Great Scots Magazine: Pushing for Better Health

The following is from Great Scots Magazine's "MacBlog":

What is killing us and our dogs are ‘typy’ good looks that hide recessive genes and late-onset diseases. However, the contamination of our Scottish Terrier gene pool can only worsen until we grasp this elemental truth of population genetics: kinship-increasing breeding practices, sustained over time, in a small breed population, lead inexorably to what population geneticists call “inbreeding depression.” Classic signs of inbreeding depression abound in Scottish Terriers today: (1) shorter lifespans (2) weakened immunology (3) smaller litters (4) increased whelping problems (5) spread of genetic diseases. Take one example: Scottie longevity. In 1995 the STCA did a small health survey limited to their registered breeders and pegged the average Scottie lifespan at 11.2 years. In 2005, a decade later, Great Scots Magazine sponsored a comprehensive Scottie health survey, encompassing over 1600 case studies comprising both show bred and pet Scottish Terriers, and found the average lifespan is 10.15 years. Assuming the STCA numbers from 1995 were accurate (those are the only longevity numbers the national club ever produced in their 95-year history to that date)—assuming their numbers are accurate, it shows our breed’s lifespan dropped by 10% in a single decade! That’s equivalent to humans losing perhaps eight years or more off our life-expectancy.

The tragedy here is simply this: a purebreed system lacking the perspective of biological conservation and driven rigidly by the aesthetics of ‘type’ is a system obsessed with a small portion of the genetic picture and functionally blind to larger gene pool dynamics. Despite manifest signs of a troubled gene pool, we persist in our bargain with the devil for ‘typy’ good looks blind to the fact that handsome, ‘typy’ Scotties that have high coefficients of inbreeding can only deepen our inbreeding depression.

Worse still, our kinship-raising/diversity-reducing breeding practices now are normalized and ensconsed as responsible practice setting in motion the irony of breed guardians who believe they are saving the gene pool by holding for rigid showring ‘type’ when in fact they are adding to the ravages of depleted genetic diversity in our best dogs.

The Scottie gene pool, it turns out, is poisoned most by our own contaminated values, traditions, and rituals and our proud breed has most to lose at the hands of its staunchest friends. The mind-set and the ‘typy’-motivated line-breeding traditions which have brought our dogs to this predicament will continue to justify patch work band-aid fixes until the stark reality of our dogs’ jeopardy is driven home to the public. Until it informs us and frightens us and angers us it won’t motivate us to change the way we breed and buy Scottish Terriers.

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