Is Your Breed "Vulnerable"?

This article originally appeared in Dog News and is published here by permission of the author.

Is Your Breed “Vulnerable”?

Carlotta Cooper

The Kennel Club in Britain recently released their 2013 registration information, including breed figures. For those of us with breeds with smaller registration numbers, even in the U.S., it's refreshing to see this kind of information. I have a breed (English Setters) that's been hovering around the “vulnerable” mark in Britain – that is, a native British breed with fewer than 300 individuals registered per year. English Setters grew from 312 puppies registered in 2012 to 326 registered in 2013. Pop the champagne! It's certainly too soon to celebrate but just a couple of years ago the breed only registered 234 puppies after a decade of decline. And the English Setter is by no means as bad off as some of the other native breeds. You can see registration numbers for the breeds registered in the UK here, along with their 2012 numbers.

Total Kennel Club registration figures for 2013 were 223,770. That's 5,460 fewer than in 2012 which represents a 2 percent drop, though Kennel Club officials note that the last quarter of the year showed a slight recovery in numbers. The three most popular breeds in Britain remain the same as in 2012, though with slightly reduced numbers: Labrador Retrievers, Cocker Spaniels (English, to us), and the English Springer Spaniel. You should keep in mind that the United Kingdom is a nation of some 63 million people when looking at their numbers – about one-fifth the population of the United States at 313 million people.

Vulnerable breeds, overall, increased their registrations by about 2 percent. However, some vulnerable breeds continue to struggle. Registrations for the Skye Terrier, for example, fell by 59 percent last year with the breed registering only 17 puppies.

Unfortunately, we currently have little idea what the individual breed figures are for our breeds here in the U.S. Per Alan Kalter's recent Chairman's Report, the AKC registered 479,404 dogs in 2013, but I haven't seen an individual breakdown of the breeds. I think we all know that there are plenty of pressures on breeders and buyers today which are responsible for the drop in registrations. We have a heavy push from animal shelters for people to get a mixed breed dog instead of buying a purebred puppy. Animal rights people talk trash about dog breeders and purebred dogs at every opportunity. It's more expensive to breed and show dogs today. New laws make it harder and harder to keep and raise dogs. There is lots of social pressure on dog owners to spay and neuter puppies as soon as possible instead of thinking about breeding a litter at some point. We're living in a different world than the one that existed in 1992 when AKC registered 1.5 million dogs.

Since we are living in a different world today, we need to get rid of the old playbook, especially those of us who have “vulnerable” breeds. We may not have the same kennel club-sanctioned program here in the U.S. that exists in Britain, but there are certainly breeds here which have to be cognizant of the fact that we don't register many dogs each year and we have a small gene pool. That's why it would be so helpful if AKC would once again start posting the breed registration statistics – both the litters and individual dogs registered. If the AKC is now registering one-third of the dogs that they registered in 1992, it means that the individual breed numbers are also down. We need to know what those numbers are so we can take action. There are many people in each breed who won't take these issues seriously until they see how low the numbers in their breed have gotten in the last few years.

Your Flat-Coated Flugelhound may still be ranked 54^th in the registration rankings but that tells you nothing about how many litters are born or how many dogs are registered. Your breed might be on the verge of extinction and you wouldn't know it.

Now, according to the old playbook, we, as “responsible breeders” sold puppies on limited registration or with spay/neuter contracts. We did not breed every puppy in a litter. We didn't have to because there were lots of puppies being produced and we could pick and choose. Even as more and more health and genetic tests became available, we could toss out any dog who had the slightest problem we didn't like. And you know what happened? We now have fewer and fewer dogs being bred and fewer puppies being registered.

I think, when we see those individual breed statistics again, we will find that many breeds are looking at low numbers. If we want to save our breeds, we have to change our thinking and our tactics.

• No more spay/neuter contracts unless a puppy has a serious fault.

• Encourage your puppy buyers to consider breeding their puppy when s/he's an adult. Become a mentor to them.

• Try to use more dogs and bitches in each litter for breeding.

• Don't remove dogs from your breeding program for small problems. Weigh and consider pros and cons of health issues.

• Learn more about genetics and good breeding practices in general.

I'm not saying to produce a lot of mutts or become a puppy farmer. I'm not telling you to lower your standards. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't health test your dogs. What I am saying is that these suggestions can help breeds who have lower numbers. Include more puppy buyers in your future breeding plans and more dogs in the gene pool and it can help increase the number of dogs bred as well as the overall health of the breed. This isn't something that I thought of all by myself. Some of these ideas come from population genetics. It's good to use more dogs and bitches in the gene pool; and it's good to keep individuals in the gene pool if they don't have major problems and you use them sparingly. Most of all, you want to breed more instead of less. If we don't do some of the things recommended here for breeds with low numbers, then at some point in the future it might become necessary to use outcross breeding to try to save various breeds. I don't think that's something that most breeders of purebred dogs look forward to with pleasure.

I think it would be great if AKC would do something to encourage breeders with some of the breeds with low numbers but they would have to identify them first. Maybe they could reduce the price of registering a litter by a few dollars or give a breeder/owner some recognition for persevering with these breeds – it's really not easy finding majors when you have a breed with such low numbers! (Especially if you live in the middle of nowhere, as I do.) We need to keep these breeders and owners involved with their breeds or they will be doomed to extinction.

I know these ideas go against the grain for many breeders. They are contrary to popular thought today that encourages people to spay/neuter every dog and breed very little. But if we want to keep a lot of our breeds around, we need to take actions like these. If you love your breed and you want to make them less vulnerable, keep breeding, despite all the obstacles. Their futures are in our hands and we have to make sure we leave them strong and healthy for the next generation.

Now, if we can just see those breed statistics.