because of that they were always inherent in our breed. No set of health traits or characteristics will remain intact unless they are aggressively selected for on an ongoing time frame and once this breed was, by the preponderance of its breeders, first selected because of how close to a standard it was, another selection or deselection process began to take place and is IMO the reason for the medical issues we see today.

To your point that because of limited medical test available, a breeder then couldn’t tell if the dog would suffer a future debilitating orthopedic problem hence sub-standard dogs were bred and thus helped create these problems. Of course breeders could tell which dog had a propensity for orthopedic issues and which didn’t. Your contention is the dog because of a high pain threshold or work ethic could hide health concerns from its handler/breeder. I agree they might hide them for a short period of time but if that dog was worked every day or almost every day they would, to a discerning eye become very evident. Maybe not that day but over a period of time that dog would be stiff in the morning after its work or start to have trouble turning quickly as it once did or jumping as high as it use to, while the rest of the pack was not hindered by this same amount of work. For those reasons no dog IMO should be bred unless that dog’s health has been so validated.

I agree with you that both methods of quantifying health are preferred but given one method I would choose, hard work or strenuous testing on an ongoing time frame every time over just x-rays. X-rays alone, for a working breed, should be used only to confirm health that has already been validated by function over a long timeframe. Medical tests alone should never be used to confirm health for the simple reason, they can’t. A hip x-ray only confirms two correct on incorrect joints. There is so much more to correct orthopedic health than clear hips and elbows and that is the reason that many dogs with clear x-rays break down.

Moreover I agree that correct conformation is important but given the high appraisal scores given to unbalanced over boned Boerboels with legs that are necessarily bowed to accommodate a chest that a gorilla would be proud of and heads that look more like an anvil than a dogs head and females whose body types do not distinguish them from males, one must seriously question what exactly do our judges regard as correct conformation.
I leave you with this no pure breed selected first for how close to it is to their standard, whether x-rayed or not, is as healthy or as viable as its working counterpart, whether it is x-rayed or not.

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