Health and Temperament rank highest on my list for many reasons.  Health is crucial for a family pet, no one wants to take care of a sick family member day by day or needlessly drain savings due to irresponsible breeding of unhealthy animals.  When I use the word health, I do not mean, "Does this dog have a cold?" or "Is this dog up to date on its vaccinations?"  The word health to me encompasses the risk of a dog passing on diseases that have a genetic component in its transmission and phenotype.  These diseases include epilepsy, hip dysplasia, or certain heart conditions.  Diseases that are not considered are things like parvo (easily picked up from the environment), ear infection (happens to all dogs all the time), or fleas (again, environmental).
 

     In order to assess the health of a dog and its pedigree, it is absolutely imperative to examine all relatives including aunts, uncles, 1/2 siblings, grandfathers, grandmothers, and great aunts.  Many times, a sire can produce many unhealthy offspring, but the healthy ones are still bred.  From a genetics point of view, siblings share 50% of the same genes (could be up to 100%, highly unlikely but could still happen).  So breeding an animal that shares 50% of its genes with a sibling that has say grand mal seizures is adding 50% of the grand mal seizure gene code to the gene pool. Statistically, 50% is an extremely high risk.  Taking this concept further, even breeding 1/2 sibling can pose a danger. Of course, many Swissy lines have epilepsy here and there, but the important point is to try to breed dogs that share only minimal variance in genes with that particular animal. 

   For example: Bitch A has been bred with Sire A.  85% of this litter yields animals with problems so severe, many are put down for aggression and epilepsy (which in some cases can be related,i.e. rage syndrome).  The 15% of the litter, who turns out okay, still shares at least 50% of its genes with the rest of its littermates.  The likelihood that this 15% will produce good natured and healthy offspring is bleak given such strong phenotypes of aggression and epilepsy in the line. Furthermore, Bitch A has been bred to Sire A's offspring, let's call him Sire B.  Given that Sire A and Sire B share 50% of the same genes, this second litter shares at least 33% or more of the variance in the first litter. The fact that offspring in the second litter also display aggression issues similar to the first is quite disturbing.  It is evidence that behavioral and health problems are cropping up in this line and any consideration of breeding any of the offspring must be thought over with extreme care. 

Hiking with the Malamutes!

   The take home message is to look at a dog's extended pedigree when looking at health.  One particular dog's phenotype may not accurately portray its genotype.  For this reason (or until science advances), it is critical to look for health trends in the pedigree.

    The link between health and epilepsy is also more important than people understand.  Epilepsy can cause “rage syndrome” due to brain damage.  Rage syndrome is a behavior that can be seen in even the sweetest dog.  The dog will suddenly go into an aggressive rage without warning and not even realize its behavior after the episode is over.  A seizure in the amygdala of the brain (controls emotions: anger, fear, aggression) can be one cause of aggressive behavior in epileptic dogs.  Thus the expression of the actual seizure could very possible be the unwarranted aggressive attack.  Also, repeated trauma or seizures can also create lesions on the brain that thus lead to aggressive behaviors.  This is not to say that all epileptic dogs (be the expression be a grand mal seizure of aggressive rage) should be humanly freed of pain, but that they should never be bred.  The point is that if you sacrifice good health, you might also be increasing the risk of temperament problems. 

HEALTH    TEMPERAMENT    STRUCTURE    TYPE