A recent development is one well worth noting. Our vet Robert Zammit now suggests that as a matter of routine clients have a Government Pathology Laboratory do a Leptospirosis and a Rabies test prior to collection. Then should the dog die, semen can still be exported to those countries which specify these tests as requisite for the importation of frozen semen. In England, for example, once a dog has died, his semen can NOT be used, a classic example being the almost criminal waste of the semen stored from Ch Khanabad White Warrior, due to Margaret Niblock's great forethought at the time. However, if there was certification that he was free of lepto and rabies when the collection was done, it could be exported to a progressive country like Australia that p ermits the use of semen after death of the sire, a litter could be bred, and progeny returned to England to continue the line. Makes you think, doesn't it?
THESE ARE THE ADVANTAGES, SO TO A DISCUSSION OF THE DISADVANTAGES
Without doubt - and believe it or not in direct opposition to the outstanding advantages we have just discussed - the major potential disadvantages are the threat to correct breed type, and/or to the genetic health of a breed.
When we first heard that America was establishing semen banks, we thought "What a great idea!" Now we are not so sure. How easy it would have been in 1976 to contact a single organisation instead of going through the expense and the months of hard work we had to do then in order to make puppies born from frozen semen an actual reality. I am told it is now possible to simply order from a catalogue of available sires semen that has already been frozen and is simply waiting at the storage facility to be ship ped to buyers, and that this can therefore be done without any consultation with the owner of the sire, or exchange of the so essential background information concerning type, pedigree, health etc of both potential parents. Certainly I was approached by an overseas facility not many years after our 1976 success to make my stud dogs available for this purpose, but of course declined, as providing semen which could be purchased in this fashion is beyond my comprehension. I have not bothered to confirm whether or not it ever became reality, but if it IS true, then the long-term prospects for a breeding programme based on such unresearched genetics would seem to me to not be very bright.
Frozen semen can be potentially misused if a new "look" suddenly attracts attention, especially if it is in fact untypical as is often the case, or it disregards even just a single one of the all important breed hallmarks specified in the Standard. An ex ample is the lengthening of back in order to increase the potential for open side gait, now a buzz word in our breed, but one not mentioned ANYWHERE in ANY standard for the Afghan Hound. Nature says you may "fluke" one or two eye-catching specimens that a re outside of the original structure for a particular breed, but if you want to perpetuate this so that it will breed on, you can't do so without altering many other parts of the skeleton, as Nature is determined to maintain certain proportions.
So the whole shape of a breed changes.This variation on a theme can then far too easily travel around the world and be imitated and rapidly re-produced in considerable numbers of puppies by the use of frozen semen in a fraction of the time it used to take for such a damaging factor to become firmly entrenched in a breed. The breaking down of geographical boundaries and the decreased costs of semen versus those of quarantine can therefore be as much a disadvantage as an advantage.
The same applies in those breeds afflicted with heritable genetic defects, for exactly the same reason. We have already discussed the enormously important advantage of being able to get back to clear sires by the planned use of frozen semen. But of course again it works both ways, and if a significant sire is widely used by frozen semen and at a later stage is - tragically - found to be afflicted, then the problem has once again been disseminated worldwide and in far greater volume than would otherwise ha ve occurred if he were only used by natural methods in his country of residence or nearby places from which bitches could be mated to him at no great expense.
Fortunately this is not a factor which poses a major problem in our own breed, as it is very healthy genetically compared to many others, but it is certainly something that must be born in mind.
Equally disadvantageous, as the sourcing of frozen semen becomes increasingly easier and the success rate more rewarding, is always the risk in all breeds of a "craze" to simply import semen from current top winners, irregardless of the compatibility of t heir pedigrees with the bitches to whom they will be mated. This is an extravagant exercise in every respect and from the breed's point of view, another area which is ultimately fraught with danger, especially when semen from several top winners is import ed and admixed within only a few generations, outcrosses on outcrosses. The most obvious cause for concern is that very little line breeding appears to be occurring, with not enough - or in fact none at all - careful research into the pedigree.
Every pedigree carries some true pluses and some hidden minuses. In the case of imported frozen semen, in most cases very few of the close relatives have even been seen by the person importing the semen, much less their having any personal involvement with or understanding of three or four generations behind that sire.
Certainly in the old days this was exactly the same when dogs were imported from one distant country to another, for example from England to Australia. Very few of us were in the position of being able to personally select the bloodstock which ultimately arrived after seven weeks on a cargo boat.
And we did not have the wonderful advantages of magazines, videos, faxes and emails, which we all just accept today as part of our lives. But probably for that very reason, all the difficulties of communication, and all the homework that HAD to be done, i t was essential to research the new addition in great depth. There was - and financially still is - no going back if we did not like what came out of the shipping crate. Personally I believe a great deal of the world wide acknowledgement for the quality o f the Australian Afghan Hound is due to the depth of commitment that went into the selection of these early imports and has been carried on to the present day.
Likewise, where the homework incorporating frozen semen IS being done, some magnificent specimens are the result. Only recently an Australian born Weimaraner produced from American semen has gone to the USA and taken his breed by storm, winning the Nation al Specialty and gaining his American and Canadian titles unbeaten since his arrival.
While it is not technically a disadvantage as such, the disappointment when a bitch fails to conceive after all the time, money and effort that are expended seems more devastating than when this happens with a natural mating, probably because frozen semen inseminations basically require more forward planning and more co-operation from a large number of people than does the average natural mating
.Wendye Slatyer July 97
Copyright(c) 1997
Not to be reproduced without written permission of the author.
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