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If your dog has had any illnesses or ailments, you can tell us about them at any time without having to complete the rest of the questionnaire. Simply login to your dog's profile by visiting www.dogslife.ac.uk and click on the link underneath your dog's graph.
No that isn’t a crossbreed: black and tan Labrador Retrievers are rare but do happen!
Activities for Dogs: Disc dog
How common are diseases in Labrador Retrievers?
Prize winners!
No that isn’t a crossbreed: black and tan Labrador Retrievers are rare but do happen!
Coat colour in Labrador Retrievers is determined mainly by two genes: the MC1R gene (also known as the E-locus) which controls whether the dog is dark or light, and the TYRP1 gene (or B-locus) which controls whether a dark-coated dog is black or chocolate. Every now and again something rare happens when a completely different gene, called the ASIP gene, interacts in some way with these genes to produce what is called ‘tan points’ on dark-coated Labrador Retrievers. This is the reddish brown fur colour typically seen on the legs and muzzle and above the eyes of breeds like the Rottweiler, Doberman and Gordon Setter.
Originally it was thought that a small number of Labrador Retrievers must be carriers for the genetic variant causing black and tan points, and that when two such carriers were mated they had a 1 in 4 possibility of producing black and tan pups. However, recent research has shown that all Labrador Retrievers are genetically the same as the black and tan breeds at the gene able to produce tan points but somehow the tan points are usually masked by the effects of other genes that ensure that the coat is solid black or chocolate colour. How this happens is not yet understood – it is yet another complexity in the way coat colour in dogs is determined.
Black and tan Labrador Retrievers are purebred Labrador Retrievers, they just happen to have a combination of alleles (genetic variants) interacting in a rare way with other gene(s) to produce the different colour pattern. They are called ‘mismarks’. Other mismarks that can be produced in Labrador Retrievers include chocolate and tan point, brindle, and even what has been termed ‘mosaic’ where you get splotches of solid black or chocolate colour on an otherwise normal yellow coloured Labrador Retriever.
Since colour mismarks aren’t part of the breed standard for Labrador Retrievers by the Kennel Club, when black and tan Labrador Retrievers are produced, these are kept or sold as pets.
We currently don’t know how tan points in Labrador Retrievers happen: which specific genes are being turned on or off or masked in order to produce the normally hidden and unexpressed colour pattern, so this is where we need your help!
If you know of any black and tan Labrador Retrievers and are interested in helping us figure out the genetics of how we get these interesting looking dogs, please contact Lindsay Farrell at Lindsay.Farrell@roslin.ed.ac.uk.
Many thanks to Tom Boulton and his Labrador Retriever Riley for the photograph in this article.
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Activities for Dogs: Disc dog
Disc dog is a sport whereby handlers throw a disc (or Frisbee) for their dogs to catch. In competitions, the owner and dog team take part in freestyle catching and distance catching events.
Disc dog began in the early 1970’s when Frisbees became popular. In 1974 a student and his dog captivated the crowd at a baseball game when they interrupted the match by playing with a disc. The dog ran at 35mph and jumped 9ft to catch the disc which impressed spectators. As this event was being televised, it stimulated a lot of interest in the sport.
Disc dog competitions involve a standard distance ‘toss and fetch’ event where the dog and handler team are awarded points for catches at varying distances, and mid-air catches are granted extra points. One minute is allocated for handlers to throw the disc for the dog as many times as possible within the marked-out field (which has a furthest distance of around 50 meters).
Long distance event formats can vary, but usually the longest catch wins, and sometimes competitions are split into male and female handlers. This event started out being shown at half time in American football games, but has since evolved into an open competition in the United States and its popularity has spread to Europe.
Dogs and handlers can also compete at freestyle events in which teams choreograph short routines to music and more than one disc can be used. The categories for competitors at Disc dog events are determined by the experience and skill of the dog’s handler. Routines usually last between one and a half minutes to two minutes. The dog and handler team are judged on aspects of the routine such as the degree of difficulty, showmanship and canine athleticism. Freestyle may include movements such as flips, vaults and multiple catches to impress spectators and the judge.
Disc dog is an accessible sport as the only equipment required is a flying disc, and providing you are in an area with spacious level ground, it’s easy to start playing with your dog. When starting out, it is best to throw the disc just a short distance towards your dog (and try and keep it straight) to help your dog learn to catch it. After that, you can start encouraging them to run after the disc. Once they have mastered chasing and catching the disc, the height and distance can be increased gradually.
For more information on Disc dog and details of tournaments, please click here.
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How common are diseases in Labrador Retrievers?
This is one of the fundamental questions we seek to answer with the data you provide to the Dogslife project. In a recent publication, researchers at the Royal Veterinary College have sought to answer the same question, albeit in a slightly different manner about all dogs (not just Labrador Retrievers). They collected computerised veterinary records from veterinary practices which they then “mined” (searched for) for information on the diseases which dogs developed between 2007 and 2012, assessing the records of nearly 4,000 dogs in the process.
The most common disease resulting in veterinary presentation was ear infection (with approximately one in ten dog dogs being reported to have developed this disease over the study period), dental disease (affecting 9.3% of dogs), and anal sac impaction (affecting 7.1% of dogs). They classified diseases in other ways; for example when they looked at which body location was most commonly affected, it was the head and neck (32.8% of diseases), which is not surprising given how common ear and dental disease were. The most common organ affected by disease was the skin (36.3%), and the most common disease process was inflammation (32.1% of all diseases). Of the twenty most common diseases, purebred dogs had a higher number of cases of ear disease, obesity and skin masses when compared to crossbred dogs.
The most common diseases reported to affect Labrador Retrievers were obesity (13.0%), ear disease (11.8%), osteoarthritis (11.5%), lipomas (9.1%) and diarrhoea (8.3%). This is of particular interest to Dogslife, as we are finding quite different prevalence rates for the diseases reported to the study so far. There are a number of reasons for this; Dogslife collects information on all diseases, not just those which result in dogs presenting to their vet, and the Dogslife cohort is much younger than the cohort of dogs studied in this report (so many of the diseases such as osteoarthritis are still quite uncommon in the Dogslife cohort at present).
This information is the first large scale study of its type in dogs, and tells us much about what diseases are diagnosed by vets. Of course, one has to be careful not to over interpret the data; information on the severity or duration of clinical signs (which we are collecting in the Dogslife project) were not assessed, and therefore one should not consider unusual diseases in less common breeds of dog less worthy of investigation, but it does provide facts and figures on which diseases are commonly presented to vets. If you would like to read more about this study, please visit http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0090501.
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Prize winners!
Congratulations to September’s prize winners! The following Dogslife members have each won £10 of Pets at Home vouchers: Miss B from Norfolk, Mrs L from Suffolk, Mrs P from Dorset, Dr C from East Lothian, Mrs P from West Yorkshire, Miss G from Gloucestershire, Mrs P from Wiltshire, Mr M from County Durham, Mr H from Denbighshire, and Mrs H from Surrey. We hope you enjoy spending the vouchers on your pet.
Don’t worry if you haven’t won a prize this time, by keeping your dog’s record up to date, you will automatically be entered into the next prize draw in three months’ time.
Thank you to everyone who supports the Dogslife study and helps us find out what keeps dogs healthy!
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Is your dog special? Why not put them forward to become a Featured Dog? Lookout for the link next time you log in at www.dogslife.ac.uk!
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