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General

Featured Entries

COVID-19 - a novel experience for dogs and people

Sources of accurate and relevant COVID-19 information for your dog, your puppies and you. In the face of the great uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and its impact on pets and pet owners, many veterinary and regulatory organizations have been providing excellent information and advice, as have kennel and breed organizations.  It is important to remember that recommendations and restrictions vary depending on location and owners need to access and follow local recommendations, especially as t

Engaging breed club members: Why is it such a challenge?

Why is it so hard to engage breeders in breed club health initiatives? In September I had the pleasure of making a presentation to the Breath Health Coordinators of The Kennel Club, in the UK:  I asked them to share with me their biggest challenge relative to their work on the health of their breeds and with breed clubs.  Many said their greatest difficulty was getting members of breed clubs to engage actively in health-related efforts, specifically in sharing accurate data on the occurren

Welfare Consultations to Improve Pet Wellbeing and Generate Revenue

Improving animal welfare is the basis of veterinary medicine. However, improving animal welfare can oftentimes be costly. A new consultation structure, PetWise MOTs, created by the UK’s leading veterinary charity, PDSA, is a step to overcoming these obstacles. PetWise MOTs can be used to improve pet welfare and generate additional revenue for practices.    A review of the UK’s Animal Welfare Act in 2010 placed additional emphasis on veterinary involvement in promoting better pet welfar

Breed Standards-Part or All of the Problem?

Veterinary school has started back up again but my interest in tough questions pertaining to the health and welfare of breeding dogs still remain...   Deleterious traits exist in mixed breed, purebred, pedigree, and unknown origin dogs. Often with pedigree dogs, breed standards are frequently blamed for the existence of deleterious traits in breeding dogs.   As this Wall Street Journal video states, there are traits of certain breeds, such as the bulldog, that lead to p

Resources for Finding the Right Canine Match

People often are enamored and proud of the close relationship they share with their pet. The video below features interviews with pet owners and shows the close bond humans have with various animals.    However, pet ownership comes with responsibility and people should thoughtfully consider their options before getting a pet. B4UGETAPET, created by the University of Guelph, encourages people to do research before acquiring a cat or dog to find a best fit.    Initial questions

Dr. Paul McGreevy and the Complexities of Animal Welfare

On July 14th, 2016, I had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Paul McGreevy, BVSc, PhD, University of Sydney professor, researcher, veterinary specialist in behavioral medicine and expert in companion animal welfare. The complex issues affecting the welfare and behavior of purebred dogs is one area in which Dr. McGreevy focuses his research. Below are some of the topics that we discussed and an example is provided to illustrate each point.   1.    The benefits of health practices differ

Head Shape and Hair Whorls—Can They Influence Behavior?

In reading more about dog behavior for my project, characteristics such as head shape of dogs and how it can relate to behavior has made me think—are there other physical characteristics that we could look at to make inferences about an animal’s behavior?    Dr. Paul McGreevy and others have published articles on how skull characteristics may be related to behavior. In a recently published article, researchers looked at various physical characteristics, including head shape, and correl

Veterinary Welfare Education in the United States

Welfare education is on the rise and there is a growing number of veterinary students with an interest in animal welfare. Some schools have taken notice and have either integrated animal welfare throughout their curriculum or have individual classes to educate students on the topic.    In the United States there are opportunities to get involved with animal welfare but they are few and far between. Specific to breeding dog welfare, Purdue University has a project focused on the welfare

Introductory Blog and Questions to Ponder

Hello IPFD Community,    My name is Kelly Arthur and I am a third-year veterinary student at Colorado State University (for more background see my introduction page). I’m very excited to announce my participation in IPFD through the newly created veterinary student projects. Projects are being initiated in various countries to educate students on the need for an international perspective and multidisciplinary approach to the issues facing pedigree dogs. Projects involve gathering, eval

Adorable Hazel and Why One Welfare Can Help Address Breeding Dog Challenges

Starting this project made me ponder:  There always seems to be another perspective related to welfare and ethics that I had not thought of before.  There appear to be two camps online—those for breeding and those against (and there is little in between).  Veterinarians seem to be under-represented in the breeding dog public debate.  This provides further validation for an aspect of my project – to create educational resources for veterinarians/veterinary students. 

Those Fabulous Finns!

The Finnish Kennel Club continues to inspire us!   Finland is a country of about five and half million people and with the highest ratio of dogs to people.  They are fiercely proud of their historical association with dogs - and so they should be.  It is a country where a high percentage of dogs are still used for their original purpose.  The dog continues to be integrated closely with Finnish culture.     And that wonderful, deep, and long history is now celebrated online wi

Finnish Pug Dog Club to adopt walking test for breeding dogs

A walking test developed for brachycephalic dog breeds will be adopted by the Finnish Pug Dog Club. The Club has included the test in their requirements for breeding dogs. The requirement of passing the walking test will come into force when tests can be carried out all over Finland. The Finnish Kennel Club (FKC) and the University of Helsinki arranged a news conference and a colloquium for the breed clubs of the brachycephalic breeds earlier this week. Preliminary results on a study examin

Paris in the Spring!

I am in Paris working on arrangements for the IPFD 3rd International Dog Health Workshop, hosted by the French Kennel Club (SCC).     The format will be similar to previous workshops: from Friday evening until Sunday at noon   125-150 stakeholders representing all aspects of the global dog world - including decision-influencers from major kennel clubs, cynological organizations, breeders, judges, veterinarians, researchers, welfare groups and more -  will build collabor

Evolution mechanisms behind deleterious genetic variation in dogs: limited impact of recent inbreeding, really?

Published a few months ago, a study of Marsden et al. (2016) used whole sequence data of 90 canids to investigate the importance of population bottleneck, inbreeding and artificial selection of the health of the dog.   In order to investigate this issue, the authors compared sequences from breed dogs, village dogs, and gray wolves, measuring (i) the proportion of amino acid changing variants, as an indicator of genetic load, and (ii) the n

Pets, Perception, and Personal Preference

  I recently participated in the educational and thought-provoking conference on brachycephalic breeds presented by the Swedish Kennel Club, 27 February 2016.  More on that later …   Something that arises in all discussions of problems in dogs – especially those with exaggerated physical characteristics – is the fascinating issue of personal preference and people’s attraction, devotion, and attachment to certain br

The sampling effect

I remember in the early months of my PhD to have assisted with a seminar by Raymond Coppinger on dog behaviour. At the beginning of his talk, he told the assembly that all comments and contributions would be welcome, providing the participant did not begin with “my dog did…”.  Over the last years, I have begun to think that this comment from Coppinger is the perfect illustration of one the biggest misunderstandings between dog breeders/owner and scientists, that I would call the sampling
  • Gleroy

New Research: “PET OWNERSHIP SAVES $11.7 BILLION IN HEALTH CARE COSTS”

HABRI - The Human Animal Bond Research Initiative has published new research detailing the beneficial effects of pet ownership - for their owners and for the health care industry. Here is their press release: PET OWNERSHIP SAVES $11.7 BILLION IN HEALTH CARE COSTS HUMAN ANIMAL BOND RESEARCH INITIATIVE RELEASES NEW ECONOMIC STUDY   "The Human Anima

Selection on complex traits in dogs

As in other domestic species, a large number of traits of selective interest are of complex inheritance, meaning the phenotype expressed by a given individual is determined by an undetermined number of genes, and more or less impacted by its environment. The efficiency of a selection programme on those traits is depending on several factors, including the heritability of the trait, i.e. the part of phenotypic variation which can be related to genetic variation. In livestock species, statistical
  • Gleroy
Brenda's blog

International Collaboration for Dog Health - Epilepsy

2-18-2021 UPDATE: see the latest on Epilepsy at RVC's website here: https://www.rvc.ac.uk/search/news-events?q=epilepsy   The Press Office of The Royal Veterinary College has reported that: "Veterinary neurology experts collaborate for first ever global consensus on pets with epilepsy"    "Made up of 26 veterinary practitioner, neuropharmacology, neuropathology and neurology experts from around the world, the International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force (IVETF
finnish kennel club news

Finnish dog breed populations improving their health - hip dysplasia

In 2004, I got my PhD on the subject 'Breeding against hip and elbow dysplasia in dogs'. My conclusion was that it is possible to breed against these traits and that not much has happened though. The reason was that no systematic selection has in practice been made against these defects.   Now, 11 years later, I am glad to see that Finnish breeders have managed to achieve genetic as well as phenotypic gain. St Bernards have also increased their lifespan, as their health has been improv

Behavior inheritance and consequences

For most dog breeders, behavior represents a major challenge. It is indeed one of the main fields of interest in terms of breeding.  In a survey we made with French breeders a few years ago (Leroy et al. 2007), behavior was ranked as a breeding goal after morphology, but before health and work.  Yet, although the influence of genes on behavioral traits, which are illustrated by the large behavioral differences between breeds, cannot be denied, those traits are also largely impacted by education
  • Gleroy

The Brachycephalic Issue: Evidence, Emotion and Challenged Beliefs

I look forward with interest to see how the discussions and collaborations develop on this important issue.  Brachycephalic – flat-faced dogs – are a hot topic. As has been said elsewhere, there are intense emotions and strongly-held opinions on all sides.  There continue to be opposing views expressed on the internet and social media - not always in a respectful manner; some rather confrontational. In my experience, people at opposing poles (of this and other issues) often share some similarit

Extreme phenotype: ways to handle it?

Selection on exaggerated morphological features is probably one of the most important problem facing purebred dogs, one of the difficulties being to identify precisely how those morphological traits are affecting the health of the dogs. The recent study of Packer et al. (2015) however provides a very interesting example and suggestions on what could be done relative to the brachycephalic issue.   It indeed illustrates nicely how Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome (BOAS), a chronic debil
  • Gleroy

Interesting Animal Welfare Conference 2016

While searching out information relative to The Brachycephalic Issue I came across this conference: The First International Conference on Human Behaviour Change for Animal Welfare As they state on the conference info page: "The root cause of much animal suffering is human behaviour. However, traditional approaches to improving animal welfare have focussed on providing a service, such as accessible veterinary treatment, or campaigning for people to change their consumer habits. The understanding

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The contents of these blogs are for informational purposes only and represent the opinion of the author(s), and not that of the International Partnership for Dogs (IPFD). This is not intended to be a substitute for professional, expert or veterinarian advice, diagnosis, or treatment. We do not recommend or endorse any specific tests, providers, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on, or linked to from these blogs.

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