The Functional Breeding Podcast

Jessica Hekman, DVM, PhD, on "Lifetime Prevalence of Owner-Reported Medical Conditions"

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 you don’t inbreed on it)

What's up with FDC and the podcast

There's a lot going on behind the scenes of the Functional Dog Collaborative and I have a lot of plans for upcoming podcast episodes. I also have had a bunch of people say they can't record this summer and so it may be a few weeks until I get the next episode out. So here's some stuff to tide you over - explanation of what's going on and what episode topics I have coming up! (If you want to suggest episode topics, or get a chance to have your questions asked during an interview, head over to join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/functionalbreeding.)

Dan O'Neill, MVB, PhD, FRCVS: Disorder Testing

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!

Dan O'Neill, MVB, PhD, FRCVS: VetCompass and Inherited Disease

Dan O'Neill, MVB, PhD, FRCVS is a veterinary epidemiologist who studies canine disorders that have an inherited component - what the rest of us might call "genetic diseases." He is the author of more than 95 papers, mostly on the prevalence and risk factors of disorders in dogs based on data drawn from VetCompass, the large scale veterinary database and research tool that he co-leads. Dan was awarded the Kennel Club Charitable Trust "International Canine Health Award" in 2021, and is passionate both about the health of purebred dogs and about saving breeds.

Danika Bannasch, DVM, PhD: The Dalmatian Outcross Project

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).

Danika Bannasch, DVM, PhD: Chondrodystrophy

Danika Bannasch, DVM, PhD is the owner of Pint, the famous UC Davis football tee retrieving dog. She also happens to run a genetics lab, also at UC Davis, where she studies the genetics of inherited diseases in dogs and other animals. She is known for her work associating genetic variants with a variety of traits including coat color and skull shape. On this episode we're talking about a genetic mutation that she discovered - known to genetic testing companies as CDDY - for a trait she feels passionately about, chondrodystrophy. Most of the dog world knows this mutation as "that risk gene that makes your dog more likely to get IVDD," but in this episode, Danika talks us through the difference between disc herniation and IVDD (intervertebral disc disease), noting that all dogs with CDDY have IVDD, and therefore disc degeneration, whether or not they actually herniate. I hope you learn as much from this discussion as I did.

 

Find this episode's transcript here.

Lisa Gunter, PhD, CBCC-KA: Shelter Dog Welfare

Lisa Gunter, PhD, CBCC-KA is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech in the School of Animal Sciences and directs the Laboratory for Animal Behavior and Welfare. Lisa’s research explores the behavior and welfare of companion animals, specifically our interactions with them, as it relates to animal sheltering, behavioral issues, and training. Lisa combines a love of research with hands-on dog training skills. I wanted to have someone from the shelter world on the podcast because, depending on what you mean by "source," shelters are a source of dogs. Lisa and I talked about how shelters can best help dogs cope with the shelter experience and what the future of sheltering might look like.

For those interested in the Applied Animal Behavior and Welfare online MS program at Virginia Tech, where Lisa and Jessica both teach, check it out at https://www.cals.vt.edu/academic-programs/online/omals-program-virginia-tech.html.

Breeding for Companion Personalities: Carolyn Kelly, RN and Erica Pytlovany, KPA CTP

Carolyn Kelly is a registered nurse with over 30 years of experience in human health including in labor and delivery, and in mental health. She also holds a Masters Degree in Nursing Leadership. She runs a mixed breed companion dog program, Old Mission Retrievers. Erica Pytlovany, KPA CTP, is an experienced behavioral consultant at WOOFS! Dog Training Center in Virginia. She runs the Boson Dog Project, a mixed breed companion dog program, with her wife, Laura Sharkey. I got together with Carolyn and Erica to talk about what companion personalities look like in dogs and why they focus their breeding programs on achieving them.

Claire Wade, PhD and Sophie Liu, DVM: The Doberman Genetic Diversity Paper

This week I'm talking to Drs Claire Wade and Sophie Liu about their paper on genetic diversity in the Doberman breed. Dr Claire Wade is the Chair of Computational Biology and Animal Genetics at the University of Sydney, where she studies canine behavioral genetics. Dr Sophie Liu  is a veterinarian specializing in behavior and the founder of the Doberman Diversity Project, about which she's spoken previously on this podcast. Both of them are passionate about dogs not just as part of their careers but as part of their lives. They joined me to talk through the findings in their paper, which sheds some light on the complicated story of health and genetic diversity in Dobermans.

Wade, Claire M., Robin Nuttall, and Sophie Liu. "Comprehensive analysis of geographic and breed-purpose influences on genetic diversity and inherited disease risk in the Doberman dog breed." Canine Medicine and Genetics 10.1 (2023): 1-17.
https://cgejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40575-023-00130-3

Lisa Wagner: Breeding Frenchies for Health

I've wanted to interview Lisa Wagner about her breeding program for a while now. I keep hearing about the great work she is doing to address health issues in her French bulldogs, and I was so enthusiastic to get a chance to ask her for more details. Lisa is a CKC registered breeder. Her breeding program is called Of Autumn, and you can most easily reach her on Facebook.