Conflict over COI

[Henk ten Klooster]

“A first step forward for future” is how the committee of the Dutch Irish setter club describes a proposal to forbid combinations for breeding with a higher coefficient of inbreeding (coi) than five. Reason is “a rise of inheritable defects” like epilepsy, showing a clear connection with COI above five. A group of mostly show breeders tries to prevent this new rule being accepted on the annual general meeting. They launch another proposal, maintaining freedom of breeders to breed above that maximum.
What is your opinion?

[Christiane Lohmann]

Off topic Dee, but just to fill in infos from the continent:
The son of Erinhaven Dennis Muldoon named Whiteseal Hartsbourne Dennison was a german import and gave huge trouble due to PRA and epilepsy. In is stated in our club mags that the breeder from kennel Bergstücken/Berlin, who imported Dennison was later informed that also E.D.Muldoon was known for these defect. Also the information came that a halfbrother called Hartsbourne Kieron was exported to the Netherlands and should not be mixed with this Dennison blood.

Hilde Schwoyer told me that she was alarmed after using Dennison to sire her H-litter. The owner phoned her when the two pups were 6 weeks old and asked if they could see at dusk ?

regards
Christiane

[Dee Rance]

Yes I know that it was off the topic, but lets face it, most of this is off topic now, we are getting way beyond COI, but just had to comment on that particular dog, he was hailed a great dog for the breed.... I think the opposite, I think that he did so much harm nothing to do with COI though. Didn't realise though that it went to Europe, that is so sad......

[Henk ten Klooster]

American dogs used in postwar UK period are on topic if you think a little deeper. They show both advantages and disadvantages of lowering coi by using non or not so much related families.

Imports of both (Hartsbourne Senor of Shadowood and Erinhaven Dennis Muldoon - EDM in what follows) from the USA were done because bloodlines (even in that time!) became too close. This is based on UK dogpress in the relevant time.

They did not mention coefficient of inbreeding in those times, that is relatively young. It was and still is in many circles in dogsports normal to talk about linebreeding or inbreeding. You can call it the way oldtimers battled inbreeding.

In the eyes of Dee Rance "it" (EDM?) was "hailed a great dog for the breed". And yes both have descendants proving they were. Unfortunately EDM was identified as a carrier of the PRA gene (there are still doubts on whether or not it actually was but that is off topic). That is probably why Dee Rance states "it did so much harm".

Especially via his testmated son Brackenfield Dandelion, Dennis is umpteen times in nearly every UK showline and from there the rest of the world. Likewise the lesser known Hartsbourne Senor of Shadowood.

For a few decades after this fifties/sixties scene, the UK genepool was near to completely a closed scene. More breeders were reportedly in a state of shock, as PRA was threating the very existance of IRS. In that period as well the first attempt was made to re-introduce the IRWS, if failed.

Why closed? Exchange USA/UK seems to have been frustrated for a long time since these happenings. Furthermore the UK Kennel Club came up with regulations, all non-tested descendants of EDM were refused registry.

So a wall between cultures, right after one of the biggest genetic bottlenecks in IS history (=as far as possible only continuing on tested lines, this failed by the way).

Meanwhile, quite a few descendants on the continent were hugely succesfull, some of them seen as ultimate dual Irish setter. If you dive deep enough, you find them spread over European lines. In all categories: working, dual, show. Even when bred very close, as far as I know no PRA dived up. Correct me if I'm wrong thanks.

That form of PRA is not a big deal anymore, you can test for it. Although now -Dee Rance mentioned it already- new forms of PRA dive up.

It certainly proves that using non/not so much related families can be dangerous. But the average coi in most cultures shows us we have dangers to face, this time often without tests available or possible.

This was identified by "mr Linebreeding himself", W.J. Rasbridge in later days of his lifestudy on Irish setters. In a nutshell he called the whole PRA-scene relatively easy to deal with, compared to what was already in his last days diving up in a heavily inbred genepool...And still to come...

[Dee Rance]

Just get in before Saturday.....I apologise for referring to (EDM) as 'it' I didn't mean to do this.
I also think that some of these 'new' problems will keep geneticists in jobs for a long time to come.......

[Henk ten Klooster]

Just for the record. It was not a job in 1938 for W.J. Rasbridge starting to mate his blind inbred Rheola Cleopatra for testlitters to research a genetic pattern, that way saving the breed from extinction.... He didnt earn a penny from it as far as I know....

[Dee Rance]

I know that Rasbridge was saving the breed, that was then I am talking about now, when he was 'saving' the breed there was nothing like DNA and now it all depends on this subject, if a DNA marker can be found then it will make eradicating the problem so much easier and it is the scientists 'JOB' to do this, that is what I meant, by saying that it would keep geneticists in a job for a long time to come....

[Margaret Sierakowski]

I cant find Erinhaven Dennis Muldoon or the Hartsbourne dog in IRWS pedigrees, neither in my own data base nor in Eileen Walker's data base. Where do you think these dogs link in to IRWS pedigrees,Henk?
Barney of Boyne does link to the IRWS pedigrees through the reds Derrycarne Red Admiral, Annie Alla and the Moanruads.It seems that a few people speculated about his appearance, and a few rumours circulated
You have a bad habit, Henk, of inflating the slightest rumour into facts, and of getting your pedigree information wrong. Where rumours about are concerned, the best thing is to store the information in one's head, remain non-committal about it, and watch out for anything that might tend to prove or disprove the rumour . Rumour and conjectures are not facts, but dog breeders love them, especially ones that concern dogs from rival breeders :))
Sensational stories are not always good breed history

[Susan Stone]

Margaret, I absolutely agree with you.

The discussion about 'proven' or 'hearsay' when it concerns dogs and people long since dead can & will never be answered satisfactorily.

This discussion does proove however, that a foolproof indentification of breeding stock is important and that DNA profiling (as required in Blegium I believe) makes perfect sense.
Future breeding programmes with DNA profiled dogs (outcrosses also) would ensure that no futile discussions would arise in 5o years or so - when most of us will be dead and gone...

[Henk ten Klooster]

This is what you call the "slightest rumour":

Books written by:

1) Gilbert Leighton-Boyce
2) Waldemar Marr
3) Raymond O'Dwyer

Publications by:

1) Jimmy James (Wendover)
2). C.S. Stacey (Watermill)
3. W.J. Rasbridge (Watendlath)

(Explicit mentioning of bloodhound in 2, bloodhound and flatcoated retriever in 3).

General works on bloodlines:

Irish Setter Show Champions in Great Britain

To name just a few.....

Your statement:
"Rumour and conjectures are not facts, but dog breeders love them, especially ones that concern dogs from rival breeders :))"

It DOES NOT concern rival breeders. On the contrary, the main tail male line in debate, is the one both Jimmy James and Bill Rasbridge brought to the top. Would you have any interest to tell that you are breeding from bloodlines from fill in yourself???? You could have some interest not to tell it immediately after discovery.... But to be silent all of your life? So that might explain the timegap...MIGHT.

[Margaret Sierakowski]

Henk, I have copies of Waldemar Marr, Gilbert Leighton Boyce and Ray O ' Dwyer in front of me, and cant find any mention of bloodhounds in any of them. Could you quote page numbers,please? Waldemar Marr says simply" I could not help feeling that there was something else in his strain. His later dogs were enormously big and robust, in spite of splendid conformation and best modern type" but no mention of bloodhounds.
Ray O'Dwyer quotes Waldemar Marr, the same paragraph, no mention of bloodhounds. Gilbert Leighton-Boyce says Carbery , like Laverack, sometimes got a bit confused about his pedigrees, and "that it is unwise to to take the male line behind Barney of Boyne further back than his grandsire Beltra", no mention of bloodhounds

Mr James in The Wendover Story also says the Boyne pedigrees may have been unreliable, and tells the story of the sacked kennel man who let the the Boyne dogs out with the bitches in season. No mention of crossbreeding, let alone bloodhounds.
But perhaps you have another quote that actually mentions bloodhounds? I believe Mr Rasbridge may have actually mentioned bloodhounds, do you have an actual quote for this , exact words?

[Henk ten Klooster]

Exact quotes from 1) C.S. Stacey 2) W.J. Rasbridge UK dogpress 1961
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"Only those who know their breeds pretty well -and to know them one has to be really interested in them- can quickly sum up where foreign blood has crept into certain strains or families within one's breed. In 1920 it was evident that somehow Bloodhound had got into one line of our breed.

There was not one iota of proof, not even the least idea how it happened, whether by some odd (very odd, one might well think) quirk of some breeder that such a cross would improve our breeed, or whether by some kennel accident.

All one could say was, the evidence was just visually overwhelming. I used to find that some breeders did not seem to realise that certain traits were from hound and could not possibly have come in on a pure Setter line.

Nowadays, through the bitch that brought in the bloodhound being behind certain Irish Setters of note in their day on the bench and in the field (in Ireland) this taint is widespread and most Irish go back on many lines to her.

I have watched the effects of this: the cropping up every so often of exaggerated occiputs; of brows that wrinkle slightly when the dog's ears are pricked; of small rather red and deep set eyes; of "cart-horse bone" and general oversize, of over-long, more "rolled" than neatly folded ears, and of those boney ridges and bumps on the skull and the foreface that are definitely not Setter.

One son of the afore-mentioned bitch showed and passed on Bloodhound traits far more strongly than his half-brothers and -sisters but every so often when the gene for this "hound-type" met, this "foreign type" would flare up and show extremely strongly."
...........
"That this very unfortunate cross in the far-distant past has altered our breed to a general extent , cannot possibly be denied by anyone given to observation, pedigree research and close contact with Irish Setters".....

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W.J. Rasbridge (1961 UK dogpress): ...."Some of the Flatcoat and Bloodhound crosses undoubtedly resulted from a personal feud. More than 40 years ago the owner of a famous kennel and an employee, the brother of a great English Setter man, quarrelled.

During an absence of the former, the latter let all the dogs out of their kennels and so the owner found them on returning. There was more than one breed in the kennels and also a yard Flatcoat and a Bloodhound.

Some matings of the Irish Setters took place during this period of freedom. The pedigrees do not record them. In fact the breeder did not know which dogs had mated them which whelped a couple of months later.

The puppies which survived went on record as pure Irish Setters. THEIR DESCENDANTS ARE BEHIND ALMOST EVERY IRISH SETTER NOW BEING SHOWN." (end of quote, capitals mine).

[Henk ten Klooster]

I've typed in the IRWS pedigree base one descendant of Hartsbourne Senor of Shadowood, its Ch Brackenfield Hartsbourne Bronze. HIT.

You can find them as well in the IRWS pedigree base under Coco, Beara Chieftain, Danske Kerry Rogue, Hillside Chiefttain, Gem of Beauty Bay and Biddy of Ardnagashel.

If you dive deep enough in your own lines via Whisper or Secret you will see a Hartsbourne diving up as well. Congratulations, great dogs. If you dive deep enough there, you will come across the Native Setters (USA), a tribe buried in our collective memory because it did not fit in the purity idea just like Red Setters nowadays.

Probably there are many more via Irish lines, as these dogs are nearly everywhere in. Huge gaps in both the red and red and white pedigree bases do not make it possible to tell whether or not they are still and it what numbers present.

As for your info on Of Boynes. They do play a huge role in numbers in near to all IRS/IRWS all categories+cultures. Not only via dogs you mention, many more. So you have to reckon with a huge possibility your "genuine Irish" have some tasty bloodhound flatcoat retriever or whatever in. And not just a few hundred times...

This whole exercise is not meant to hurt anybody, just to awake some people out of a purity dream that makes them condemn complete genepools who could lower coi's. Plus don't forget about the human element. Because, and grow up now, you don't think there was never any breeder with a kid that opened a door the wrong moment without saying papa? Do you?