Rebuttal to It’s All About the Spots
150 – October, 2010
by Sharon Boyd – Cottondale Dalmatians
I read with interest the article by Ms. Gretchen Bernardi entitled “It’s All About The Spots”, published in your September, 2010 issue. Her stated reluctance to “discuss controversial matters that pertain to breeds other than my own and about which I have only limited information” is duly noted and I wonder what moved her to jump into the business of a Parent Club membership and a complex issue about which a great deal of inaccurate information has been spread through the pages of almost every major dog magazine in America.
This brings me to the first troubling feature of the article. Where did the author obtain her facts? As a sitting member of the Board of Governors and, indeed, the Corresponding Secretary of the Dalmatian Club of America for the past 19 years, I can say that Ms. Bernardi has never approached me to provide percentages and ballot results the likes of which she quotes in her article. A query of other DCA Board members including our sitting President as well as the chair of the DCA Health and Research Committee and the President of the Dalmatian Club of America Foundation indicates no one has been approached by her. Her “research” did not include any facts provided by the opposing side of the issue. This then indicates that she has been contacted by proponents of the backcross experiment to produce this article with a definite slant towards their position and did not contact DCA or DCAF for balancing facts. This fact in itself degrades the validity of the article in my mind. She wonders why the DCA membership would oppose a move which would so obviously provide the utopia of no more stone disease. Without supporting scientific evidence, it is perhaps NOT so obvious. Any board member, including me, would have been more than happy to explain to her exactly what causes the general membership to be uneasy about allowing the progeny from the backcross experiment to enter the Dalmatian stud book at this time.
The prevalence of the problem can change from 3% to 30% depending upon whom one asks. Most breeders of 20 years or more say they have rarely and sometimes never seen it in their dogs. Regardless of the prevalence, no one can deny that although all Dalmatians carry the gene to produce high uric acid, not all of them suffer from stone disease. Perhaps the study which DCAF is funding conducted by Dr. Joe Bartges of the University of Tennessee Small Animal Clinic and one of the recognized experts on urolithiasis (stone disease) will provide insight into the question.
In a 2010 vet textbook it states that abnormal levels of uric acid in Dalmatians is one of “23 risk factors” and that “the definitive mechanism(s) of urolith (stone) formation in Dalmatian dogs is unknown.” Dr. Bartges states in a 2009 email exchange with the former DCAF President and made public by his specific permission that “there is more to urate stone formation in Dalmatians than uric acid… my worry, thus, is that eliminating uric acid as the ‘cause’ of stone formation in Dalmatians MAY (his emphasis) result in formation of other stone types in those Dalmatians that carry whatever gene(s) predispose to stone formation – wouldn’t matter the mineral type-they are just stone formers. My opinion – decreasing uric acid will likely help with decreasing urate stone formation in Dalmatians but perhaps not stone formation in general”. Therefore, in the absence of high levels of uric acid, the Dalmatian could be less likely to form urate stones but might be more likely to form, for example, calcium oxalate stones which are not soluble and can only be treated by surgery.
Ms. Bernardi speculates as to the reasons the DCA membership has rejected this experiment. The purity of the backcross progeny is not in question even though common sense would tell us that to truly put a dent in the problem, the progeny must be bred back into the line again and again giving more genetic weight to the influence of the original Pointer and the founder dogs that are genetically closer to him. Still, no one I know objects to one Pointer being in a 14 generation pedigree if it offers the health benefit it is touted to offer. The problem is that there is absolutely no scientific evidence that it does and strong, clinical evidence offered by the experts that it doesn’t. The DCA President, Mrs. Meg Hennessey, has approached quite a few of the leading proponents of the experiment and asked that they provide data to support their theory and none is interested. The DCAF has offered to pay for additional health testing of the progeny and no one has availed themselves of this generous offer. This does not sound like a group passionately trying to prove their point and save the breed but just a group of people who conducted a scientifically flawed breeding program and who want to show their dogs at AKC events and be able to market their puppies under the more respected label of AKC registration?
I have never heard of anyone who has said that the backcross proponents are “animal rights sympathizers playing into the notion that our purebred dogs are unhealthy”. It is preposterous to imply that! And, the dogs truly DO display spotting patterns which do not approach acceptance under the AKC standard of the breed.
DCA commissioned a committee comprised of people interested in the backcross experiment and asked them to report back to the Board of Governors. In their “Final Report”, they acknowledge that the experiment is not a “formalized project or study”. They go on to say that there is no scientific research protocol and that “several breeders of (backcross) Dalmatians conduct their own breeding programs using these dogs, just as any other breeder… conducts and manages their own breeding program.” Are we, then, to alter the genetic makeup and the phenotype of our breed based on this total lack of scientific research protocol???
We want ONLY for the theory to be proven by scientific research. We want data supporting it. We want records on puppies from the project (none of which is more than approximately 5 years of age now). We want to be sure that altering the genetic makeup of our breed will provide the health benefit that has been nothing more than suggested and not proven at this time. We want evidence that nothing else is altered to change the essence of our breed. Any scientific theory must stand up to review. Why would this one be any different?
Respectfully,
Sharon Boyd
Cottondale Dalmatians
Since 1972
•••••
Gretchen Bernardi, the author of the article It’s All About The Spots which was published in the September, 2010 Canine Chronicle responded to Ms. Boyd’s rebuttal with the following:
Ms. Boyd:
I am happy that you read my article It’s All About the Spots and that it has resulted in discourse on a serious subject about which many have very strong opinions. I intend to address the subject more fully in a subsequent article, but want to make a point or two now.
I thought I was clear about my motives, but I repeat: all breeders and all parent clubs have an obligation to produce animals that are as healthy physically and mentally as possible and to that end, to use all the tools available.
I hope that the well-qualified Health and Welfare Committee that reviewed the program makes its opinion public soon and that we accept that opinion with grace.
Gretchen Bernardi
Short URL: https://caninechronicle.com/?p=1548
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