Courier Mail, November 11 Perfect puppy love By: Andrea Lunt WHILE both sides of the science of genetics debate continue to go head to head across the world, Lauren Elgie, from Guide Dogs Queensland, goes quietly about her business. Lauren is a geneticist who is trying to breed the perfect guide dog -- a feat which will help out hundreds of vision-impaired people across Queensland. Lauren said she loved being able to combine her fondness for animals with her fascination with genetics. ``I was always interested in genetics and how it applied to animal breeding,'' Lauren said. ``I find it fascinating that natural selection can actually be modified and be sped up and you can get to a result more quickly than what nature would take you to it. ``The guide dog industry allows you to do that. You're trying to mould a dog type into something that's better. ``It's also great to be able to do that and help a community like the sight impaired.'' Animal-lover Lauren has worked with Guide Dogs Queensland for seven months as the breeding and dog supply manager. Her role is to supply the puppy development program with quality potential guide dogs. To do that, she is continually searching for breeding dogs with traits that will produce robust, compliant and clever puppies. ``We're always aiming for a sound, perfect dog but they don't come along very often so what we're aiming for is consistency.'' Lauren studies the genes of animals all across Australia and matches dogs that will hopefully create successful litters. Being a ``cupid of the dog world'' allows her to travel. She recently visited the San Francisco guide dogs school in the United States to study potential breeding dogs. ``The exciting thing about this job at the moment is that technology is booming,'' she said. ``We fly frozen semen back from America so I'm able to produce litters out of dogs that are on the other side of the world. ``The international schools are able to share a lot more now because of that frozen technology. To be able to do that it just fantastic.'' Lauren, who is originally from the small town of Oamaru on New Zealand's south island, was surrounded by animals when she was younger, having grown up with parents who bred ridgebacks. Spending so much time with dogs in her childhood inspired a love of animals and motivated her to find a career working with all things great and small. To fulfil her dream, Lauren completed a Bachelor of Science (Genetics and Biochemistry) and then a Masters degree in veterinary studies. She left university determined to work with dogs and got a job at a guide dogs school in NZ. Earlier this year, she moved to Australia to improve the success rates of puppies at Guide Dogs Queensland . Lauren said the Guide Dogs Queensland school presented a new challenge. ``Here it was a new colony and it needed development and it was a challenge building something from scratch,'' Lauren said. ``Before I got here, they were breeding 25 pups a year and we've more than doubled in a short space of time,'' she said. To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe.
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