Are Mixed-Breed Dogs Better?
With funding from the Canine Health Foundation, vets and researchers have begun isolating disease-causing genes. “To be fair to the Kennel Club, they are doing quite a lot to try and fix some of the problems that are there,” Serpell said. “So they created the AKC Canine Health Foundation. … But for me, that’s a bit like closing the gate after the horse has bolted.” One approach the Kennel Club and others are trying is to first isolate a defective gene, treat the dog that carries it and stop breeding from the dog so the gene isn’t passed on. “I think 95 percent of the people who exhibit dogs here are responsible breeders,” Bradley, the Westminster show chairman, said. “They want their dogs to be healthy.” But, as seen at Westminster, not every breeder stops breeding from a dog that they know has a problem. It’s not quite that simple. “I have bred one of my girls to a dog that heard in one ear,” Callea, the Dalmatian breeder, said. “And I knew that when I did it. But he was an exceptio
