THE KENNEL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2840, 19 August 1908, Page 35

THE KENNEL.

Bi Tebeok.

F»uoler» db'l breeders of <l»s« are cordially invited to con. trikuu Items to this column. "Terror' will endtavqur to make (bii department <w interesting and up-to-date »« possible, but in tr^er to <lo this tic must have thtj co-oDeratifcu ol Ills leaders hnace he trusts tut* invittitou will he cheerful!} responded to. —At the Canterbury Kennel Club show, which opened on Wednesday last, the entry comprised all the popular breeds of dogs, and the quality is reported to have been good. Mr H. S. Kyle was judge, and his decision appears to have given, general satisfaction. — The Sho\\6 Regulation Committee of the Kennol Club of England, at its meetings of May 21 and June 4-, had under consideration "a large number of objections against dog« shown at various fixtures throughout England. The committee dis- j Qualified 54- prize-winning dogs in all, which J meant that the degs placed . below them j were a<ivanved to a higher position. — The Chihuahua dog, which is so •nu-jn admired in America, is a distinct race of ! wild Mexican dog which the Indians crossed i with a email Indian dog to domesticate ' him. When the Mexican Central Railway was opened these dogs greatly took the fancy of tourists, who bought them so ! quickly that it is now a difficulty to find a thoroughbred owing to the dearth of the wild stock. In consequence the Indians j are crossing them with various Toy breeds, notably black-and-tane, thereby producing a long-legged, rat-tailed, short-coated dog, quite different from the original stock, whose coats were thick and silky, with a well-feathered, turned-up tail. They are j said to be immune from distemper, as even when exposed to infection they do not contract the disease. —Mr C. J. Davies, a well-known and highly thought of authority in kennel matters, writing on "The Law of Probability," . i.e., the element of chance in breeding, gays : — " There are a great number of people with very few of the qualifications essential to the successful outcome of the undertaking- who annually embark upon the breeding of exhibition stock. Their attitude with regard to the matter is that it is chiefly a matter of luck. Where luck begins and good management ends in any given cases it is almost impossible to say. It is human nature to think that a successful man is a lucky one : one ie apt to fail to realise, or forget if one has ever known it. the years of unremunerative work which have perhaps been given to the hobby, and the enormous amount of trouble which has always been taken in attending to details which to the novice seem unimportant, but which experience shows to be one of the main factors of success. The law of probability plays no small part in everyday life, one of the most familiar applications of a _ strictly practical nature being in connection with annuitips, life assurance, and other interests of a similar nature, depending upon the average duration of human life. If such serious matters, often involving vast sums of money, are based on probability or chance — and successfully so, as the dividends paid by most assurance companies te^tifv— then it is certainly worth while to endeavour to get a grasp of the subject from the -point of view of the breeder, as modern discoveries with regard to tho phyeioloE-v of heredity have demonstrated that r>roV»ability or chance nlavs a small part in the production of individuals with definite characteristics. " Every contingent event (say, the inheritance or non-inheritance of a certain character) /ives rise to two opposite probabilities—one that the event will happen, the other that it -will not. A few years ago, when breeding was thoucht to be all a matter of luck, the breeder took but little interest in this aspect of the affair. Now. however, that we know that this luck, or whatever you like to call it. is 3rderlv and under control, and that given :erfca.in data it is possible to almost accurately forecast whether or not a certain event will happen — i.e.. whether or not a certain character will be inherited — the breeder who will not take the trouble to study the matter from • this point of view will soon find himeelf eclipsed by those who are applying- the results of modern research in a practical manner. "After all, there ie nothing particularly complex or wonderful in the thing, and the man with knowledore who makes % correct fruess as to the chance of inheritance of a certain point Is doing nothing very re->

"After all, there ie nothing particularly complex or wonderful in the thing, an<^ the man with knowledore who makes % correct fruess as to the chance of inheritance of a certain point Is doing nothing very re->

markable or supernatural. Broadly speak- » ing, if both parents possess a certain eh i -ao- I ter it will be inherited; if neither possess it it will not be; if only one possess it, inheritance is doubtful, and without data a correct guess would certainly come under \ the category of lucky. " The clue to the whole matter lies in j a proper appreciation of the organism, not , as a whole, but as a composite, built up ' of innumerable unit characters, each of I which must be considered as a separate entity. We do not cross species, varieties, or even individuals of the same variety, but rather unit characters, and in breeding we must consider the animals in their position as the bearers of certain unite. " Presuming, then, that the germ cells are compesed of a host of units representing the different characters, we have next to conceive of each unit as incapable of developing alone ; it requires a cotrple ment or pair to enable it to evolve. This complementary half is supplied by the other parent when we mate two animals together. But one parent may differ in slight degree ; that is to say, it possesses, f say, ears, and the units transmit tln-so appendages, but they are a different class of ear to those of the other parent (prick instead of drop, to use a crude analogy), and the ear units when they meet are not in such complete accord as they would have been if alike. In such, a case development j proceeds, but one unit is often stronger ' or more dominant than the other and con- ; trols the visible inheritance. Thus we find j that all the progeny come with, say, prickears, and the drop-ears of the other parent have apparently disappeared. As we know, however, if the prick-eared (halfbrcd) progeny are mated together, the drop-ear re-appears in a definite percentage of their progeny, thus proving that the effect of the cross was not to completely exterminate or even to alter this feature, but merely to cause its temporary disappearance. " The same principle applies to every character, and it cam be seen that there is little chance or luck in the matter. Once it is known which characters are dominant which recessive, the course of inheritance i can be foreshadowed with a fair amount of ! certainty when differing forms are crossed. ' " When two animals both have the same ' characters— i.e., both have, say, prick-ears, their progeny will, of ec<urse, have prickears, and so on. j ''The only rather more complex cases in which chance really plays a minor part are those in which one parent 16 already w}a!> we may call crossbred or composite vi respect of certain cnarac-ters. Thus, we may have dogs which are called white, and which are mainly white to the eye (but carry pigment in eyes and nose if not else- , where), but in whose germ cells colour units always lurk On crossing these with colour i quite remarkable and diverse results often ' occmr, much to the astonishment of tho owner, who does not realise that the cross has caused the j-e-awakemng of dormant I and hitherto unrecognised colour units in t the white individual. "To give an example of colour crosses, grey in, horses is a dominant colour, and if j a grey mar© is crossed wirh a brown horse ' a grey foal is the result. If this filly is | mated with a brown, however, a proportion of her piogeny, approximately half, will be brown, because half the colour units in ' her germ cells will be gic-y, the other half , brown, a nd when one of the former meets ' the brown of the sire the colt will bo \ grey, when one of the latter it will be biown. Therefore, although we know grey is dominant, it is ra«h to prophesy that a colt will be grey unlee 9 the antecedents of the maro arc known, as if she ie a halfbred in lespect of her colour it is just a matter of chance which colour is transmitted by her at a certain mating. We know that out of a number of matmgs she will produce approximately equal numbers j of colts of each colour, but it is impossible to do more than guess which will arrive in any particular yeax. "In breeding dogs, then, it is obvious that strict analysis is -the only method by which inheritance can be predicted and controlled. It is aio good looking at an animal as a whole; it must be picked to pieces point by point, and a mate chosen which, when picked to pieces in the same way, provps itself to possess as many as possible of the same good points. Each point in which two animals differ leads to the progeny being half breds— i.e., unstable in respect of such characters. What they inherit may be desirable ponus or may not — observation (experiment) will alone prove which are dominant, — but in any case instability will have been created, and it is more or le*s luck or chance how mi beritance will proceed in the future. When the breeder has succeeded in building up j a strain in which like has been mated to like for at least three generations, then he may be sure that by continuing to inbreed his strain and mate the- like together he will be able to produce puppies of the same pattern, with almost mechanical regularity. " Although at the toss of the halfpenny it is chance whioh eide comes down uppermost, yet if one continues to toss that halfpenny a great number of time* the probability is that each side ■will be uppermost an approximately equal number of times. So it is in breeding together animals which arc in any way crossbred. It i» jiwt chance what combinations of the units occur at any particular mating; but in the end we know that certain definite combinations are bound to occur in definite ratio, and that though we cannot prognosticate that we get a certain thing at a given moment, yet if it fails this time it is a 2 to 1 (or some other proportion) chance that it occurs next time. "Hitherto the great failing of the average breeder has been in th© grasping of the importance of treating each point as a separate entity in heredity. He matee a good-headed dog with bad shoulders with a bad-headed bitch with good shoulders and thinks he has paved 1 the way to the production of champions in the most scientific manner. If he doe« breed anythinggood it will truly be a matter of luck. The correct mating would be a good-headed bitch to the bad-shouldered dog (if a dog with both good head and shoulders were not available), as then the hoad, at any rate, would be retained in the next and subsequent generations. In mating, also, too much attention must not be paid to relationship. Provided always the constitutions are sound, tnate together tho-c animals which suit each other, ii respective of wEether they aw* very near relations or not related at all." — The following is one of many letters whioh have appeared in Our Dogs antagonistic to the vivisection of doge: "Ac ther© &to over 1250 duly-qualified medical practitioners who_ have recently eigned a .petition, to Pailia-meat itatinjj. that they

'are of opinion tJiat the use of dogs for vivisectional experiment is in no way necessary for the advancement of medical science or for the adequate instruction of medical students,' it is plainly evident to all thinking and observant people that the futility and failure of vivisection is fast becoming recognised by steadily increasing numbers of the members of the medical profession. A Physician-in-Ordinary to the King writes : ' I would exempt dogs owing to their great and faithful friendship to mankind, and to their great intelligence, which must exalt their sensibility to pain.' And a professor of biology and lecturer of physiology at one of the universities boldly asserts that 'science that requires to be cruel to dumb animals is not worthy of the name.' With such valuable and authoritative testimony as this (and a considerable amount of similar evidence- could be added), the readers of Our Dogs are well justified in ranging themselves on the side of those who would protect their canine friends from torture and abuse. The evil of vivisection will never serve ih& true interests of the healing art, and the alleviation and cure of human suffering- and disease will never be attained through agony and pain inflicted upon out poor doss in the laboratory of the physiologist. Mercy and truth work together in perfect harmony, and the fount of healing must be pure and righteous at its source to advance the liarhte of humanity and benevolent knowledge. "The tim» will come when vivisection will be utterly discredited, and sink into the past as another evil abuse that has been overcome, for what is right is always expedie-nt. and in the end must ultimately prevail."