Dear List, I wish the discussion of roughcoats could involve a great many more people and a great many more anecedotes! It sounds like a cop-out even to consider blaming the problem on anything BUT genetics, yet I think we must consider the possibility that the condition may be due to something, probably a chemical something, affecting the ability of the bitch to develop a normal foetus. As I wrote to Myra, before I realized that this has again become a subject on which we're still at the speculation stage, there were several things which made me feel certain it was not simply a genetically recessive fault. First, the breeders in Britain from whom I had bought my dogs had (in the early 80's) never seen a roughcoat. Of course (there's an answer for everything) in that case we had to wonder whether, because of overshot mouths and smaller size than their siblings, the puppies were not all that healthy and were just written off as fading pups -- a helpful catch-all for neonatal problems in those days. I believe the breeders then who said they'd not seen it, and I do still. Second, there was no consistency whatever in the lines, or the breeding whether it be tight or totally out, between the litters which contained a roughcoat and those which didn't. I had a total of about eight, but at that time other breeders were having them too, and we were really worried about our breeding stock, specially as there seemed no connection to any illness or anything that might have gone on while the bitch was in whelp.
Then came the article/letter/write-ups from the long-time Massachusetts collie breeder and her vet, who were suddenly seeing all the roughcoat problems we were dealing with, and had figured out the ONLY thing that was different since the problems started was the food which that breeder was using, which was preserved with, among other things, the additive Ethoxyquin. (Ethoxyquin had first been developed as a rubber stabilizer, then briefly used as an insecticide, and finally discovered to preserve shelf life an extra six months, It was poured into cattle food, and subsequently the cattle were used in dog food, which was given another boost of Ethoxyquin, and somewhere along the line it was discovered that canines were particularly sensitive to it.) And finally, how else to account for the fact that when the article appeared, we'd just had two litters with a roughcoat in each, so we changed foods, bred the same two bitches back to the same two dogs six months later, had two healthy, easy litters, one of four and one of five, AND, most convincing of all, never saw another roughcoat after that? (Also, I might add, if it had no bearing on the case, why did so many foods all of a sudden start being labeled "contains no Ethoxyquin"?) I think Myra's point about thalidomide, and other chemical additives, is very well taken. It would be lovely if we could get certain, proven answers to this sort of question, but we can't and all there is to be done is to listen to everyone's experience and hope somewhere along the way there will be some sort of solution. For me, several years of roughcoats suddenly ending upon changing the dogs' food, along with the same thing happening for other breeders, seemed pretty conclusive. For years it also seemed too good to be true, and I held my breath with every litter, waiting for the axe to fall. (Talk about tempting providence.........) But something has changed, and the only obvious cause is the food -- I can't think it's due to the fact that every generation is just that much further away from the dogs who first produced roughcoats because they are still in the pedigrees, and I've bred closer in some instances since the roughcoats than I was doing when they were appearing. I do know that there were several law suits brought by people in other breeds, of which I could never find out the results, which makes me wonder if they weren't settled on condition that nothing be said publicly -- otherwise why the silence? Perhaps today's roughcoats have nothing whatever to do with the earlier ones, but it seemed worth bringing it up since in my case there was just no other conclusive answer. Possibly there's some other additive today, or some chemical used to treat the newer foods, which could have the same effect. Or possibly it IS genetic, and by sheer good luck the gene just got lost somewhere along the way in my dogs. There was never any question of breeding from a roughcoat, though if we'd approached it "scientifically" that's probably exactly what should have been done. But there wasn't much sense in producing more problems when the condition seemed so random and all we wanted to do was to get away from it. However, as I said to Myra, in spite of their health problems it was almost as if those puppies had something to make up for them, for they were invariably the happiest, smartest, and most responsive babies of any litter they appeared in. I certainly hope the problem disappears again, whether or not we ever find out the reason for it. But I also remember with the great joy our funny puppies with their paw-in-the-light-socket appearance, whokept us laughing at their antics for the better part of 15 years. ========================================================= "Magic Commands": to stop receiving mail for awhile, click here and send the email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20NOMAIL to start it up gain click here: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20MAIL E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. Search the Archives... http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ckcs-l.html All e-mail sent through CKCS-L is Copyright 2002 by its original author.
