A quick NI-BI question

A good post, but it happens in all breeds.

It can be bred out and it is normally the larger ears that tend to be 'soft' - which is why I am surprised that breeders are not trying harder to breed smaller ears.

Incidentally, the reverse happens in breeds with 'tipped' ears. For example, with the shelties a lot of physical work goes into tipping the ears and when I was in that breed I was appalled to find that the top dog in the country two years running had blue tack in his ears to weigh them down when he was not in the show ring!!!! That was one of the top breeders and I only discovered it when I went to use the dog at stud. Breeders used all manner of tricks to tip the ears, from blue tack, polyfiller to a tar-like substance called, appropriately, Ear Tip (I think that used to be imported from the USA in those days). Many dogs did have correct ears, but many, many didn't. Some had 'heavy' ears and there wasn't much you could do about those. Trimming the hair on the inside and outside of the ears in the right places would help with heavy ears and also tipping, but it did nothing for the dogs genetically!

GSDs, with their larger ears, can tend to have soft ears. Giving large bones to gnaw to strengthen the appropriate muscles was said to help - but in bad cases it wouldn't do anything, of course.

But I agree with Mahooli - while breeders are messing with the dogs physically these problems are not going to go away - it is only through selective breeding that the problem will be bred out over time.

Sandra just out of interest,
you say it can be bred out but you don't seem to practice what you preach
you yourself are guilty of breeding from three, yes three bitches with soft ears are you not ?

Again it would depend on what the dog can offer their breeding programme but they need to be honest to themselves and others about what dogs are being used and what faults they have and that the ultimate aim is to breed it out.
Becky

So, what are you getting at?

I think that proves that with care it can be bred out. I might have bred from three bitches, each having ONE soft ear. But put to the RIGHT dog they produced litters with good ears and the soft ear hasn't recurred that I am aware of.

Incidentally, there were only TWO bitches with ONE soft ear, the other had ears that fluctuated from being a bit wobbly on a bad day to being normal on a good day.

Now, apart from the bitch with the wobbly ears - that was brought in - the ONE soft ear came down from a dog I used at stud who had TWO soft ears (but everything else about him was stunning). So, one generation down from the TWO soft ears, out of a litter of six I got ONE with ONE soft ear - all the rest were perfect. Another generation down from that I had erradicated the soft ears. It was imo worth taking the risk of using the dog with two soft ears because what he put into my breeding far outweighed the ear thing, which was bred out in two generations. It only affected one or two pups in each litter even then.

Hope that wasn't too complicated.

In all fairness though Sandra it may reoccur to the future, it's obviously genetic. I don't think dogs with soft ears should be bred from. I was told that we're not allowed to breed from those, or patchy bitches or dogs, yet it seems they are bred from.

Well I am several generations down the line now and it hasn't recurred - the stud dog in question was owned by Andre lol

It appears that patchy animals are bred from yes, how can things be expected to improve? Cant for the life of me see it at all.

Without wishing to appear rude, Flow didn't just have one obvious fault eg ear carriage did she? She was also patchy with a curly tail.....just wondering where this came into your decision making ref breeding?

As usual this thread has gone completely off topic.

Does anyone know if the original post has ever been answered? Sorry but I don't have time to read all through this thread to check.

The original post, in case you've all forgotten, was:

A quick NI-BI question

How does a full Northern Inuit become a British Inuit especially if its spent 2 years being a Northern Inuit?

don't know if it ever got answered, surely if you needed to ask about a specific dog it would be easier to contact the owner and ask them. Instead of starting another thread that ends up in an argument.

The way this first post was worded does confuse me, if it wasn't started to 'have a go' about someones dog.

I asked the question as i wanted to see if anyone knew the answer funnily enough

It was for NO specific dog otherwise i'd have mentioned names etc but I didn't, but then u can come to any conclusion you want especially as you seem so good at making assumptions

sorry Jem, I apologise for not realising the thread was not about one specific dog, and that the question 'How does a full Northern Inuit become a British Inuit especially if its spent 2 years being a Northern Inuit?' must be relevant to many, many, dogs and not just one

edited to add

forgot to ask what the answer was

Many seemed to have changed breeds recently,
I dont fully understand why yet apart from breed club choice but then i dont see how that changes the dog myself but hey ho never mind

I think it is just down to the personal choice of the owners to choose which NI breed club they want, and register their NI with that club. No it doesn't change the breed of the dog. Mine have dual registrations.

I think but im not 100% on this Shila's mum is dual registered what exactly does it mean?

I've never asked before but now im curious

just that the dog is a purebred NI and registered with 2 of the groups

But surely they are a 'type' of dog and not a 'breed' as they will never be recognised due to poor record keeping ect?

In border Collies it would Mean on Two registiries, Ie ISDS & KC. In NIs i guess in would mean NI & other type eg BI

That is very true - they are just a 'type'.

So, owners in theory can register with which ever club they want - it makes no difference to the dog.

There are slight variations in what went into the dogs but as they are all a bit of a mish mash and pedigrees aren't worth the paper they are written on - it doesn't really matter whether they are called NI, BI or anything else.