The Functional Breeding Podcast

Kim Kavin is an award-winning freelance writer who is also passionate about better understanding where dogs come from in the United States. Her book, The Dog Merchants, is a fascinating read for anyone who wants a look at places few of us are able to go, such as a dog auction or a high volume kennel-based breeding operation. Kim and I talked about the ins and outs of the complex industry that has grown up around puppy production, including large scale breeding and rescue operations.

In this interview, the two of us are describing a system that is absolutely sub-optimal with regard to canine welfare. While we did discuss how some parts of the system may not be as abhorrent as they've been described elsewhere, I want to be clear that one of the goals of the Functional Dog Collaborative is to make change in exactly this area. So please do not confuse our descriptions of what is existing for our approval of it.

You can find Kim at kimkavin.com. In addition to her book The Dog Merchants, you may also enjoy checking out her book Little Boy Blue (also discussed briefly in this interview).

This week I'm talking to Daniel Mills, Professor of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine at the University of Lincoln and director of the University Animal Behaviour Clinic. Daniel is internationally recognized as an authority on companion animal behavior, cognition, and welfare. His lab studies, among other things, the association between untreated pain and behavior issues. I asked him to talk about his research and his insights into the challenges of assessing pain in dogs - and why it's so important to do so.

This week I'm talking with Dr. Cat Henstridge. Cat, who is a primary care veterinarian in the UK, has been on several TV series, including the Pets Factor. She writes for veterinary and non-veterinary publications, and is known as Cat the Vet to her many, many social media followers. Cat and I talked about the rise of unlicensed fertility clinics in the UK - why they have sprung up, what the problems with them are, and some thoughts about how many veterinarians interact with breeder clients.

You can follow Cat at catthevet.com, on Instagram and TikTok as cat_the_vet, and on Facebook as catthevet.

This week I'm talking to Dr Jane Ladlow. Jane is a veterinary surgeon who is widely known as an expert on BOAS, or brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome. BOAS is the umbrella disorder that covers a variety of different airflow obstructions in different flat-faced breeds such as the pug, French bulldog, and English bulldog. Jane developed the Respiratory Function Grading Scheme, a straightforward clinical exam which allows grading of a BOAS-effected dog. Jane works with the Kennel Club in the UK to promote this scheme, which is also being rolled out in other countries including the US. I was really pleased to get to talk to Jane about BOAS, her grading scheme, and what this means for breeding healthy brachycephalic dogs.

Today I'm talking with the researchers who recently published a paper that's been getting a lot of social media buzz. The paper's title is "The doodle dilemma: How the physical health of ‘Designer-crossbreed’ Cockapoo, Labradoodle and Cavapoo dogs’ compares to their purebred progenitor breeds." This interview was a big party featuring Gina Bryson, the first author on the paper, as well as two researchers from Royal Veterinary College, Dr Rowena Packer, and Dr Dan O'Neill, who has been a guest on the podcast before. Gina, Rowena, and Dan walked me through what the paper does and does not tell us about the health of some specific common crosses compared to the parent breeds, and also let me know about additional data that they collected that we'll be seeing in some future papers from the group.

A quick side note that they refer a few times to the RVC, which is the Royal Veterinary College, the institution where they work.

And another side note - I've started going by my middle name, Perry, because I like it better. My pronouns are still she/her. You'll hear Dan call me Perry a few times during this episode and I didn't want anyone to be confused by that. Jessica is still my legal and professional name - if it helps to contextualize, you can think of Perry as a nickname.

On with the episode!

This week you get just me (Jessica Perry Hekman) talking at you! I'm talking about the coefficient of inbreeding (COI), a measurement of genetic diversity that's commonly mentioned in discussions of individual and breed health. I talk about what it is, how to interpret it, how to get the measurement done for your own dog(s), why we care about it, and give the take-home messages from some papers with evidence for its importance in dog specifically. COI is not the only thing you should be breeding for, and it's rarely even the most important thing - but it's something we should keep in mind when we are working in closed gene pools.

NOTE: Oops, I said in the episode that the MDR1 mutation is recessive. It's not - it's incompletely dominant, meaning that dogs can be affected even with only one copy of the mutant allele. I apologize - please note the mistake as the correct information is important here.

• I mention some previous podcast episodes with related material - you can find them here:
  

The papers:

• https://functionalbreeding.org/the-impact-of-inbreeding-on-litter-size/ - Chu ET, Simpson MJ, Diehl K, Page RL, Sams AJ, Boyko AR. Inbreeding depression causes reduced fecundity in Golden Retrievers. Mammalian Genome. 2019 Jun 1;30(5):166-72. - "The least inbred dogs had an average litter size of 8 puppies, while the most inbred dogs had an average litter size of 6-7 puppies. On average, with each 10% increase in inbreeding, the litter size decreased by one puppy."

I will have new content for you all soon - but for now, enjoy one from the archives!

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Jane Lindquist is the founder and owner of Puppy Culture, a widely used educational resource for raising and socializing puppies. She herself breeds and competes with bull terriers. As it turns out, she is very thoughtful when it comes to how to apply science to the raising of puppies. We had a wide ranging conversation, at times nerdy, at times philosophical. You can learn more about Puppy Culture at www.puppyculture.com, and more about Jane's breeding program, Madcap Bull Terriers, at www.madcapbullterriers.com.

Find this episode's transcript at functionalbreeding.org/jane-lindquist-puppy-culture/

This episode I welcome back Mary Peaslee, MD, MPH, to talk about a breeder's perspective on all the advice Dr Dan O'Neill gave us in his recent episode on how to approach disorder testing. Mary works in population health and brings that perspective to her breeding practice. So what does all this stuff look like in the real world? How can breeders focus on the future health of the dog population they work with? What are some challenges they'll encounter? Mary has some great advice and perspective that I hope will help people think through their breeding goals and approaches.

You can learn more about Mary's breeding program here: https://englishshepherds.net and you can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mary.peaslee.9

Detailed summary: https://functionalbreeding.org/breeding-for-population-health/

We have a flipped episode this week with Sarah Stremming of Cog Dog Radio interviewing me. We're talking about the new paper out of the Dog Aging Project, "Lifetime Prevalence of Owner-Reported Medical Conditions in the 25 Most Common Dog Breeds in the Dog Aging Project Pack." There's been a lot of buzz on social media about this paper and we wanted to dig in to its findings. For those who saw our live Q&A about the paper, this interview covers very similar ground, although we go into some more detail. I'll include links to this study and others below, and if you want to ask questions about the paper, the Functional Breeding Facebook group is a great place to do it!

Forsyth, Kiersten K, et al. “Lifetime Prevalence of Owner-Reported Medical Conditions in the 25 Most Common Dog Breeds in the Dog Aging Project Pack.” Frontiers in Veterinary Science, vol. 10, 3 Nov. 2023.

• Original: https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2023.1140417

Do purebreds live longer?

• Yordy, J, et al. “Body size, inbreeding, and lifespan in domestic dogs”. Conserv. Genet. 21 (2020): 137-148. - https://functionalbreeding.org/inbreeding-depression-and-lifespan/ - “For a given body size category, mixed breed dogs lived on average 1.2 years longer than purebred ones.”

Increased inbreeding correlates to decreased lifespan

• Kraus C, et al. “How size and genetic diversity shape lifespan across breeds of purebred dogs”. GeroScience (2022). - https://functionalbreeding.org/size-genetic-diversity-lifespan/

Are there specific disorders of concern that are more common in purebreds?

• Bellumori, Thomas P., et al. "Prevalence of inherited disorders among mixed-breed and purebred dogs: 27,254 cases (1995–2010)." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 242.11 (2013): 1549-1555. - https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/242/11/javma.242.11.1549.xml - UC Davis, 24 heritable (genetic) disorders - “Purebred dogs were more likely to have 10 genetic disorders, including dilated cardiomyopathy, elbow dysplasia, cataracts, and hypothyroidism. Mixed-breed dogs had a greater probability of ruptured cranial cruciate ligament.”

There's a lot going on behind the scenes of the Functional Dog Collaborative and I have a lot of plans for upcoming podcast episodes. I also have had a bunch of people say they can't record this summer and so it may be a few weeks until I get the next episode out. So here's some stuff to tide you over - explanation of what's going on and what episode topics I have coming up! (If you want to suggest episode topics, or get a chance to have your questions asked during an interview, head over to join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/functionalbreeding.)