Split In The Breed?

[Ulla R]

I'm so positive about it that Speckle can be found nowadays in every pedigree. When I did search my girls pedigrees found her at least 10 times in the 9th and 10th generations. So I think it is almost impossible to find a pedigree still without her.

Here are my girls pedigrees (5 generations):

Tara: http://ladysplits.tripod.com/id17.html
Anni: http://ladysplits.tripod.com/id25.html

[workingcockers]

yes - your girls have a lot of Gwibernant/Wernffrwd/maesyyderwen in them as do most of my current ones - but the Jordielands were line bred and although hard to find the blood now, not all if any of their dogs contain Speckle as they more or less remained inside their own strain adding in Laigh Park. take FT CH Laighpark Dazzle born in the mid 1980's. She doesnt contain any Speckle in her. However you may well be right in that today it is impossible to find any breeding without her. She appears in the 5th gen of some of mine.

[Sandy J.]

Leads me to believe that the distinction of working/show type is much more prevalent in the UK than in other countries - is that accurate?

[snapback]130961[/snapback]

In Poland there's no such distinction - every cocker is a "show type". And only dogs which take part in shows and do well can be bred - if they don't, their puppies can't be registered and our kennel club don't consider them(the puppies) as pure- bred cockers, even if their parents are registered. So there's no way to separate a working line. (I hope it's understandable - sorry for my English)

[Ulla R]

^That's the same in Denmark. How ever I don't get it how it correlates to pure breedness? I think they are pure bred if they have a pedigree. And I don't get it why just the show results matter? This is a gundogbreed and I really think that merits from field are equally good or even better than just show results. A real cocker is also able to work.

We here in Finland have no limitations in merits. But the dam and sire needs to be eye- and hipexamined, but there are no other limitations in order to get the dogs registred (you can even register puppies from E+E parents... it is the breeder who then takes responsiblity about the matter...).

All our FIN Ch are qualified on field and there are no SH Chs. And every working cocker needs a good from shows for the FTCh... and that's sometimes difficult. But not every show bred make to Ch eigther... they don't manage to get trough the working test.

[workingcockers]

Ulla - you might appreciate the irony in the following. I receievd this strange email this morning - I have never met the person and it took a while to work out who they were. The bulk of which I have retyped in my own words to avoid any suggestion of libel and copyright  I wont put my reply but you can guess what I said. I find quite unbelievable - both in content and cheek!! It is a very very sad state of affairs though if this is a representative view of the FT fraternity in the UK.

had looked at your website. We who breed/train and trial our working cockers do not eye test or hip score. as my web site shows the health tests of my dogs, I am implying to the public and therefore misleading them into thinking there is a problem in the breed. According to the author of the email, the top FT lines are free from genetic weaknesses unlike the show types ..

so there we have it!!

[Ulla R]

Unbelieveble! Don't bother with that! That's how it is in dogworld. Peolple are stupid and cruel.

So these people  put their hed in the sand: Dogs are healthy and don't trerefore need to be tested. How do you know if they are? My Tara is not the only working cocker who has HD and it is heretary!! I have a show bred cocker who has C/D hips and now when we study her sires statitics: almost 60% of his offsring has C or worse. So I should have guessed about it.

Did you knew that Hedley Millington (Nancarrow cockers) does eye testing to his dogs? I think he is a "serious" working cocker man.....

Here is a link to swedish cockerdatabase: http://www.rasdata.nu/cocker/htmlhund/htmlhund.htm
Look for the familiar kennels so you can find health info about the workers and also about course show breds. A very informative site.

[Penel]

How disappointing that you received that email - why can't people be realistic, and honest.  I am more than willing to accept that there are health problems in the working cocker too - but I still believe that there are not nearly as many as in the show cocker.

[workingcockers]

I wrote a very strong reply to the person to let them know who was testing (including Hedley) and I picked one BRS supplement off my bookshelf at random and there was a working cocker with a non too great hip score in that particular issue which I quoted to her . I put forward my thoughts and reasons etc etc and demanded an apology for an email which I admit to being very very upset about (I cant understand why anyone wants to condemn those who test, esp when so far none of my results have been bad, so in actual fact by having my test results on my web site I am in a way promoting the breed I suppose,  so it's all very positive I think) - esp bits which were personal to me which I have not reproduced above.

Anyway - to cut a long story short, the person has apologised for jumping to conclusions about me personally without finding out more about me and my background in the breed (which is a good few years longer than theirs...) and for offending me. I think I have given said person something to think about and they have asked me to put forward my thoughts on various matters pertaining to health to move forward and as they put it 'find a solution' I dont think there is any other solution than by testing and not breeding from unsound stock (I am leaving Optigen out of this at present as I do realise that a carrier can be bred to a clear safely etc etc but the discussions will start at basics) .

Ulla - can you explain more about the scoring used in Scandanavia to me please? I assume A is the best - what is the worst possible - is it E? Just for interest!! Thanks.

[Ulla R]

A= the best score
B= healthy, but slight changes
C= slight dysplasia
D= dysplasia
E= severe dysplasia

You can also get results like A/B, A/C, D/E which tells you that the hips differ from each other. So at the moment I have one B, one C/D and one D/E.  

By the way: my Tara is Optigen A1 (tested a year a go) and Nana Is B1. Her father has PRA.

[workingcockers]

Thanks Ulla!!