BOUVIER DES FLANDRES HEALTH OTHER HEALTH ISSUES

BOUVIER DES FLANDRES HEALTH OTHER ISSUES AND GOOD CHOICES

OTHER HEALTH ISSUES IN THE BOUVIER DES FLANDRES HEALTH - BOUVIER DES FLANDRES HEALTH - HOW TO MAKE GOOD PUPPY CHOICES

CHONDRODYSPLACIA

Showing dogs allows other breeders to see the stock you are raising and exibiting. Many times a really excellent stud dog is shown. When a person finishes their first set of championship points the person who owns the dog asks themselves, "Is this dog "Specials" material?", meaning can they go on to a higher level of championships and can they compete at high these levels easily winning? So many of our really structurally sound dogs are of the same lines we have warned against they have Iron Eyes x Xanadu in them upwards of 10-37 times. When a dog has good structure and good movement and the will to win, that dog starts to show beyond a simple championship and starts to try to be ranked within a breed and in the bouvier they call it the top 20. The culmination of the competition is to show at the National Specialty a show that features only the dogs of one breed and the top 20 competition along with Best of Breed is the spot these Specials dogs want the most. And its not the dogs who desire the accolade it is the owners who want the crown.

For the people watching if they do not internalize nor know the nature of the H lines will often seek out the person who owns the dog who is winning in the ring, and try to buy frozen semen or mate with this dog so they too may have a top winning dog down the road. A stud can be used as many times as he is employed to do so. This over use causes a flood of this dogs genes to be spread all over the world. If the dog is of poor genetic health history the ramifications are horrible for the breed. Never mind pretty dogs, the genetic time bomb this popular stud creates is bad all the way around for the breed.

The H litter itself saw the spread of Glaucoma, Cataracts, Heart Disease and other issues as each one bred multiple times. There were seven offspring from that litter with the PROFESSIONAL handlers finishing 6 of the seven,

Those six went on to breed
Hannah 4 offspring
Harry S truman 16 offspring
Hell's Angel zero!
Dragon 19 offspring
Hot Rod 154 offspring
Hot shot 167 offspring
Hunters moon 27 offspring

for a total of 391 possible carriers of Glaucoma, Cataracts, and Heart Disease to name a few.
A visit to the Bouvier database of Pedigrees will astonish the readeras to how many dogs and kennels were affected by this pedigree. It is astoundnishing and heart breaking at the same time. Bajoron had two dogs that were of this pedigree and we had issues with both. We learned very quickly from our mentors help, what the issue was and where it came from. We determined at that point those two dogs, were never bred because we did not want to perpetuate health problems.

The other breeders used OFA to prove their dogs were not sick. . . . yet they were in many cases carriers that sent out the issues like a plaque. The issues are still with us and being bred unchecked. The only hope is that someday the others will stop or the studies that are now being done see some sort of break through.

The Newest Threat to our Breed Small head proportional Issues

We have identified some disturbing trends over the last 10 years. We have nearly 100 verified cases of dogs who have extremely small heads proportionately for their large bodies. While many hold these dogs in their kennels you have to wonder why the Breeders or he owners have not identified that these dogs are structurally unsound proportionately. It should give them cause for concern as to how their breeding programs are progressing in a negative manner.

Research into the pedigree of each dog was run and it is unfortunate, but the fact was obvious that the dogs were extremely close in who their ancestors were. It would be like you breeding to your cousin and your cousin bred to their cousin. Some of these dogs have upwards of 30 times of the same foundation dogs in their lines. Some are even bred to cousins who parents were bred to first cousins. Just like incest was performed in the human population the same can be said for these dogs and their parentage. Cousins bred to cousins.
The argument against this practice lies in the now best practices of Zoos and other animal holding facilities. Like our breed these keepers of all species carefully hold the animals’ pedigrees. Careful planning and mating is outcrossed to avoid line breeding and thus weakening and making genetic issues and abnormalities prevalent. Genetic diversity is important for zoos and it is equally as important for our Bouvier des Flandres.

Not only are zoos finding that outcrossing animals and keeping mating couples as unrelated as possible even fisheries are doing the same in an effort to strengthen the fish populations of the world.
We have collected some visuals of only 4 of the 50 documented cases we have identified and investigated: In each case the silouette relains the same but color and other features have been altered to protect the identity of each dog. In each case the neck is diminished the head is at least 60% to 70% in diminished proportional balance.
These are but a few of the dogs we have collected over the last three to four years. The fact that the owners do not see these proportions as extremely deficient is disturbing. What is even more upsetting is that in the past when the owners post these dogs a toxic positivity of comments emanate that stroke the owner with false accolades of how beautiful these dogs are and were. This perpetuation of line bred and structurally unsound proportions underscore that these breeders hold a classic case of Kennel blindness. Many are unable to get up the guts to question the breeder and if they are aware of this bizarre proportional presentation? Often observers either don’t talk or do as we have described above and extend a compliment. At that point you must wonder is the compliment obligatory or truthful?
To make matters worse these dogs of ill proportions are bred, and the issue passes itself on to a new generation.

How breeding programmes work | Zoological Society of London (ZSL)

Purdue University Captive Breeding

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