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 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.

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! Bryson GT, O’Neill DG, Brand CL, Belshaw Z, Packer RMA (2024) The doodle dilemma: How the physical health of ‘Designer-crossbreed’ Cockapoo, Labradoodle and Cavapoo dogs’ compares to their purebred progenitor breeds. PLoS ONE 19(8): e0306350. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306350

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

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 FDC summary: https://functionalbreeding.org/common-conditions-seen-in-primary-care-visits/ 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.” Urfer, Silvan R., et al. "Lifespan of companion dogs seen in three independent primary care veterinary clinics in the United States." Canine medicine and genetics 7 (2020): 1-14. - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40575-020-00086-8 - DAP authors before DAP started - “We did not find significant differences in lifespan between purebred and mixed breed dogs; however, breeds with larger effective population sizes and/or lower inbreeding coefficients had median survival times 3–6 months longer than breeds with smaller effective population sizes or higher inbreeding coefficients” Mata, Fernando, and Andreia Mata. "Investigating the relationship between inbreeding and life expectancy in dogs: mongrels live longer than pure breeds." PeerJ 11 (2023): e15718. - https://peerj.com/articles/15718/?f...gzQO4ualQE4De4iuO6RmqokNKNTRYdxORkaYEMBwDx_0I - VetCompass data - “mongrel dogs had the highest life expectancy, followed by cross-bred dogs with only one purebred ancestor and purebred dogs had the lowest life expectancy” 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/ Bannasch, D., Famula, T., Donner, J. et al. The effect of inbreeding, body size and morphology on health in dog breeds. Canine Genet Epidemiol 8, 12 (2021). - https://functionalbreeding.org/the-effect-of-inbreeding-body-size-and-morphology-on-health-in-dog-breeds/ 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.” Donner, Jonas, et al. "Frequency and distribution of 152 genetic disease variants in over 100,000 mixed breed and purebred dogs." PLoS genetics 14.4 (2018): e1007361. - https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1007361 - “Mixed breed dogs were more likely to carry a common recessive disease, whereas purebreds were more likely to be genetically affected with one, providing DNA-based evidence for hybrid vigor.” (i.e. it isn’t a problem if

Last episode I talked with Dr. Dan O'Neill, a veterinary epidemiologist who studies canine disorders that have an inherited component - what the rest of us might call "genetic diseases." During that interview he mentioned that he didn't think disorder testing - what most of us call health testing - has been workinig to improve canine health. I cut that section because I felt we needed to go into a lot more detail on it to understand what he meant by that, since I knew he didn't mean we should entirely stop health testing - I mean disorder testing. So here is the followup interview. I want to emphasize that he isn't saying disorder testing shouldn't be done as an aid to choosing how to breed dogs. He IS saying that the way we approach choosing and interpreting tests could use a revamp. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

Danika Bannasch, DVM, PhD returns to the podcast to talk about the Dalmatian Outcross Project. Danika's laboratory found the genetic mutation that was targeted in this outcross, and she had a front row seat to the project's path to acceptance by the AKC and the Dalmatian Club of America. She is also herself a past breeder of Dalmatians. Danika walks us through the genetic, social, and practical implications of high uric acid in Dalmatians, why the outcross was necessary, how it worked, and which populations with different mutations could be helped today by a similar approach (spoiler - one of them is the population of dogs in breeds with high frequency of the chondrodystrophy mutation that we discussed in the previous episode).