Tuesday, March 8, 2011

I don't get it

Okay, during lunch I read the latest on world news, maybe flip over and read today's funnies or try to get spoilers on a couple of my favorite shows. Read the current issue of several dogzines-pays to keep up with the goings ons in different breeds-never know how it might affect my breed or the the sport at some point. I also drift through different dog websites, blogs and such.

As for world news, well, I won't get into the details much but man, you wonder what people are thinking these days? "My people love me!" Name that dictator. Does he have such a delusional life that he can't or is it won't see what is happening outside of the happy little make believe land he's created?

The dog world is just like that. So many people have a delusion of what is right, what is wrong and that they have perfect dogs. Recently in browsing a few websites I've been seeing health clearance information. That's all well and good, but isn't our job as responsible breeders to explain health clearances and not just post them? Good, normal, clear----great to label but in many different breeds, those words can mean many different things within the context of the same health issue and it is misleading.

For many years when we were in collies, labels on eye issues were simply beyond confusing for the public. So much to the point that many breeders gave very unspecific explanations of what actually CEA(collie eye anomaly) is. 15 years ago words such as normal, go normal, clear, CEA 1, etc were used. Unfortunately that lead to miscommunication and lots of wrong information. CEA like PRA in cardigans is a simply recessive-you are either a noncarrier, carrier or affected. But what you see on websites is normal, clear, go normal, etc. That doesn't really tell you much on the actual status of a dog. Makes you wonder what a person is hiding or if they really know what the truth?

Same is happening in DM in cardigans and pems to an extent. I've seen a couple websites with information about dogs with test results as normal. Normal what? It's again simple-the dogs is a non carrier or the dog is a carrier or the dog is at risk(carries two sets of the genes responsible for the disease). Simple.

Or how about this one--a website states that the "breed" has few if no health issues. Their dogs are considered health and have not had any health issues in puppies produced. No health certification numbers or documents available. Yet a link to the "breeds" more formal information page shows multiple health issues, many of which can be handled with responsible breeding of dogs with proper genetic testing. So which is it? Health dogs or head in the sand? I'll be honest, this same "breed" is in the midst of some super serious changes right now. That's why the " " personally it's not a real breed, yet.

Why can't people be just state the truth? Has the norm now become less is more? I just don't get it.

Later gators....
C

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