Utonagans again - why are rescues been advertised as available to breed? Questions

Hi All

Just been reading the posts. Health is the main aim of The Utonagan Society. Yes KC recognition is what every breed aims for at some point but at this present moment in time health is more important.

As Mys says:
"Patience will be the Utonagan's best friend and I don't think anyone is in any rush as regards to recognition or said that the Utes are ready just yet. They are a breed still in the making and need to be given plenty of time".

I couldn't have said this better myself.

Since the BVA published the list of hip score's more Utonagan have been scored and the average is getting better and better.

Pod says:
"From what I understand, though I could be wrong, the breed register is closed, ie no new blood will be introduced, so the gene pool is effectively closed. If the breed mean hip score doesn't steadily improve as more dogs are scored, I would suggest reviewing the closed register status".

As Chairperson of The Utonagan Society this is news to me and i'm sure the rest of the committee. Pod i'm afraid you have been totally misled. The gene pool has not been closed and there is a steady improvement in the hip scores.

Liz

Thanks Liz.

Forgive me if I've been totally misled Liz but it says on the club website that the breed "started out as a crossbred."

http://www.takoya-utonagan.co.uk/Information.html

Now this to me suggest that the breed (officially at least) is no longer a crossbred in the first generation. This means that no new dogs (of other breeds or crossbreds) are being introduced into the Ute register or bred to Ute dogs and progeny registered as Utes.

This effectively closes the genepool. It's not possible to open or widen the genepool without introducing new blood.

With only 14 dogs scored as of January this year, I think the way to progress with hips status is first to get all breeding stock scored and then as many progeny as possible.

Hi Pod

To my knowledge there have been at least another 8 Ute's Hip Scored since January 2006.

Regarding the gene pool, to an extent our gene pool is not as big as other breeds but as new litters are born and with i guess you could call it selective breeding (being careful with what lines are put together) eventually this will increase.

Liz, I do think you are confused as to what a gene pool is. It is the combination of all the different 'genes' of the dogs within the breed. The important part of this is *different* which is what determines the genetic diversity of a breed. The diversity of the genes within the breed determines the size of the gene pool not the number of dogs. The closer your founder dogs are related, the smaller the gene pool will be regardless of how many litters are bred.

You can alter the frequency of these genes and eliminate some of them by selective breeding but what you can't do is create new ones. To increase the gene pool you must introduce new dogs.

I would have thought that this new 'breed' (utes or northerns) would have a BIGGER gene pool than most pedigree dogs as they have three or four main breeds bringing their genes together. This would have been a special thing, had some people not been so specifically looking to breed the pretty wolf ones together regardless of hip score. yes it is getting better now... but it if done from the start you could have ended up with wolfish looking dogs and damn healthy long lived ones at that.

Pod - some breeders still outbreed or out cross (forget the terminology) don't they?... to introduce new blood and open up the pool. How does this work when most of the breeds have a closed stud registry. Presumably a breeder can't just decide to add the new blood without being shunned by the other breeders of that breed?

Hi Jess

Yes, I agree with you here. Starting a new breed these days, with all the knowledge we have on genetics, should provide a great opportunity to establish a wide gene pool with an emphasis on health. Maybe they have a wide gene pool, I don’t know. It will depend on the number and relatedness of the founder dogs.

The two terms have slightly different meanings but generally they mean bringing in new blood yes but not necessarily new to the breed. But breeding pedigree dogs means that we are confined to dogs within that breed.

If I were to mate my bitch to an unrelated dog in the UK, I would be outbreeding but I would not be increasing the UK gene pool because their genes are already available and accounted for in the UK. I would though be increasing the genetic ‘diversity’ of my bloodline. OTOH, if I were to take her to Finland to be mated to a dog whose bloodlines are new to the UK, I would be also widening the *UK* gene pool but not the breed gene pool as a whole. The only way to do this is to introduce new dogs to the register.

Our UK Kennel Club, and those of other countries, does make provision for introducing new blood from unregistered dogs so yes it is possible to still widen the gene pools of some breeds without crossbreeding but in reality this rarely happens so yes a closed stud registry means a closed gene pool.

Depends what you mean by new blood. Most breeders are very happy to see new imports arriving to increase the gene pool in their country but if you mean crossbreeding, it’s very rarely done officially. One notable exception was Bruce Cattanach’s outcross to a Pembroke Corgi (with KC permission) specifically to introduce the bobtail gene into his breed, the Boxer. I’ve heard varying comment on how other breeders felt about this.

thanks for that info pod.

It comes down to the same old story though doesn't it. On the whole the pretty dogs sell and win comps. to go on to make more pretty dogs.
I should go into breeding and make the weirdest looking dog that has no health problems and lives till 30!

The key thing which is the answer to most problems is education. As well as having a license breeders should have to have a qualification to prove they understand basic genetics. If more of them did they would hopefully do things a little differently.

i'm gonna try to back track here it was my careless use of the word gene pool that has taken the topic off in another direction I think. Perhaps instead of gene pool I should have said while the numbers of breeding Utonagans are still relatively low and until greater distance is gained from the founding dogs of the breed. Which is then what I meant about 'time'...In time there will be less curly tails and other faults that crop up with continued selective breeding and that's what you can't rush without risking health...So it's not an outrage at this stage for a dog with minor faults to be used if the breeding has been carefully thought out. Which brings us back to the first post in the thread (In my opinion, which could of course be terribly wrong )

the 'rush' is to have the breed, breed true to type, meaning that if curly tails and blue eyes (or whatever, not sure if this is a 'fault') are seen then the breed isn't a true breed.
Personally, I would be using this as a special thing, and taking my time to breed dogs that are healthy and long lived, ONLY breeding from older dogs 3-4 years (?) that had proved healthy (as opposed to adolescents who have not had a chance to prove health yet).
At the end of the day KC recognition doesn't mean alot to the average person, and if you asked someone who is clued up in the dog world, I think you would find that health would come above KC recognition, and a good reputation for breeding healthy dogs regardless of curly tails (cos at the end of the day a curly tail isn't something that an owner should be loosing sleep over !) so as you said, taking it slow and not trying to get rid of faults so quickly, I think, would be the best for everyone (except the ones that so desperately seek the recognition from the Kennel Club!)

That's right...But as far as I am aware there is no rush on the Utonagan side of things but from people in general. Hence this topic.

lol, we should have a vote then.... who is really bothered about the northern inuits / utonagons becoming an 'official KC breed' ?!?

hi, i am a newbie to dogsey and would just like to say, we have 2 utonagans, one of 6 months and a rescue from the ut's site who was spayed before we gave her a home, i was not intrested in breeding i wanted a playmate for my pup, who is the sopyest pup going, our rescue settled in very well from the first day, and they both get on great together, and i would like to say also evryone from the utonagan dog club who i have spoken to or emailed has given me all the help i have ever needed and more, they are all very friendly and so helpful, i have also emailed and spoken to a lot of NI owners, which i have found friendly and helpful aswell, being a newish ut owner i thought that the NI and the ut's were all started from the same dogs ? (forgive me if i'm wrong,) but both sides have told me a simaler story. sorry i just realized i went on a bit there, don't mean to intrude.

Hi Redwolf, welcome to Dogsey

Would love to see some pics of your Utes please!

I have the male Loki who is just over 2 years old.

hi, lucky star, have only just learnt how to put the little pic under my name, i will attempt to put some pic's on soon, but don't hold your breath, as i only started having a go on a computer last year and don't know how to do much yet, we have found out how to upload pic's to photo bucket last night, will have a go later to try and put some on here, where should i put my pic's? nice to chat thank's

There's a Dogsey Introcutions section and Pictures section and you can post them under the Utonagan section here:

http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php?t=589&page=15



If you've got your photos in Photobucket, you can resize to Website/e-mail under 'Edit', then you can copy the ING into a Dogsey post and your pics should appear. Not sure I've made that very clear really :?

Look forward to seeing them anyway.


Here ya go - this should help:

http://www.dogsey.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14

hi, lucky star thanks for all your help, have managed to put a pic on now, have many more, but will have to work out how to do a few at a time.