“What is Functional?” With Sarah Stremming

0:47

Jessica Perry Heckman: Hi friends. This episode I am the interviewee. I dig into what the “functional” in Functional Dog Collaborative means, interviewed by Sarah Stremming, the internationally known behavior consultant and podcaster, who is also a member of the FDC advisory board. What are the FDC’s guidelines in terms of health and behavior for dogs in a truly functional breeding program? How can you assess whether a program is functional? This episode is also being released through Sarah’s podcast, Cog Dog Radio. I hope it answers some questions that have been out there in internet land.

Sarah Stremming: Okay, so today we are talking about what the word “functional” actually means. Because, Jessica, as founder of the Functional Dog Collaborative, this is a word that people get caught up on sometimes.

JPH: When I was founding the FDC I spent a lot of time writing up what, sort of, the guidelines were for how we were suggesting people breed dogs, which by the way, is not the only way to breed dogs. It’s just the way that we wanted to talk about. And so we came up with the word functional, and I tried hard to come up with a word that wasn’t in common usage. And there are definitely uses for the word functional as regards dog breeding already. So it wasn’t a perfect selection. But I was trying to pick a word that didn’t have a good definition already, and then provide it with my own definition. Which, that is available on our website, that definition. But, you know, we’ll talk about it here.

SS: I’m going to dive into, kind of, what I see as the common hang ups that people have are, and then maybe we can get into what it actually says. So one thing that dog people struggle with, is the word functional. They want functional to mean something different for different dogs. Essentially, dog people want to say what’s functional for a pug is not the same as what’s functional for an Alaskan husky. 

JPH: Right. 

SS: Right. So they want to say, you know, running miles and miles a day at top speed is what functional is for an Alaskan husky, versus laying on the couch and not doing much and maybe not being able to make it around the block if it’s a hot day out is functional for a pug.

JPH: Yeah, and that’s exactly… So when I said that the word was already a bit in use, that was where I messed up, because I didn’t think of that particular usage of the word. So I am using it in a different way. So there’s our definition of functional, which we’ll talk about. And then there’s this idea that dogs are bred to do a job. And they should, you know, and that job may be sitting on the couch, and they should be good at that job. But that is separate, that is a whole separate thing. So what we’re talking about is there’s sort of this baseline health and behavior which we’re talking about as functional. Just like basically functional, right? Basic life functionality. 

SS: Yeah. Because you’re not saying the height of functionality is running miles and miles and miles a day. You’re not saying like, you’re…

JPH: We’re not the Husky Dog Collaborative.

SS: Yeah because you’re not, right, you’re not the Sled Dog Collaborative. You are talking about this really bare bones level of functionality. 

JPH: Yes. 

SS: So what is that? 

4:18

JPH: Yeah, so we cover physical health and behavioral health. So, we can start with physical health. 

SS: Yeah. 

JPH: And this was one of those things where, like, I wanted to be able to give people a list of, you know, things that they should be able to produce in their breeding program. And people would like a list like that, like that’s convenient, right? Is to be able to have a checklist and be like, you know, “I have this incidence of cancer, check. It’s below the line, check.”, but things are not that simple when you’re breeding dogs, of course. And so I ended up basically saying, you shouldn’t have any increased health problems in the population of dogs which you’re breeding. Sort of compared to the rest of dog-dom. So I know some people have been asking things like, well does that mean like village dogs, like brown street dogs? How would we even know?

SS: Right, and what is a general population?

JPH: Yeah, what is dog-dom? I didn’t say dog-dom in the statements. 

[laughter]

SS: No, we’re just saying it here. 

JPH: Yeah, so I’m trying to… and then I’m making some edits based on some of the feedback that I’ve been getting from people. So what I mean when I talk about sort of comparing to all dogs, I’m adding these words in on the website so it should be more clear to people, is that we’re comparing your breeding population to purebred and mixed breed dogs as a whole. And we’re talking about dogs that are owned dogs, not feral dogs. Because feral dogs, like we have no idea what their health status is. Also, they don’t have probably the same nutrition and veterinary care. So we’re talking about owned dogs, but we’re not talking about a particular breed or a particular mix, we’re talking about just that whole mass of dogs together. Yeah, so I made a list of actual things to look at, right? So we can go through that together. So the first one is “equal or increased physical comfort compared to dogs as a whole”. And so we list out; ability to breathe, move freely and without pain, equal or increased ability to reproduce naturally, equal or reduced rate of genetic disease, equal or reduced rate of morphology related disease, meaning disease directly or indirectly caused by the dog’s form, such as physical shape, structure, coat, etc, equal or increased health span, including physical comfort, and equal or increased lifespan. So the health span being how long the dog is healthy, recognizing that in old age you may not be healthy but continue to live. And so how long the dog is healthy is interesting, and also equal or increased lifespan, because how long the dog actually lives is interesting.

SS: And when you’re saying, you know, basically equal or less than, like no increased presence of these things. How do you know, what are you actually comparing to?

JPH: Right, that’s such a good question. So when I wrote these I was sort of thinking, “Well, you know, it’s going to be hard to get actual numbers, but people will have a general feel, like, you’ll know.” And that’s something else that people have asked is like, well, what are you actually talking about? How do we actually know? So the scientific literature helps us out with lifespan, in a pretty straightforward way. There’s a couple of different papers out there. There’s one that I’m going to add onto the website, from 2020, called “Lifespan of companion dogs seen in three independent primary care veterinary clinics in the United States”. And that gives us some actual numbers. And I’m going to give the numbers for different sizes of dogs, because we know that dogs of different sizes tend to live different lengths on average. And so what they measured was mean survival time. So that is just, you know, a term for how old the dog is when it dies. So they found it on average to be 16.2 years for small dogs, 15.9 years for medium sized dogs, 14.6 years for large dogs, and 13.4 years for giant dogs. So that, to me, is a useful goal to aim for. That if your breeding population is dying around 10 years, that’s a lot less than you might be able to hope for. 

SS: We can state that that is less, from the data we have, than the general population of dogs. 

JPH: Yes. And this is one paper. So people could certainly suggest that, you know, these… so it’s three independent primary care veterinary clinics, you could take a look at the paper and say, “This is not representative and I want to, you know, come back with some other data that’s more representative.”. I mean, I’m not a hard-ass about this, so certainly I’m not sitting here, like, waving my magic wand saying “You’re functional and you’re not!”. Umm.

[laughter]

SS: Wait wait wait, you’re not wearing like a, I’m seeing like a hat, like a witch’s hat sort of thing. 

JPH: No, I’m not, I’m not waving my wand and deeming anything functional, not functional. Nobody’s doing that. But what does happen is that people on the Facebook group will discuss particular ways of breeding and suggest that it would be closer to the goals of the FDC to breed a different way. And perhaps this particular breeding population with a life expectancy of eight years, that that’s not an acceptable life expectancy. And so I’m not going to say, “Well, we’re talking about large dogs so they should be 14.6 years old on average.”, but that gives you sort of an idea of what you’re aiming for and that eight is just a lot less than that. And people can come up with other data. One of the things I say is that if you come up with data that’s only from one breed, or only from purebred dogs, not including mixed breed dogs, that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for something again that sort of represents all of owned dog-dom. Both mixed breed, F1s, multigene mixes, and purebreds all together.

SS: And if a breeder, let’s say that I am breeding, let’s say I’m breeding golden retrievers. And I’m assuming golden retrievers would fit into that medium size category? Maybe into the…

JPH: I would think of like spaniels as being medium size, and retrievers as tending to be large.

SS: Okay, so maybe we didn’t include… maybe giant is like not in that dataset. And that’s cool, because I was thinking large being very large. 

JPH: So they have small, medium, large and giant. So I would think small’s a Chihuahua, medium size is a spaniel or a border collie, large is a retriever and giant is a mastiff, a great Dane, something like that.

SS: Sure. So let’s say I’m breeding goldens and that’s in the large category. And so 13 and a half-ish years is kind of average for the general population of dogs that are that size. And let’s say, though, that I am… my breeding population of dogs averages out at about like 10 or 11. 

JPH: Yeah. 

SS: And that I care about that, and I track that. And I try to breed to dogs that are related to dogs that lived longer, maybe I use semen from dogs who have passed and now I know how old they were when they passed, etc. And I’m really shooting for it, but I’m not getting better than like 10 or 11. But I consider myself still aiming for this piece of functionality and doing a good job of it because the general population of golden retrievers might average lower than what I’m producing. Talk about that argument a little bit, that if I’m breeding goldens that live to 11 amongst goldens to only live to be eight, aren’t I doing a better job? Isn’t that good enough?

JPH: Yeah, you’re definitely doing a better job. And that is… it’s just a different approach than the approach that I’m talking about. So when I’m talking about this word “functional” that I made up the definition for, I’m talking about basically, again, it’s not per breed, it’s for all of dog-dom. So you are doing better than the rest of goldens, and that’s great. But if you’re not doing sort of as well, sort of comparably to the rest of dog-dom, then I would not wave my magic wand at you and say that you’re functional. You are doing a great job within the particular approach to breeding that you’re choosing, which is a different approach to breeding than what we’re talking about here.

SS: Because what you might be talking about is well, you know, actually with an outcross you probably would produce a longer lived dog. 

JPH: Yeah, I mean, and it’s a trade off, right? So if you want a really type-y golden, an outcross is not going to get you that. I recognize that. So that is the question is, are you breeding for a strict type and you are willing to sacrifice some of the stuff that we’re talking about here – longevity, and we’ll get into genetic disease and things like that – adhering to strict type and then trying to get as close to the rest as you can within the strict type boundary is how you breed, that’s just different from what we’re talking about. If you, for whatever reason, want to have me wave my magic wand at you and say you’re functional, I am not sure how you would do that, honestly, with a golden retriever without outcrossing. And that’s, I mean, that’s why I have stopped getting goldens, right? Like my first dog was a golden and he was wonderful. And the health problems in the breed have caused me to walk away from it.

SS: Sure. And I think that to certainly save me, but maybe not you, but definitely me from certain emails, I’d like to state for the record that we kind of picked golden retriever because they’re easy to pick on. But I fully recognize that I’m not familiar with every single breeding program of golden retrievers on the entire Earth. And I also fully recognize that some people are doing, like we talked about comparatively, a really fantastic job versus others. Breeding the way that you’re talking about, though, wouldn’t necessarily be done within the confines of the closed studbook and the goal of type, etc. 

JPH: Right, exactly. Yeah, and I think that’s a good point to make, is I want to make clear that I do applaud people who are doing better than average. Who are, you know, producing dogs who are doing better than others in their breed. I’m not saying they’re bad people. I’m saying there’s different choices that other people make. And how about if we support those people and say that they’re breeding responsibly even though they’re not breeding within closed studbooks. Which has been, for many of us, the sort of a baseline, that if it’s not a closed studbook then it’s not a responsible breeding. I think we’re, a lot of the population is getting away from that these days. But there’s still a large proportion of people who are in dogs and very passionate about dogs who still really feel that way.

SS: Very true. And let’s back up a little bit, though, and hit some of these points and kind of talk about where they came from. Because I think that we could, like, really spin down the rabbit hole of the status of purebred dogs in the world.

JPH: Right, right. 

SS: And that’s not really what we’re trying to do. We could! And maybe we will later.

JPH: We should talk about the other points, and not forget about behavioral health as well.

15:48

SS: So let’s get in behavioral health in a minute, because obviously, that’s my favorite thing. But how did you select some of these things? So you stated “being able to breathe and move freely without pain”, like with the hell Jessica, are people like, where did that even come from? I’m saying what the hell as far as like, the voices of the masses saying, “What do you mean? Of course, people are not breeding dogs that can’t breathe or are in pain.”.

JPH: Are you setting me up to get emails?

SS: Yeah, you know, it’s okay. 

[laughter]

SS: It’s not like you don’t already.

JPH: Yeah, so there are definitely populations of dogs that are bred with specific morphology choices, and with the, you know, ability to breathe, we’re talking about dogs with very flat faces. And there again, I think there are a lot of people… you know, brachycephalic. So there’s a lot of breeders who are passionate about their brachycephalic breed and feel that they are able to move towards the dogs being able to breathe freely while maintaining that very flat face. And that if the dogs are well-bred… because Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome, which is what we’re talking about, the difficulty with breathing freely is not only about the short muzzle, there’s a lot of other physiological stuff that goes into it as well. And so theoretically, you can have the short muzzle and still have a dog that breathes freely. However, the short muzzle is strongly correlated with having difficulty breathing freely, probably because a lot of the other issues which are sort of deep, you know, deeper in the throat, or the closed nostrils, those are sort of physiologically tied to having the shorter muzzle. So similarly to how we talked about lifespan, there is an argument that I can move my population of dogs towards being able to breathe freely, and/or most of my dogs are able to breathe freely, although not quite all of them. And that’s better than people who are not trying at all and who are producing dogs that you know that almost all the dogs in the litter, for example, have real trouble breathing. And so here again, I would say, it’s fantastic that there are people out there who are doing better than the average. But what we’re talking about is fixing the breathing problem first, presumably by outcrossing to something with a longer muzzle so that 100% of the puppies in the first generation can breathe freely, and then going back and trying to move back to type if you want to. But making sure that you are never producing litters where there are any dogs that can’t breathe freely.

SS: And essentially, the Functional Dog Collaborative has the audacity to state that dogs should be able to breathe, that that’s part of functionality. 

JPH: Yeah. I thought it was pretty basic. 

SS: Yeah, I, you know, might think that as well. But yeah.

JPH: And then “to move freely and without pain”. So there we’re talking about, you know, hip dysplasia, mostly. And there are some breeds that just have a large percentage of hip dysplasia, but that it’s not sort of tied into the breed. There are some breeds that are, you know, they’re selecting for certain morphological choices that make it more likely that the dog will have hip dysplasia. And so that, again, would be something that you could fix in pretty much one generation. So a lot of this again… I mean, I’m not always talking about outcrossing. I think there are plenty of breeds out there where you can breed within the closed studbook and breed to this standard, but not all of them.

SS: Yeah, and the… Honestly, the ability to move around without pain is a really interesting one to me because I know quite a few, there’s quite a few breeds that I could name that I think there’s a higher than average occurrence of things like lumbosacral spondylosis. They develop it later, though, so like, they are fine and then they experience back pain later on in their life. So for instance, you’d be pretty hard pressed actually to find a retired agility border collie past, like, the age of eight or nine that didn’t have any incidents that according to the sources that I have access to. That doesn’t mean that all those dogs are symptomatic. And what’s interesting then to me is that choices start to get made about that healthspan kind of consideration. Like, well but if I get five good solid competition years out of this dog, and then the dogs, the rest of their life, they can’t move freely without pain, but they could early. Like this starts to get really complicated. And I feel like, where I’m going with it is essentially that the FDC’s statements on this are that part of your breeding goals should include “the dog can move freely without pain for the majority of its lifespan”, like that we care about lifespan and healthspan.

JPH: Right.

SS: And that certainly we don’t want it unable to move freely without pain just due to its morphology.

JPH: Right.

SS: But it starts to get, you know, the deeper we dig into it… And that’s why we’re having this conversation. Because the deeper you dig into it, the harder this is to define. And the harder it is to say, “Yes, this person has functional goals.”.

JPH: Right.

SS: Versus this person maybe doesn’t. Like, the occurrence of things in my breed, border collies, that kind of continue to crop up and people continue to breed dogs anyway. Like maybe the bitch is injured in her second or third year, and she is now no longer an agility candidate. So she’ll just be bred quite a few times. Nobody talking about the fact that maybe there’s a genetic component to the fact that she was so severely injured, and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Like, it’s just, it gets really dark and twisty in here. And I would love to simplify it for people, but it’s hard to.

JPH: I mean, and this is why we try to provide resources, right? So part of the original goals of the FDC were to say, if you’re breeding in this sort of, I don’t know what the right word is, the more mainstream way of, you know, there’s a closed studbook and breed club. Where you have resources to go to. Your breed club is going to have a website with suggestions about what health tests should be, and you can look up how common certain diseases are. And you have your whole community of other people breeding dogs like that, who you can talk to and say, like, you know, “What should I do when this particular thing happens? Is this dog a breeding candidate?”, and there’s, you know, you may or may not agree with the advice that you get, but there will be people who have experienced that before and can give you some advice. There’s a community. And if you walk away from that to do outcrossing, which was one of the things I was first thinking about when I was founding the FDC, then you don’t have that community anymore. And in fact, it’s very unlikely that anyone really knows the answers to how to really outcross well, in the ways that we’re talking about with dogs within your particular breed. There’s other people out there maybe who’ve been doing it in other breeds. And so maybe you’d like to talk to them, maybe that would be a new community for you to ask some of these questions. And that’s what we’re trying to provide. So these are goals, and so it’s very much why there’s not a list of you have to do these health tests and you have to have this incidence of disease.

SS: Right.

JPH: Like, these are goals. And then we try to provide resources to help people work through how to get as close to them as they can. And I recognize that breeding is really complicated, and that you have to make a lot of trade-offs, and that sometimes things are gonna happen and all of a sudden this genetic disease pops up in your population, and you’ve never seen it before. Like, I understand that that happens. But what I’m saying is that it makes it harder to stay away from all of that when you’re breeding in a population that already has a particular problem. You know the population has a particular problem, and you’re staying within that population when moving away from that population will get you away from that problem very quickly. That within what the kind of breeding that we’re talking about these things, this health and welfare stuff, is more important than type.

24:37

SS: Yes. So one of the things that you mentioned is that the dogs that are being bred for function, one of the goals would be to have a, you know, no higher occurrence of genetic diseases than the general population of dogs. What is a genetic disease?

JPH: Yeah, so there’s the really easy ones like von Willebrand, where we’ve, you know there’s like just one or two genes that affect it, and it’s very clear. And then there’s the ones like cancer and DCM. And we know that they are at least partially mediated by genetics, simply because they are at increased frequency in certain breeds. That’s just one of the ways you can see, it’s a closed population and there’s more prevalence of this particular disease within this closed population. That’s how we know that it’s at least in part genetic. But they don’t have a good solid genetic test where you could just run the test and be like, “Yes, this dog is going to get lymphoma. Yes, this dog is going to get DCM.”. I mean, DCM is a great example, right? Where there are genetic tests out there, but they don’t explain a particularly large proportion of the dogs’ risk of developing DCM. Oh, sorry, DCM is dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart disease which is not a lot of fun when your dog gets it, and very lifespan reducing. 

SS: Yeah, pretty tragic. 

JPH: So for me, genetic disease includes both the ones that, you know, really obvious and easy, and you can test for it. And also the ones like, we know that cancer has a genetic component. It certainly also has an environmental component, right? And so certainly, there are people… Oh, let’s pick on goldens again. So goldens have a very high prevalence of cancer where we’ve clocked them at about 70% of them are going to get cancer in their lifetimes, which is abnormally high. And there are people out there arguing that if you just feed them a raw diet, give them no vaccines, don’t spay or neuter them, and make sure they’re not exposed to any toxins in their environment, they’ll be fine. So I think all of those things probably do contribute, more or less, to your risk of cancer. In the case of goldens I think their genetics contribute massively more to their risk of cancer, as it happens. But all of those things together will contribute to anybody’s risk of cancer. So that is a complex genetic trait, meaning there’s environment and there’s a bunch of different genes and it all interacts together. But what we’re talking about is the genetic portion, the genetic risk, and we know that in some breeds, there’s an increased genetic risk for some particular diseases, right? That’s just known.

SS: And so how do we know?

JPH: Right? So it’s really hard, right? Like, we would like to have that magic number dropped from the sky and tell us this is the exact number of golden retrievers that get lymphoma out of the total number of golden retrievers, like as a percentage. And so that would, just to put some terminology in here, that would be the prevalence of lymphoma in golden retrievers. Or prevalence means the actual true number of how many, you know, whatevers get whatever. And we never get to know that, unfortunately, because we can’t go out and ask that question of every single golden retriever in the world. What we do get to know is an estimate of it, the heart of epidemiology, called incidence, which is basically “Well, we are able to count some number of cases. And we hope that that’s representative.”. And so just to give people that perspective of, while there is some true prevalence out there, there’s going to be different reports with different incidences. And the heart of the problem is which of those do you trust. Because there may be one that says the incidence of lymphoma in golden retrievers is around 50%. And it may say that the incidence of lymphoma in the rest of dogdom, which is the number that is harder to get hold of, is 0.1%. And so that’s your goal, right? But then you may find another paper that says the incidence of lymphoma in all of dogdom is more like 2%. And so which one do you believe? And you and I were actually talking about this earlier today, where I was saying, “Oh, oh, I found this paper!”. And it tells us how often all of dogs get lymphoma. And it’s a paper by Edwards et al. from 2003, and it was looking at dogs in the UK. And they found an incidence of 114 lymphoma diagnoses per 100,000 dogs. And so that’s like, I want to say that’s 0.1%, about? 

SS: And when you told me this, my jaw dropped. 

JPH: Yeah, right! 

[laughter]

SS: Because of just my sample. Everyone I know has dogs. Like I don’t really have non-dog people in my life. And… 

JPH: They’re lovely, they’re lovely. Non-dog people.

SS: I know a lot of people whose dogs died of lymphoma, a lot. Like a way bigger than 0.1%. 

JPH: Yeah. 

SS: I would go so far as to say maybe like 25%. 

JPH: 25% of people you know, their dogs died of lymphoma, really? 

SS: Because I know a lot. 

JPH: Wow.

SS: So yeah, like, we’re talking like hundreds of people here. But if I had to write down…

JPH: That’s a lot of lymphoma.

SS: If  I had to write down all the names of all the dogs that have died of lymphoma that I know, in the last five years, my guess is it’s not going to be lower than 10%.

JPH: Wow. Okay, so that’s a lot more than 0.1%. So let’s… I would love to just unpack all the stuff going on there. And the first possibility I want to float before we talk about whether that 0.1% is wrong, because we will talk about that, is whether the 25% is wrong. Because perhaps when people’s dogs die of lymphoma, you’re more likely to know and you’re more likely to remember it. 

SS: Yeah, for sure. 

JPH: So I think there’s a lot of people out there… it’s just, it’s really, really hard to separate that kind of emotionality from assessing numbers. And I say this as someone who is utter crap at assessing numbers, people are always saying things to me, like, “How’d your talk go? How many people came to your talk?”, And I’m like, “I don’t know, between 20 and 100.”.

[laughter]

SS: Right, right. No, I think 25% was probably me being very hyperbolic. But just now, I’m just kind of making a tally. I’ve come up with 10 dog names, just now thinking. 

JPH: Yeah. 

SS: And those are dogs that I can name, who I knew, versus like, the number is bigger than that if you actually count in just people I’m friends with on Facebook, where I don’t actually know who I see that their dog died of lymphoma. So I have the kind of friends who post that their dogs have died of lymphoma. 

JPH: Well, exactly. 

SS: Right? But so let’s go into it not from my experience, but from this data. 

JPH: Yeah. And the reason I wanted to talk about your experience, I mean, partly was because I love telling you that you’re wrong about things, because I don’t get to do that very often. 

SS: It doesn’t happen that much, but. 

[laughter]

JPH: But I also wanted to point out to other people that this is why going with your personal experience is not always best. That’s why we have scientific studies that someone can go out there and pour through the data and get different numbers. However, that doesn’t mean that this study is correct about the true prevalence, which again, we don’t know what that is. So some things I thought about looking at this when I was like, “Holy crap, those numbers are really different.”. So first of all, this study took place in 2003. So that’s almost 20 years ago. And is it possible that there were fewer people taking their dogs to the hospital and actually getting a lymphoma diagnosis back then? Like, maybe the dog was not well and was elderly, and people were more likely to just have it euthanized without having it actually diagnosed? And by the way, Sarah, I think you probably tend to hang out with people who get their dogs diagnosed.

SS: Number one, they’re diagnosed. Number two out of these 10, and this is interesting for our conversation and talks I think, out of these 10, four are, basically eight of them are of, they’re split between two breeds that are kind of known to have… (Transcriber Note – implication is that the two breeds are known to get lymphoma at a higher rate than average)

JPH: Oh, okay, yeah. 

SS: Right? So like, then there’s that, right? Which is what we’re actually talking about!

JPH: This is what we’re talking about. Those numbers are wildly different, though, right? Like 0.1% versus 10%, versus again, when we talk about goldens and all of cancer, it’s 70%. I don’t know what the percentage of lymphoma is but I know that goldens get lymphoma. That is… first of all, lymphoma is very common as a form of cancer. And second of all, goldens are like, lymphoma, hemangiosarcoma. They really like those two, particularly. Which is why sort of went for like, maybe it’s 50%, maybe it’s 30%. I don’t know, but it’s a lot more than 0.1%. So, and again, I’m not a hard-ass about when I wave the magic wand. And also, nobody’s coming to me to ask me about waving the magic wand. So there are not conversations on the Facebook group, where people are like, “You know, out in the real world, in all of dogs, you should be aiming for 0.1% lymphoma.”. And then the other thing is like, 0.1%, that’s tiny. So maybe you have no lymphoma in your breeding population at all, and then all of a sudden you have this litter… So there’s a couple of possibilities. Maybe all of a sudden you have a litter and one of the dogs has lymphoma, and you’ve bred 50 dogs in your life and now one in 50 has lymphoma. And that’s a lot more than 0.1%, but it’s because you have a tiny sample size of 50.

SS: Right.

JPH: So maybe if you bred 100,000 dogs, you wouldn’t get any others. So there’s that.

SS: So how do we actually even do that? Do this then? Right? 

JPH: Right. And so this brings me back, again, first of all to your goals. So if you put some dogs together and you produce one dog with lymphoma, or you know, as sometimes horribly happens, you get a litter where all of a sudden there’s a whole lot of one particular genetic disease in that litter. What do you do? And the answer is, do you take it very seriously? Or do you say “Lymphoma is pretty common in my breeding population, and this is as good as it’s gonna get?”. Or do you say, “This is unacceptable, I need to know what to do and I need resources to help me figure it out.”. And again, we’re trying to provide those resources.

SS: And I’m gonna say that I don’t know breeders, personally, I don’t know breeders who don’t take things like this seriously. What I do know is that there are people involved in certain breeds who have decided that they are prioritizing, essentially, type or just purebred status over maybe avoiding lymphoma, etc. And I don’t think that they’re not taking it seriously, I think that their priorities are such that they’d like to try to tackle this, and it’s just like we talked about, it’s a different way of breeding than what we’re talking about. But they’d like to tackle this overtime and over generations, rather than panic, never breed those two dogs again.

JPH: And there’s a happy medium there. But let me say that when I said ‘not take it seriously’, like when those words came out of my mouth, I was like, “Oh, I shouldn’t have said it that way.”. This is unscripted. It depends on what you mean by take it seriously. So one thing is if you have a dog you want to breed and you’re looking for a dog to breed them to, and there’s some lymphoma in your dog’s past but they’re a really good breeding candidate, can you find another dog with no lymphoma in their ancestry to breed to? Because that would be ideal, right? Or are you going to say, because I’m breeding within this close studbook I’m gonna have to accept that there’s some lymphoma in both of their ancestries. I will try to make it be as far back as possible. 

SS: Right. 

JPH: And I may have to accept that it’s there but it’s not reported. 

SS: Yeah.

JPH: That’s another problem. But there are no options for me within my closed stud book in which there’s no lymphoma, or DCM, or hip dysplasia, or whatever it is you’re talking about.

SS: Right. 

JPH: There are no options within my closed studbook where I can… you know, and I recognize, again, like maybe your bitch is really, really lovely. And there was lymphoma some generations ago. And I recognize that she may still be an excellent breeding prospect. But the way to then make sure… you know, you sort of look at well, what are the problems with this particular breeding dog. And now I want to select a mate who minimizes those problems. And within a closed studbook often that’s really hard to do.

SS: So when we’re talking about breeding for function as including breeding to avoid genetic diseases, would it be fair to say that what we’re kind of assuming is that something like, I’m going to use von Willebrand disease as an example, would not exist in a general population of dogs that was being, that was reproducing kind of via natural selection?

JPH: Yeah, good question. No, I think it would probably exist, there’s… so the best example of why some diseases actually get selected for is in humans with sickle cell disease. Which the carriers of it don’t have sickle cell disease, they’re heterozygous for it. So they have one allele for it, and they have increased resistance to malaria. But then those who actually have the disease, if they’re homozygous they get two alleles, two risk alleles, then they have sickle cell disease and that is not a fun disease to have. But it has continued to be selected for in the population because the heterozygotes have an advantage, again, against malaria. And von Willebrand, we don’t know this for sure, but I have heard hypotheses that von Willebrand carriers might actually have a lower risk of cancer. And so there may actually be, again a heterozygote advantage to von Willebrand. So I think it probably would exist in the free breeding population. But again, talking about incidence of it, I think the incidence would be much lower. The problem comes when we start breeding for one thing, and then for whatever reason, founder effect, genetic drift, for whatever reason, something that we don’t want comes along with it. And now we have a closed population and it’s hard to get rid of the suddenly much higher incidence of whatever, be it von Willebrand or. So, that’s what I’d say is that what we’re looking at, is this difference in incidence or prevalence, is that these things are going to happen. But they aren’t, there is some level at which they would happen in the random breeding population, and that’s the level that we want to be aiming for. Because you’re not going to breed 100% healthy dogs 100% of the time. I really wish you could. Some people think they could, maybe they could find a breeder that’s going to do that. But that’s not realistic, right? There’s going to be disease, but we don’t have to increase it beyond what we’re seeing in this sort of, the massive population of dogdom.

40:37

SS: And the Functional Dog Collaborative’s interest would be in helping people, providing resources to people who are interested in reducing the incidence of certain things that are already present in their breed or their breeding population, interested in just anybody breeding for better function. And the physical side of better function being low incidence of genetic disease. 

JPH: Right. Exactly. 

SS: Ability to move around freely like, that’s what we’re talking about is that if you’re into those things we have resources for you to help you do those things.

JPH: Right, and prioritizing that above other things. And we’ll talk about behavioral health in a minute, because that’s also important, but prioritizing that over what the dog looks like. And again, it’s not necessarily about outcrossing, if you can do it without outcrossing more power to you, I think that’s awesome. Again, for some breeds and some diseases, it would be a real challenge to do it without outcrossing. And if you come into this community you’re certainly going to be interacting with people who are breeding mixed breed dogs, multigenerational mixed breed dogs who are outcrossing, and you should be okay with that because they’re going to be asking questions, and you should be able to tolerate them asking questions without saying, “But the problem is that you’re breeding a mixed breed dog.”.

SS: Yes. And, you know, essentially, if you’re gonna… if you are looking at two dogs as a potential breeding pair and you’re saying, we know that this one has fill-in-the-blank behind it, that we’d like to get away from, be it lymphoma, be it epilepsy, be it whatever. And you’re selecting a breeding partner for this dog. And every other dog within the breed that you’re breeding, also has whatever that thing is behind it. Then by breeding those two dogs, you are making a choice, you are prioritizing maybe a specific morphology, maybe, you know, type, maybe working ability, maybe whatever.

JPH: Maybe ability to register with the AKC or to be part of your particular breed club. Which has a lot of value.

SS: That’s a very real thing that I, that’s of value to me. 

JPH: Sure. 

SS: The fact that I have… 

JPH: You do agility, you like to be able to compete in AKC agility,

SS: Which you can do with mixed breed dogs, but we won’t even go into the fact that like, there are problems with it. But more specifically than that, like, I am potentially interested in competing at the world level, and the dog has to be pedigreed to do so. And so there are other priorities. And we are not saying this priority is the only one that matters, etc. Like, it’s cool. It’s just that what I know that I’d personally love is for everybody to just kind of admit and say, “Yes, I know that it’s possible that I will produce whatever by breeding these two dogs, maybe even likely that I will produce whatever it is by breeding these two dogs. And to me, the other potential outcomes are worth that risk.”. Like there are people doing that. I would just appreciate it if everybody just kind of said that out loud, rather than saying, you know, “But gasp, you can’t breed a this with that. Because then it will be a mutt.”. We’re saying that with the goal of functionality being paramount, you might sometimes be crossbreeding dogs. 

JPH: Yes. 

SS: And that is not only okay with us, but kind of needs to be okay in our pool.

JPH: Right. I mean, so for example, we have this thing on the Functional Breeding Facebook group called Searching Sunday where people will come and they’ll ask, “Can I get breeder recommendations for like this particular breed of dog?”. And this is a Facebook group where we are going to hopefully push you towards breeders that are at least attempting to meet the goals we’ve been talking about. If that is not the kind of breeder that you’re looking for, then this is not the Facebook group to ask about breeders. There are other places to go. So that’s… I’m just sort of circling back to, there’s just different ways of breeding dogs, there’s different ways of choosing the next dog that you want, and this is just one. So just recognizing that there’s this separate approach and that we would really like people to just be okay with it. This is a different way of doing things. That’s fine. It doesn’t and shouldn’t threaten other ways of breeding.

45:32

SS: Agreed. And I think, so I think we’ve really touched on what we mean by functional when we’re talking about physical health. Now, let’s talk about behavioral health.

JPH: Yes. So and again, I mean, behavioral health in a lot of ways is even harder to achieve a guarantee of, or a high likelihood of, than, you know, absence of genetic diseases. Because early socialization is so important for behavioral health. And so one of the things that we do is talk about how important early socialization is, but genetics are also important. So, again, how do we define functionality in terms of behavioral health. And actually, thank you very much Sarah, you helped me when I was writing this up initially. So we talked about minimal fear of unknown humans, minimal fear of unknown dogs, maximal ability to cope with reasonable new environments, like a new farm for a farm dog, or a new city for a city dog. Minimal behavioral pathologies, such as separation anxiety, compulsive disorder. Minimal unchanneled aggression, and then we recognize that aggression as part of an ethical sport, like bitey sports, or a job, like livestock guarding is acceptable, but we just don’t want to see it extending out of that context into the rest of the dog’s life. So I think there’s a lot, again, to unpack there, because we kept using the words minimal and maximal and reasonable. And again, those are all very subjective and not very objective. 

SS: Right.

JPH: But I’m trying to get across that, like, a farm dog doesn’t have to be able to tolerate New York City. Why? You don’t, that’s not necessary. That’s an unreasonable new environment to put that dog in. But a city dog should be able to tolerate a city.

SS: I’m finding an interesting thing coming up in my head, which is that one of the first things that we talked about was “functional” has kind of, we’re trying to give it one umbrella definition. Trying to give it one kind of thing that it is. And then in addition to that, you could be breeding for a job, that’s not the same thing as what we’re talking about. So like, people arguing that a pug that can’t breathe well enough to do much more than lay on the couch is functional, because it’s supposed to be just laying on the couch. We would disagree with that. 

JPH: Yes. 

SS: That’s not functional. That’s more about job selection, and the dog can do the job. So then why is it okay for a dog intended for farm life to not be able to cope with the city?

JPH: I mean, I think there’s a limit to what can be accomplished in that kind of flexibility. I think it’s lovely if you can breed the kind of dog who can be great in the farm, and then also make the transition to city life. But it’s just, to me, honestly unreasonable to expect that you’d be able to do that frequently in your particular breeding population, because that’s really hard. So I was trying to talk about reasonable expectations for dogs being able to fit into their lives and be comfortable in their lives, without behavioral pathologies that provided them with welfare issues. If there’s something that a dog is never going to be expected to do, I don’t think you really have to breed for that. I think you do have to be cautious if you’re breeding farm dogs and someone from a very urban area comes and wants to buy one of your dogs. I think you need to be very thoughtful about whether your dog is going to do well in that area. And that’s sort of separate from whether you’ve bred functional dogs who are able to adapt to a particular life. What do you think about what I just said?

SS: It’s a little tricky, right? Because I fully get where you’re coming from, and I’m not even disagreeing, but I think it’s interesting. I think it’s important for us to dig into where there are differences here. And I think for me, it comes back to that the dog is a dog thinking, feeling being of its own accord. 

JPH: Yeah. 

SS: And that “functional” has to come back to that fact. And so if the pug, and I’m saying pug intentionally because my entire family has them and I feel very attached to them personally, and so I feel like it’s more fair for me to pick on them than some of the other brachy breeds. If I remember that I know that the pug itself, like, I like him for his just day to day life to not be more comfortable with the oxygen tube down his throat coming out of surgery than he is just breathing on his own. 

JPH: Yeah. 

SS: Then if I come to the farm dog, again, I say you are a thinking feeling creature on your own. And so if you are able to easily cope with the stressors of your general existence, then I’m going to call that functional. And what we then… what our responsibility then has to be is, “And then what is that existence going to be for this population of dogs?”.

JPH: I mean, it really comes down to welfare, right? 

SS: Yes. 

JPH: Like, I could summarize it by saying the dog should have good welfare. And that just means being physically and emotionally comfortable in his life. 

SS: Physically and emotionally comfortable. 

JPH: But I felt like I had to unpack that a little bit more. But that’s basically what it is.

SS: That is basically what it is and I’m glad that we’ve unpacked it further than that. What’s interesting is, then I think it comes back to breeding goals. Because if I’m breeding livestock guardians with functionality in mind, meaning I’d like them to be free of orthopedic disease that makes their life painful for them, I’d like them to be able to breathe, I’d like them blah, blah, blah, then I also know what the right environment is for them. And then as a breeder, I’m selecting dogs who are behaviorally functional in that environment. And then it’s also my responsibility to not sell them outside of that environment.

JPH: Right. Right, because it’s not just about genetics. It’s also about socialization, making good relationships with other people who buy puppies from you, making sure you’re placing puppies thoughtfully and well. And all of these things are hard, we recognize you’re not going to be perfect in all of those things. You should be making an effort. 

SS: Right. And so when we talk about what functional means, and we talk about behavior, we are talking about breeding dogs. That’s what the Functional Dog Collaborative is about. And so when it comes to the behavior side, the breeding practices side comes into it really heavily as far as functional. You know, having function as a primary goal of your breeding program also means that you know the right environment for these dogs that you’re producing. And if that environment is intended to be an average family home in suburbia with children, then aiming to breed dogs who feel safe and well and comfortable in that environment, that’s what functional breeding is. 

JPH: Yes. 

SS: And that does include the socialization you provide them, it does include the home selection that you do.

JPH: And coming back to your example of the pug. We might say, “But the pug is happy in that environment because he just sits on the couch.”. And I think I would answer that, “Really, all dogs need to be able to move their bodies around and go out for a walk, hopefully in nature, I know that’s your personal belief. And then if a dog can’t do that then there is a welfare issue.”.

54:06

SS: Right, we’re coming down to what dogs as a species, kind of should generally be able to do. Not dogs as breeds but as a species. It’s kind of like, you know, if we’re talking about, I think nobody would argue with us if we were talking about breeding a population of something else that is not common and like, tampered with by people. So I’m just gonna get really wild with an example here that’s not real, because that’s what I like to do. Let’s say that we’re breeding tigers.

JPH: I was gonna go with flying purple people eaters,

SS: You were gonna go with not a real thing. I mean, or is it? Or is it?!

[laughter]

JPH: Or is it? But I mean, you could even talk about cats.

SS: I think that’ll get too complicated. So let me stay with… because people do breed cats the way that they breed dogs just in smaller numbers. 

JPH: Yeah, not as much. You’re right. 

SS: Much smaller numbers, but my whole family has pugs. Also my sister has a Persian so like there’s…

JPH: Alright, fair enough. As I said it I was like, “Hmm, but Persians.”, so yeah.

SS: So let’s say though that I’m breeding, that people breed in show tigers. Let’s just say that they do. 

JPH: Okay. 

SS: Or let’s say this is a new hobby people are picking up. And I’ve decided that I like a specific morphology in my tigers. And that morphology restricts them from doing a lot of tiger-y things. They cannot run and chase prey, so they are dependent on me to feed them, because of this morphology I’m breeding for. I’m picturing a sort of exotic bully situation but a tiger, okay, like I’m picturing some orthopedic differences between the general population of tigers and this morphology that I like in my tigers. So my tigers can’t chase and kill prey, but that’s fine because I feed them. My tigers can’t swim, but I don’t even have a pool so they don’t know that they’re missing out on a pool. And my tigers also have a hard time breathing in the sun, so they don’t sunbathe, they’re usually laying in the shade. Now there are three natural normal tiger behaviors, hunting and killing prey, swimming, and sunbathing, that my population of tigers will not have access to in their life because of the way that I’ve designed them.

JPH: Are there benefits to the tiger from the way you’ve designed them?

SS: The benefits of the tiger is that I really like them. They come with a more docile personality, for sure. So they come with a more docile personality and are probably more functional in these pet homes that I’m selling them into than a general population tiger. And so in doing that, I’ve removed some of their tiger-ness. And would you say that the removal of this tiger-ness is in contrast to the goal of function?

JPH: Yes.

SS: You would.

JPH: I’d say that’s a good example.

SS: And I think if I were doing this, I would go to prison and there would be documentaries about me. 

[laughter]

SS: But I think I probably made a lot of enemies just by talking about it like that. But that’s okay, cause that’s fine. 

JPH: It’s what you do.

SS: So good at it. But what you were just saying is that okay, so if a dog can’t go on a decompression walk, an off-leash nature walk, if a dog can’t eat. I mean, I feel strongly about this, the dog should be able to eat a variety of dog-safe foods. 

JPH: Yeah.

SS: I don’t think it’s okay to breed a population of dogs that only have to eat a vegetarian diet. I don’t think it’s okay to breed a population of dogs that can’t eat a variety of meats and grains and fruits and vegetables. Like I think dogs should be able to eat all the things. 

JPH: Yep. I agree with that.

SS: So, right? Like, for me welfare is I can exercise off-leash in nature, given proper training and kind of, you know, safety and whatever. I can eat stuff that’s generally dog-safe. I can run and play like a dog, you know, I can swim if I choose to. Like, this is dog-ness to me. 

JPH: Right, me too.

SS: Dog-ness is being able to roll in horseshit and get yelled at.

[laughter]

JPH:  Yeah.

SS: Roll in horse shit and swim in the lake and, you know, chase a bunny or what, this is dog-ness! And what we get back to is that breeding for function is making sure that dog-ness is protected in our efforts. 

JPH: Right.  And I want to say that within dog-ness one of the amazing things about dogs that I think we all love, is that within dog-ness, there’s an incredible range of morphologies and behavioral types. Like, and that is a good thing.

SS: That’s what I was just about to say is that I also have two border collies and one Icelandic sheepdog. My Icelandic and my border collies are so different, and in fact my two border collies are so different from each other. And I appreciate this. I like that they’re really different. Like if I look at Felix and I look at Raya, Felix being a seven year old border collie, Raya being a one and a half year old Icelandic, they’re so morphologically different. Their personalities are so different. There’s a huge difference here. Like I don’t think all dogs should look and act the same. Really far from it. 

JPH: Right. 

SS: They both have full access to their dog-ness because they both can move freely without pain, and they both can eat a variety of foods, and they both have wide access to dog-ness. There’s nothing about them specifically that limits it. Versus like… except for some behavioral stuff, like Felix is sound sensitive. That limits some of his ability of dog-ness. And I don’t like that.

JPH: I too live with a sound sensitive dog and I feel your pain.

SS: And I work with a lot of them, as you know, like, that’s because a lot of my clientele are herding dogs in which the prevalence… is that the right word? Is high.

[laughter]

JPH: In casual speech it really doesn’t matter.

SS: In casual speech, which is all I’m ever using, the prevalence of noise sensitivity is high.

JPH: Right, so the incidence is what you see, and then the true prevalence is what’s actually out there. 

SS: So incidence is the word I wanted. 

JPH: But yeah, the incidence is what you’re seeing. 

SS: And so, when we’re talking about breeding for behavioral function, which is how we got started on this rabbit hole, we’re saying behaviorally, what is a dog? 

JPH: Yeah. 

SS: And then if we’re also making them be other things, which I’m in favor of. Like, I like a little bit more intense, a little bit more edgy of a dog. 

JPH: Yeah. 

SS: But are we still seeking function within that kind of edginess? And then being sure that breeding for function also means that I, as a breeder, am smart about the environments that I put my dogs in. Because in certain environments their welfare will suffer, and their access to their dog-ness will be limited. Like, if I were moving to Manhattan tomorrow, Felix would need to live somewhere else. 

JPH: Right.

SS: It wouldn’t be fair for him to come with me. 

JPH: Right. 

SS: And we’d both bleed out, because we’re like attached at the spleen. That’s just not gonna happen. 

[laughter]

SS: Not to mention how much my welfare would suffer if I lived in a big city like that. But, so when the FDC goes about trying to make guidelines, it feels to me that it always kind of circles back to this welfare piece.

JPH: Right. We are a weird balance between a breeding organization and an animal welfare organization. And there’s animal welfare organizations who have some frustration with us for supporting breeding. And there’s some breeders that have frustration with us for being so focused on animal welfare.

1:02:40

SS: So Jessica, you said the words animal welfare quite a few times. And so I think this is a really good time for us to talk about animal welfare versus animal rights. 

JPH: Yes.

SS: So what those things mean, and where the FDC stands on those things?

JPH: Yeah, that’s a really important distinction, for sure.

SS: So, welfare. One definition that I agree with is that, you know, animal welfare is the acknowledgement that we will use animals for a variety of reasons. And that that’s okay, as long as we provide living conditions for them where they can reach the fullness of their biological capacities…

JPH: Be dogs.

SS: …and that they can kind of avoid suffering as much as possible. So that’s the dog-ness that I keep talking about.

JPH: Exactly.

SS: Is that animal welfare would state that we have a responsibility to provide them space for their dog-ness. So I think that the definition of animal rights gets a little bit fuzzier. Do you want to talk about that?

JPH: Yeah. So let me start out by saying, everything that you said about animal welfare is very much what the FDC stands for. I do not consider us an animal rights organization. So animal rights, and different organizations will define it in different ways, but it’s very much about limiting usage of animals, and saying that it is not appropriate to use animals for our own needs. And in the case of dogs, we do use them. And that’s fine. It’s their welfare that I’m very concerned about. So we use them for sports, we use them for companionship, we use them for work, right? We use them to help us run farms, we use them as assistance animals for people with disabilities, you know, what am I missing? We use them for all kinds of things, and where would we be without them? And the FDC absolutely supports that and recognizes that there are a bunch of different jobs that dogs do. A lot of the conversation that we have is around dogs as companions, but we are absolutely here to support dogs as, you know, sports team partners and working in various capacities as well.

SS: So I’m just gonna say it again for the people in the back. The Functional Dog Collaborative is not an animal rights organization. 

JPH: It is not, correct. 

SS: We are really concerned with animal welfare. 

JPH: Yes. 

SS: And that is not in opposition to utilization of dogs for breeding, companionship, work, sports, etc. 

JPH: Right, yes. 100%. 

1:05:21

SS: Okay, so we’ve talked about functionality as a goal. Let’s just talk about a couple of ways to get to that goal. Because we have talked about the ways that, you know, people do breed dogs that are not necessarily the way that the FDC is helping people breed dogs. How are we getting closer to that goal of functionality in terms of physical health?

JPH: Yeah. So I mean, we’ve talked ad nauseam in this interview about looking at a dog’s ancestry and making careful mate selections. So that if you have a particular problem on one side, you do not match it up with a problem on the other side. And we’ve talked about that in terms of outcrossing. But whether you’re talking about outcrossing, or you’re talking about breeding within a breed, or you’re talking about intentional mixed breeding, that is something that we think is very important. That you know what you have as much as possible, and that you make smart choices based on what you have. But that is not all of it. Because part of knowing what you have is doing health testing. And here again, I really wish that I could give people a list of if you do these health and genetic tests, you will be, you know, the magic wand. But because we are trying to support so many different breeds, outcrosses, first generation mixes, multi-generation mixes, there is no recipe for everybody. However, we do strongly feel that you’re not going to get to where we support you being unless you do a fair amount of health testing. That’s going to vary enormously by different breeding programs. But I would find it hard to imagine a breeding program that could truly be functional without doing health testing.

1:07:11

SS: So very much pro health testing for the goal of functional physical health, what are we doing about behavioral health?

JPH: So again, I mean, unfortunately, there’s no real tests. We talk about, there’s certainly been a lot of conversation about what a lot of people call temperament tests, what I like to call a behavioral assessment, where you do puppy testing. That can be a useful tool for some people. It’s important to recognize that puppies are going to change a lot after eight weeks, after they go home. So that’s not the, you know, the perfect black and white tool that everyone wishes it could be. Again, looking at ancestry. So if you have a dog who has behavioral issues, or has close relatives with behavioral issues, then probably not breeding that dog. Or if the issues are very mild, or they’re not such close relatives then match the dog with another, with a mate that is very solid in that perspective. And then, of course, really good socialization. And again, we don’t have any solid, we don’t have any rules about what good socialization looks like. Although, again, we’re happy to work with you to try to figure out what the right thing for you is. I do like to recommend Avidog and Puppy Culture. Sometimes I recommend Puppy Culture, and people are like, “Oh God, by week four I’m lucky to be washing my hair, much less, you know, doing all the things that they recommend.” Well, of course. But again, it’s all about sort of doing your best and doing a solid job, not necessarily the perfect job. Because this is, you know, life and biology. 

SS: With the full understanding that we don’t actually know.

JPH: Right exactly. We don’t know for sure. I know both of those programs have tried hard to be evidence based but there’s definitely a lack of really solid research out there about what the right ways to raise puppies are, again because there’s just so much variety and what’s good for one situation is not necessarily best for another. And then again, thoughtful placement, right? Not whoever emails me and has the money gets the dog, but I have a conversation with the person and make sure that it’s going to be a good placement. And saying that we also are very, we find inclusivity to be very important. So at that time also being open minded and really having a conversation with someone. So not necessarily having a rule like if there’s no fenced yard the dog can’t go home, cause that is very limiting to certain groups of people. But if there’s no fenced yard, that’s something that I want to talk through with someone to make sure they have a plan for getting the dog safe and appropriate exercise. But really making sure that it’s a good placement.

SS: And again, we, you know, the FDC just recognizes as an organization that there is a lot of nuance in every single situation. And that’s why there’s resources. There’s help. There’s conversations that are being had, rather than just a blanket, “This is the right way to do things.”.

JPH: Yeah, I wish there could be rules. Honestly, it’d be so much easier for everyone if there was just a checkbox. 

SS: No, I love rules. That would be great. 

JPH: Right? Cause you like border collies, they like rules too.

SS: Border collies. I would like the rules for making the best border collie, that would make my life a lot easier. 

JPH: Yes. Yeah, I wish it worked that way. 

1:10:34

SS: Yeah. So I think that, you know, to kind of tie up our conversation. We are kind of, you know, the Functional Dog Collaborative is talking about the goal of functionality. We’ve defined what that is, wrote out statements on what that is. And nowhere in our statements does it say that we don’t want other people to do anything a different way.

JPH: Correct. Right, it’s all positive and not negative, right? So it’s all about if you want to breed this way, here are the guidelines, here are the goals. More important than guidelines, here are the goals for what we mean by this type of breeding. And we would love to talk with other people who are interested in this type of breeding. But if this is not the type of breeding, and there’s other ways to go about it, and if this is not for you, that’s fine. That’s fine!

SS: Yeah. And it’s, I think that’s kind of the thing is that there are a lot of conversations going on, especially in regards to legislation around dog breeding. And so I think people get really nervous any time we might discuss, say, outcrossing to improve health in a closed population that you can’t get away from certain problems. The Functional Dog Collaborative would say, “Reaching outside of that population is your best move.”, we aren’t saying “Oh, and also we are going to vote to make you not allowed to stay in that population.”.

JPH: Right. Now, for sure we don’t have anything to do with politics. I’m trying to think if there’s any way that we’ve ever had anything to do with politics. We don’t make any political statements. And I’ll also say that I personally, strongly believe that passing laws telling people what not to do is rarely the right way to get them to do what you want them to do. You and I both…

SS: That’s just good behavioral science! Don’t tell anybody what not to do. Tell them, help them arrange their environment so that the choices that you like are the most likely choices to be nice. 

JPH: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so that’s exactly what I’m trying to do, right? So first of all, here’s our goals. If you agree with these goals, then come join the community and we’ll have a conversation about what to do. I am not about telling people what not to do or having laws. And I know that, you know, every so often there’ll be someone on the Facebook group who will be like, “Oh, there should be a law.”. And when I see that, I tend to chime in and be like, “That’s just not the right solution, people.”.

SS: Yeah, yeah. Anything else that we should add to our conversation? About what… 

JPH: Yeah, I just want to emphasize that I don’t want to be threatening. I don’t want to threaten other people’s, you know, way of life. For a lot of people, the way they breed dogs and the community that they’re a part of is really important to them. And I get that. I am a part of various communities that are really important to me, and I don’t want to see them threatened either. And I don’t want to threaten people. What I want is to be able to support a community of, you know, just a community of doing things its own way. And I don’t, you know, I don’t want to threaten other communities, but I don’t want them to threaten us either. So that’s sort of, that’s where I stand is just, I’m trying to build this thing. We, I mean, my amazing group of volunteers, we’re all this community trying to build this thing. We’re not trying to hurt other people. Really far from it, actually. We’re trying to help people. 

SS: All right. I think that’s a good place to end.

JPH: Thank you, Sara.

SS: Thank you, Jessica. This is enlightening, as usual. 

JPH: Hey, friends. Some of you have asked how to support the podcast, so we’ve set up a Patreon page for it. For a small monthly pledge you help us pay for producing this podcast and in exchange, you get a chance to suggest questions for podcast guests and you get early access to podcast episodes. To find out more go to patreon.com/functionalbreeding. You can also help promote the podcast through subscribing to it through the podcast app of your choice and by leaving favorable reviews. If you’re interested in supporting the Functional Dog Collaborative more generally, or finding ways to get involved, go to the functionalbreeding.org website and click the support link. Thanks to everyone who has helped out, we could not do this without you.

[upbeat music outro]

JPH: Thanks so much for listening. The Functional Breeding Podcast is a product of the Functional Dog Collaborative and was produced by Attila Martin. Come join us at the Functional Breeding Facebook group to talk about this episode, or about responsible breeding practices in general. To learn more about the FDC, check out the functionalbreeding.org website. Enjoy your dogs!

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