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Saturday was the day of the actual Congress. Each delegate was issued with Breed Club leaflets,
Council of Docked Breeds and Kennel Club information as they arrived.
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The local Town Crier in full regalia, complete
with authentic bell, opened the XV111th European Spaniel Congress
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The first speaker of the day was the renowned Peggy
Grayson. She spoke on the History of the Sporting Spaniel, including
some of the people who were responsible for the formation of the
breeds and the moves made by the breed before and after the two
World Wars. I have to say one of the quotes made was about Bebb,
who seems to be at the base of the Field, Cocker and Sussex Lines,
which was that he was obviously popular with the ladies, as it seemed
to have all breeders queuing up for him! |
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What was highlighted by this talk was that allowing
one person's opinion on a breed to become all-important had led
to some near disasters for some of the spaniel breeds and their
development.
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The next speaker was Cathryn Mellersh PHD 'Understanding
the Genetic Basis of Inherited Canine Diseases'. Cathryn has worked
in the USA helping to build the Canine Genetic Map and is continuing
that work at the Animal Health Trust.
This was an extremely easy to understand presentation of genetics. Starting with the statement that mutation is the source of all inherited diseases she went on to show how these mutations can become problems. With Canine genetics the problem is with line breeding as this removes diversity from the breed. If you have a dog that is a carrier at the top and bottom of your pedigree then you are more likely to get affected dogs. The ultimate aim is to identify carriers of a disease as puppies and to remove them from the gene pool. It is these, which will cause us most problems. Affected dogs can be seen but carriers are no different in appearance to a dog, which is free from the disease. |
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The way this can be done is by the use of linked
markers. These markers are close to the gene causing the problem,
but the gene hasn't yet been identified. However they can test for
the linked marker for the mutation that causes the disease. This
test is 97% accurate; however it can give false positives. It isn't
too much of a problem when a clear dog is removed from the gene
pool, but if a carrier were identified as clear then that would
be a setback. The ideal is to use a test for the gene, which is
100% accurate. With both the Human and Canine Genome being publicly
available, it is easier these days to find where start looking for
a disease. If a similar disease has been identified for humans (and
it is more likely that genes have been identified for humans than
dogs) then it is logical to start looking in the equivalent place
on the DNA strand in dogs.
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One of the things they emphasised, which the FSS
has already is the facility the AHT offer for a blood bank. By storing
blood for future DNA tests you are helping to create a wider fund
of knowledge to solve any problems in the breed should they appear?
One of the ways to increase the deposits to the blood bank is for
breeders to have blood collected of litters before they are placed
with their new owners. This is certainly something that I will do
with my next litter.
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Mark Clifford (Belvden ESS) started by introducing himself to the audience. He is a KC B panel judge and he became interested in working spaniels seriously during a period of convalescence in hospital. Strangely enough he got his first serious working dog from his co-judge of the working test Prof Simon Allison. Mark then went on to do a brief history of why spaniels were needed and changes throughout the years that Field Trials and working practices had on the breeds. He went on to explain the difference between what a dog was required to do for rough shooting, beating, picking up, pigeon shooting and wildfowling. He then went on to describe Field trials and working tests. Whilst talking on this it was an inspired choice of Ann Greeves to show video footage of the recent spaniel championship. There was no sound so as not to detract from the talk, but it gave all visitors a chance to see the spoken word in action. Mark went on to explain Working Tests and in both tests and trials what the judges were looking for and what would eliminate a dog from the awards. |
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He finished off with the Show Gundog Working Certificate,
which allows the show dogs to get full titles, and the new KC working
Certificate, which has been introduced as a non-competitive event
to give indication of working ability in a dog. If it reaches the
required level it is awarded a Certificate that can be useful to
breeding programs and to keepers who will know a certain level has
been attained.
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