> Well, Dave, the OFA and CERF websites are available. Is that public enough?
Almost no one sends their heart and patella certs to OFA, so it doesn't do any good at all. And many xray hips, but don't send them in or only do prelims--those can't be looked up either. Quite a few breeders don't send in ACVO forms to be CERFd either. The only way the information on the OFA and CERF sites will help is if EVERYONE sends in ALL results of ALL dogs when we are discussing polygenic traits. Having only 5% of all the breeding stock of a particular breed, showing hip, eye, heart AND eye test results on these sites is NOT going to give an accurate picture of what is really happening. In fact it will probably do the exact opposite. Example: HD has an 11% incidence by OFA results. Due to the fact that many people do not send in obviously dysplastic xrays the incidence is probably higher--maybe as high as 20%. If a breeder has tested say 50 of her Cavaliers over 20 years and 46 cleared and 4 flunked--that breeder would have less than a 10% incidence of hip dysplasia and obviously be doing better than the average. But if another breeder has tested only 5 dogs and 4 cleared and 1 flunked--that breeder would technically be showing a 20% incidence of hip dysplasia (not accurate with such a small amount I know but I'm making a point here!). But I will guarantee you people who go to the OFA site will only notice that so and so has 4 dogs who flunked and the other has only 1 dog who flunked--guess who they will think has a problem with HD?! And the rumors will abound--so and so has a lot of HD in their line! The only way to improve on polygenic traits is to have available the test results of ALL dogs of a particular breed--or at least as many as feasibly possible. Otherwise we have no accurate picture of the true occurence--so basically we have nothing at all. At this point in time, there is not one breeder in any country who can accurately assess how much HD, patellar luxation or early onset MVD is in ANY line--so of course we can't breed to improve health. So those who do test can only breed phenotypically clear dogs and hope for the best. It works, but just barely. This is quite upsetting to those who really want to improve health. I can imagine what would happen if everyone showed their Cavalier with a bag over it's head. We would all know what our own dog's heads look like because we see them at home, but we wouldn't know what everyone elses dog's heads looked like unless we specifically asked for pictures--but then we would only know what the head of those dogs we asked about looked liked. To improve heads we would need to know what most of the heads of the Cavaliers from a certain line looked like to know what lies behind them genetically. Since no one willingly shares what the heads of all their dogs looks like on an open picture database--this information would be VERY hard to get. Some people would lie and tell you their dogs have good heads but wouldn't show pictures. Some would have mostly bad heads and just a few good heads and only share pictures of the good heads--thereby trying to say their dogs have good heads when in fact they mostly don't. In the end, we would have no accurate picture of which lines have good heads and which don't. I would love to see a new breeder try to improve heads with the above scenario--they would have a VERY hard time and almost certainly be unsuccessful. Only high volume breeders who rarely breed out would be successful and even then only after years of breeding and seeing what is in their line. Laura Lang ========================================================= "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.
