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When I was looking at possible dogs - a very honourable, very switched on, very good (top) breeder told me of a condition they'd found recently called SCA - 'Spino-cerebellar ataxia) - details are here at the northern club website. The AHT is researching a genetic test, but last I heard they...

I'd be interested too.... I've clearly missed some of this - was online in other contexts, offering support to the Obama campaign in the US (isn't life wonderful at times? :cheers: ) - so I'm not up to speed on why heart testing has taken off - tho' very glad that the whole paradigm seems...

Apologies for anyone who thought I was referring to PRA in whippets - I was using it as an example of the problems that are being seen in OTHER breeds m

This is a really key question: I was talking to a friend who's a specialist in veterinary ophthalmology (eyes) and is on various boards for various breeds where they have ocular diseases for which there are good, proven DNA tests. And so they have conflicts of interest. To get rid of PRA, you...

With the greatest of hesitation, and very quietly, and from behind a flame-proof barrier, might I suggest that the only way to have any idea of what's actually happening in the breed (any breed) is to set up a Health Database in which a central institution gathers information from breeders, lay...

and this, from the canine diversity project CoI in very simple terms, it's the Coefficient of Inbreeding, as defined by an equation that allows the degree of inbreeding to be expressed in percentage terms. good luck e

This is a really important point. There are two distinct concepts here, both of which relate to the degree of in-breeding 1 - inherited disease profiles. The inheritance of these may be simple - PRA for instance is a simple recessive gene. If you mate two carriers, each puppy has a 25% chance...

For those who are interested in the details of this debate, this is a video from the BVA Congress where the issues were clearly being debated ahead of this program: Welfare video Manda Scott

Indeed - there are two problems of breeding and one of education. What would be good, would be to both reduce the tendency to breed towards extremes of deformity while at the same time, embracing the concept that, to survive, all breeds, regardless of their current structure, need to reduce...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> It really wouldn't - we do (I used to do - not any more - for clarity) puppy vaccinations without it tying up all our time. As someone who did used to go round the studs and do foal IDs, puppy IDs per se wouldn't be much use - how do you distinguish between nine black...

Malcolm Willis said a while back that nothing should have a CoI higher than 10%. I think Natalia in her paper was advocating 2-3% as an ideal for the long term 40-generation survival of any breed, but said it might take a while to get to that. as far as measuring goes, 5 generations would seem...

All of the questions re: hybrid vigour, the dangers of line breeding and why 'if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got' doesn't apply to dog breeding are answered with clarity, humour and sense in Natalia's paper to the Congress. If you have a chance...

The day the UK Kennel Club provides this service across all breeds - and breeders understand and use it, we'll have passed an astonishing and worthwhile milestone. I'm sure the technology is there, we just need the will to use it. very impressed by the comments here manda

Didn't Natalia give an exceptionally good, clear paper on exactly this question at the Convention (maybe not the right name?) in Sweden? I do have a copy of it, but not sure it's legal to post it - and it is rather long. But perhaps there's an on-line copy somewhere...? (Natalia's a...

I was out when it aired and caught it on BBC iPlayer - here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_one/2008-08-19 scroll down to 9pm - 'Pedigree dogs exposed' good luck manda scott

It was outstanding. I was so, so impressed at the courage of the women in the CKCS breed society who was prepared to stand up and be counted and speak out for her breed. The rest, I thought, was intelligent, well researched, passionate, thoughtful, well reasoned and said all that needed to be...

Heck.... I should go back into general practice, that's daylight robbery (only kidding) I would do it, though... it's legal and sane in any working dog and the pups barely notice. It is a nightmare of a procedure in adult dogs, in much the same way that tail docking in adults is ghastly - but...

Well done that girl.... :cheers: as a former vet, I'd give her the one piece of advice I wish people had given me when I started... Find something you really, truly enjoy and become very, very good at it - but wait until you're in your final year before you decide (Biochemistry isn't all that...

These are the kind of people who make me think that dog licences - with an examination on feeding, behaviour, exercise should be mandatory for everyone who thinks they want a dog... what kind of research *hasn't* this woman done? scary. very, very scary Scott's First Law of Veterinary...

Just to answer the OP: First cross whippet/bedlingtons always have rough coats like yours. Colours are usually either slate grey or fawn, with or without white points - more or less regardless of the parents. The bedlington coat is a homozygous dominant and creates the rough coat in the first...