Dog breeders affiliated with the Australian National Kennel Council (ANKC) have ethical and practical restrictions placed on their breeding practices beyond what is legislated for the general population. While non-affiliated breeders are restricted only by the limited laws that govern dog breeding (and ownership responsibilities in general), ANKC members are bound by the National Code of Ethics of Responsible Dog Ownership.

As many readers may know, the code of ethics binds breeders to breed primarily for the purpose of improving the ‘quality and / or working ability of the breed in accordance with the breed standard’.

The ANKC codes and policy statements place an onus on breeders to enhance the breed through consideration of the long term health and welfare of the offspring. This is evident through the policies requiring due consideration to be given to hereditary problems. In operation, this means breeders may be required to test dogs for cognitive defects, such as eye diseases and joint dysplasia, prior to a mating taking place.

The importance of such policies cannot be underestimated. Particularly given they are based on research and evidence. Further, they are good examples of organisations harnessing and sharing emerging scientific knowledge for breed enhancement through evidence-based policy development.

The challenge facing national councils, in this jurisdiction and others, is ensuring scientific evidence is used in relevant policy and decision making. This is particularly an issue for councils that do not have sufficient budgetary capacity and resources to conduct or contract the research required for informed decision making.

Harnessing scientific advances for the purpose of disease detection and prediction allows for breeding programs to be developed aimed at the long-term enhancement of a breed. As such, it promotes animal welfare.

By looking at the case study of the Chinese Crested Dog, we can examine the need for consideration of scientific evidence in future decision making.

Anecdotal evidence purports that a number of canine councils/associations in various jurisdictions have, at times, considered the splitting of the Chinese Crested Dog breed into ‘hairless’ and ‘powder puff’ breed categories, potentially also with two separate breed registers.

Major policy shifts such as these raise many issues. It could be argued that in this case the segregation of the breed standards and registers could only occur if the policy makers failed to give due consideration to the historical development and morphology of the breed.

To ensure policy is created for the purpose of enhancing and protecting a breed, policy makers must ask themselves ‘What may the unintended outcomes be?’ In this case, there is a scientific evidence base which identifies the powder puff as a necessary component in Chinese Crested breeding to maintain genetic diversity and limit the occurrence of prenatal deaths.

In 1985, the Journal of Heredity published an article by Roy Robinson (vol 76: 217-218) which identified that a dominant gene responsible for the hairlessness was prenatal lethal (meaning the embryo dies during development) when homozygous (identical alleles for a single trait). The article was based largely on the experiences of breeders and lacked a strong scientific base of evidence.

Twenty years later, the Journal of Heredity published an article providing further evidence that the powder puff was necessary in the breeding of Chinese Cresteds as the powder puffs provide for genetic diversity. The risk of failing to include them is prenatal death and even the birth of severe malformed and non-viable pups (O’Brien et al, vol 86, 7: 727-734).

Professor Tosso Leeb and his team of the University of Bern’s Institute of Genetics (Switzerland), in conjunction with researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, identified the genetic cause of hairlessness within the breed. Subsequently, in September 2008, Professor Leeb et al published a paper ‘A mutation in hairless dogs implicates FOX13 in ectodermal development’ (Science, vol 321, 5895: 1462) which offered credible scientific evidence that supported assertions contained in earlier the Journal of Heredity articles.

The basic scientific rule that support the above positions is that hairless Chinese Cresteds are heterozygous for the hairless mutation, which means they have two different alleles (a form of gene that is located on a specific position on a specific chromosome) for a single trait. However, a breeding program that consists only of the hairless Chinese Cresteds to hairless Chinese Cresteds have potential to be homozygous for the hairless mutation. Embryos which are homozygous for the hairless mutation are not viable. The embryos in most instances die during development. In rare instances non-viable pups may survive until birth, however, they would be born with severe malformations and would die soon after. This raises serious ethical and animal welfare issues that policy makers must consider in a case such as this. A policy maker would need to ask ‘Is it acceptable to propose a policy that will systematically lead to high death rates among embryos?’

Taking a broader perspective, not only is genetic variation important for the welfare of the breed, it also offers the scientific community the opportunity to gain insights into human conditions. Geneticists researching the Chinese Crested are using their research to develop greater understanding of the development of ectodermal appendages in humans such as hair and teeth (which are attached to the genetic mutation that causes hairlessness in Chinese Cresteds).

The segregation of the breed into ‘hairless’ and ‘powder puff’ breeds would deny the historical development and morphology of the breed. Further, it would create serious ethical and animal welfare issues as a result of a policy decision being made without consideration of the scientific evidence base.

This case study demonstrates the importance of ensuring the use of valid research and evidence in policy development programs of kennel councils and associations. Making policy decisions based on ideology, assumptions or misinformation may cause inadvertent consequences; and as the case study demonstrates, these consequences may raise serious animal welfare issues.