Nature vs Nurture plus Evil Floors

SUMMARY: Who's her daddy?

If you haven't already read this short article about nature vs. nurture in dogs (USDAA posted it in its news feed), you should. It's easily read and has nice diagrams. It clearly describes how both nature and nurture affect a dog's behavior, but that even the best nurturing can't overcome genetic flaws in behavior (and, vice versa, the worst nurturing can't completely overcome genetic strengths).

It's All in How They're Raised (not)

Here's my response:

Thanks for this article; just read in in the USDAA news. I particularly liked it because it followed a discussion with a friend about human children. I commented that she'd done a great job raising her kids, and she said that, no, she was just lucky. I said that I believed it's a combination of nature and nurture, and she said it's almost all nature, because she's seen good kids in bad situations and vice versa. Your article captures the answer to our discussion quite nicely. Thanks.

My border collie (Boost) abruptly developed a fear of unfamiliar flooring (especially if it was smooth, although it could be the exact flooring that I have in my house, just in a different building) when she was maybe 3 or 4. She'd always been concerned about changes to her environment, but this stunned me, because it also included floors in houses in which we had previously spent many days during her life or even weekends visiting. This manifested with the toes splayed out, the legs splayed out, hunkering down for a low center of gravity, and preferably hugging the walls and furniture as if somehow that made the floors safer. Fast forward to when she's 8 years old--still does it, although not quite as much and she can get used to the floors given time and patience. Talking to her breeder one day about border collies in general and reactivity, and I mentioned the floors thing. He said, oh, yes, her father did that his whole life, on *all* smooth floors, even in his own house--hugging the walls, toes spread out. Funny thing is that in looks and attitude, she's so much like her mother (whom floors never bothered).

Previous posts about Evil Floors (some with photos):

• Evil Floors 
• Vicon weekend in Point Arena (scroll down to Evil Floor Syndrome)
• Evil Floors and Working Dogs
• Evil Devil Floors (the very beginning)

Mixed-Breed Dog Genetic Testing

SUMMARY: Is Fido really a Shepherd/Labrador mix? Now you can know for sure!

At a recent agility trial, I discovered this interesting thing: For a small fee, you can send in a swab from your dog's mouth and find out whether your Dachshund/Sheltie mix is really a Border Collie/Beagle/Chihuahua mix. Doesn't that sound like the stuff of fantasy? Or at least science fiction? But no--it's happening. And they are discovering, contrary to what I had read several years ago, that they can distinguish specific breeds from their DNA. (Previously, I read that they couldn't even distinguish dogs from wolves, because the DNA was so similar. Either research techniques have improved or I got the wrong info--)

I knew that DNA testing of puppies among purebreds is frequently used--yes, you can have more than one father in the same litter; yes, there are reasons why a breeder might make more than one father available to their bitch in heat; and, yes, before AKC started requiring the genetic testing, they were discovering an error rate among reported paternity of about 14% ( !! -- because people could lie, I suppose). They tested Boost's litter because Tala was bred to two different dogs. The possibilities for what can be tested for grow greater all the time.

Another friend is one of those researchers who are mapping many interesting things in dog genomes: Physical traits, diseases, even behaviors. She says, sure, do the testing for your mixed-breed dog's ancestry if you want to, but be aware that, although there are many hundreds of breeds of dogs known to mankind (OK, really, who else would know breeds of dogs? horsekind?), not all breeds have been mapped yet. So if you are pretty confident about at least one specific breed in your dog's ancestry, but it's not a mapped breed, save your dollars until it's done. I said that I guessed that, if Tika isn't all Australian Shepherd, she might be part Husky or Malemute. She said that Aussies haven't been mapped yet. Dang.

In any event, it seems unlikely that they'll get around to mapping breeds such as the Tornjak or the Smalandsstovare any time soon--but, then, it seems unlikely that any random dog anywhere in the world (except Bosnia or Sweden) would be one of these breeds, anyhow. But, for example, MMI Genomics (according to one article) has a test that looks at 96 points and can identify 38 breeds that encompass 75 percent of all dogs." (And they do note that testing on dogs outside the U.S. could give incorrect or useless results.)

Some articles on the topic:

• Los Angeles Times
• Science daily
• Puget Sound Business Journal