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General

Featured Entries

Guest Posts

Healthier Conversations for Healthier Dogs at the 6th International Dog Health Workshop - By Lauren Bennett

Lauren Bennett Clip 6th IDHW.mp4 Editor's Note: Lauren Bennett was among our panel of distinguished speakers at the 6th International Dog Health Workshop in Bologna, Italy (30 May - 1 June 2026). Her presentation was entitled, 'Influencing Choice: Marketing's Impact on Pet Welfare and Breeding Practices'. View a brief clip from Lauren's presentation here > Working in animal welfare can sometimes feel like fighting an uphill battle. But coming together with other professionals, all with o
General

Marc’s 6th IDHW Reflections, Part Two

Previous Entry: Part One of 6th IDHW Reflections...continued Genetic Diversity Is Not a Side Conversation At the International Dog Health Workshop in Bologna, one message came through clearly in almost every discussion: We cannot improve dog health without talking about genetic diversity. For too long, genetic diversity has been treated as something technical. Something for geneticists, population scientists, or people who enjoy complicated charts and long discussions about allele frequencies.
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

22 Oct 2015 What's Trending

New under Hot Topics: This week we have launched a new section on the challenges and controversies surrounding issues in brachycephalic dogs.  I have been told that even relatively knowledgeable people may not be acquainted with that term.  I have been offered suggestions from 'flat-faced' to 'snub-nosed'  and even 'schmoosh-faced' as terms they have seen describing these breeds on the internet.  Regardless what they are called, Issues of health and welfare in these breeds are a hot topic.  Ther

Kennel Club Breed Population Analyses tool

A few weeks ago, Tom Lewis and his colleagues published what is, up to now, the largest pedigree analysis regarding to the number of populations analyzed, with the 215 breeds recognized by the UK Kennel Club. In the same time, individual breed reports have been made available in the KC website, with accessible infographics on the phenomena behind inbreeding such as effective population size or popular sire effect. Just for this, this work should be saluted, and we can hope that other national ke
  • Gleroy

One Health Conference

IPFD Board Member Dr. Patricia Olson was the keynote speaker at the Inaugural One Health Program at Midwestern University on October 8, 2015 (Downer’s Grove, Illinois).  Midwestern University also has one of the newest veterinary schools in the U.S. (Phoenix, Arizona).  Physicians were paired with veterinarians to deliver lectures on obesity, pneumonia, osteochondritis dissecans and epilepsy.  Dr. Olson’s lecture was on collaborative research, using the clues from animals to help advance bo

About the concept of breed

Whatever the domestic species, breed is a central concept of artificial selection. This is especially true for dog, where, as stated in earlier posts, purebreeding is often view as a paradigm. However, it can be legitimate to interrogate this concept of breed.  If, in general, most of the current dog breeds can be well-differentiated, based on phenotypic or molecular analysis, this is not always the case, and among the breeds currently recognized, some actually correspond to the same population,
  • Gleroy

Improving dog health: what actions for breed associations?

When considering implementation of breeding strategies in relation to health of welfare, breed associations and Kennel clubs constitute the first actors susceptible to implement adequate actions. There are however multiple problems in the implementation of efficient strategies, including the fact that, even once efficient clinic or genetic diagnosis have been developed for a specific disease, clubs often don’t know how to proceed then. Efficiency and potential side effects may indeed be difficul

How legislation impact dog breeds?

In a previous post, we investigated how a breed population can be affected by fashion effects, showing that the evolution of the popularity of a given breed is the combination of various factors. Legislation is clearly one of those factors. In this post, we will illustrate how some French dog breeds have been affected by two specific regulations, namely the France’s dangerous dogs legislation, and, in relation to ear cropping, the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals.   After a

A few words on molecular tools

Here is an article I wrote with Zeev Trainin for FCI a few months ago, The original draft can be found here. Over the last 20 years, genomics has evolved from a promising field to the main area of study for most animal breeders. Dog has been one of the first mammal species whose genome has been completely sequenced, already in 2005. In parallel, an increasing number of genomic tools have been developed to assist dog breeding. Without going into details about their developmental processes, eventu

Pride and crossbreeding

I take here the opportunity of the recent (and excellent) posts of Katariina Mäki on crossbreeding, to give some personal insight on this burning issue. As underlined in a previous post, in dogs, pure breeding has been viewed as a paradigm, probably more than in any other domestic species. However, since the lack of genetic diversity (and behind it the fact that most registries are closed to crossbreeding) is considered as one of the most important causes of current health problems in dog, the c

Reaching out to the Behaviour Community

I am issuing invitations to join the community to numerous experts in the behaviour field. Hoping to get some participation before the Canine Behaviour and Genetics meeting in London 26-29 June. At least I hope to spark a little interest.   The greatest challenge is that everyone is too busy. It is easy to say that we can collaborate and share on DogWellNet.com - and I do believe there is a great potential for success and efficiency and reducing redundancy of efforts - but it has to start with

More on crossbreeding in Finland

More on crossbreeding in Finland Pinscher           Kromfohrländer       Due to interest in my previous post on Instructions for Crosses Between Breeds , I have been asked to provide some more information. At the moment, we have two crossbreeding projects going on in Finland: one in the Pinscher and another in the Kromfohrländer. The crossbred progeny are always registered in the appendix, ER-register, for three generati

Comparative Research News

In the past few years some of my time has been spent developing a new medical research model that advances both animal and human health. In addition, I have been working with national humane groups and the pet industry to advance strategies for breeding healthy dogs. From time to time I will submit blog entries about some of the interesting work I come across.   May 30, 2015 – Met with a donor in Minnesota who is funding collaborative research between medical and veterinary researchers to evalua

Basic Education for Breeding Officials

Once a year, in October, the SKK Breeding Committee organizes a weekend course for breeding officials based on the book Dog breeding in theory and practice by Sofia Malm (SKK genetic expert) and Åsa Lindholm.           The Genetic Expert and The Breeding Consultant of the SKK Department for Breeding and Health are in charge of the course.       The aim is to give breed clubs education and tools they need to work with breeding plans and breed-specific strategies.       The contents of the course

Instructions for Crosses Between Breeds

The Finnish Kennel Club has written instructions for breed crossing. The instructions are of help for breeders and breed clubs in planning, applying and monitoring breed crosses and crossbred individuals. This information is presented in The Finnish Kennel Club: Crosses between Breeds on DogWellNet.com in the Breeding for Health section: sub.section Crossbreeding.  

Fitness examination being prepared for Bulldogs

The English Bulldog Association of Finland (SEBY) and the Finnish Kennel Club have launched an extensive health-promotion project for the Bulldog. Among other things, the aim is to develop an examination that scrutinises an individual's fitness for breeding – and it would be the first examination of this kind in Finland. The chairman of the English Bulldog Association of Finland, Pasi Apajalahti, says breed enthusiasts are aware of the need to improve the health situation of the English Bulldog.

Frequency of canine hip and elbow dysplasia decreasing in Finland

Frequency of canine hip and elbow dysplasia is decreasing in many breeds in Finland. The largest improvement in hip dysplasia can be seen in the Saint Bernard, the Smooth Collie, the Newfoundlander, the Beauceron and the Bordercollie. In elbow dysplasia, the Rottweiler and the St.Bernard have improved the most. Read more about the trends in the pages of Finnish Kennel Club. Also available in our Downloads section.  

Thoughts inspired by our newest partner...

We are so excited to welcome the Irish Kennel Club as our latest Partner.   Their pride in their national breeds and long history is wonderful to see. When visiting them earlier this spring, President Sean Delmar shared with me some stories about their founder. It seems that the development of the IKC to some extent mirrored the challenges that were being faced by the country as a whole. Here is an excerpt from the History section of the IKC website.   "The freedom fighters who drove the club’

DogWellNet: Next Phase June 2015

We have been working to make the site more welcoming by adding our 'Hot Topics' navigation aids to the home page. These should help orient first-time users or anyone looking to see just what might be available on DogWellNet.   We continue to encourage our Partners and Sponsors to contribute news and information to the site. As a new development, it will take time for everyone to get used to the resource, but we are confident things are heading in the right direction. They are working with each

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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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