Akc Wants Action On Genetic Problems

Deborah Howard was tossing a ball for her dog in her back yard when the animal crumpled before her eyes, dead.

Bear, a 6-year-old golden retriever, Howard’s jogging partner, was the picture of lean, muscular health - on the outside.

The hereditary heart disease that dropped him like a stone - subaortic stenosis, a major killer of golden retrievers and Newfoundlands - was hiding inside.

This happened last November - 13 months after sobbing from the bedroom of Howard’s 12-year-old son told her of the family’s first canine casualty. Cirrhosis of the liver killed the Howards’ 4-year-old cocker spaniel.

Veterinary researchers say the breed has become prone to the disease.

“We’re done with purebreds,” Deborah Howard announced the morning Bear died. “This is too painful. Our next dog will be a mutt from the pound.”

No one can say how many of America’s more than 35 million dog-owning households are making decisions like the Howards’ these days. But there is agreement that the rough beasts now lurking in the gene pool of the nation’s purebred dogs are a menace. Enough so that the American Kennel Club is calling for exterminators.

Last October, AKC hosted a conference on canine genetic health that AKC operations vice president John Mandeville promises was the “kickoff” of a campaign to bring genetic ailments under control. Lest anyone doubt the scope of the problem, Dr. William D. Schall opened AKC’s conference by pointing out that hereditary disease has become, in effect, an undeclared tax on dog lovers.

America’s purebred dog owners, said Schall, now spend at least $500 million annually treating sicknesses their dogs were born with. The professor of small animal surgery at Michigan State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine added that in utero losses from genetic disease probably cost U.S. breeders another $100 million-plus each year.

Since its October conference, AKC has created a foundation to fund genetic disease research. According to Mandeville, the nation’s largest purebred dog registry also plans to host continuing scientific conferences on the subject, launch ambitious breeder education efforts beginning this year, and generally explore a wide range of carrot-and-stick initiatives.

Rallying America’s purebred dog establishment is essential, Mandeville declares, because breeding healthy dogs is really more a matter of ethics and values than science. He says that while he expects research to yield such powerful tools as DNA tests, technology by itself can’t make breeders more responsible.

On this issue, Mandeville seems to be signaling a new toughness at AKC:

“As tools become available that make it possible to detect genetic problems, if it’s not dishonest or corrupt it’s something in that ballpark for people not to take advantage of these things.”

One tool that Mandeville says could be adopted by America’s top purebred dog registry right now is already being practiced in Sweden. Called an “open registry,” it requires that dogs of many breeds be tested for common genetic diseases - with the test results made public - before a pedigree is issued.

Without a dime being spent on canine genetic research, this step alone would almost certainly revolutionize dog breeding in America. But will AKC actually expose sickly dogs by mandating such a registry?

“I don’t want to suggest that decisions are imminent,” says Mandeville.

Nevertheless, the AKC senior executive insists that the organization’s staff and board of directors are evaluating new regulations for protecting the purebred dogs AKC registers - buyers, too - from unscrupulous breeders.

“At what point does the individual’s right to make decisions that harm the total have to be limited?” asks Mandeville.

Good question.

“If somebody gave me the magic wand, it probably would have many elements of a sledge hammer to it,” he says.

Strong words. But not strong enough to decontaminate the canine gene pool or restore confidence in AKC.

Dr. George Padgett, a veterinary pathologist at Michigan State University, speaks for other scientists and lay observers when he says bluntly that AKC has “buried” canine genetic disease for so long that action, not talk, will be necessary to build his trust.

And Deborah Howard’s verdict?

“We’ll own mixed-breeds for now.”