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The Labrador Breeders Handbook

by Debby Kay

125 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0698; ISBN 1-4120-0329-6; US$27.00, C$34.00, EUR22.10, £15.40

Guide provides essential information to serious Labrador Breeders. You'll find everything you need in its easy to reference charts, useful tables and candid discussions of the issues facing this breed.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book The Labrador Breeders Handbook is a concise and useful reference designed for all Labrador breeders by a Labrador breeder. It includes many useful charts, diagrams and lists such as: Table of Labrador colors including all the mismarkings A listing of all the heritable and genetic disorders and how they are specifically inherited in the Labrador Pedigrees revealing the secrets of top breeders including a pedigree of a family of epileptic seizuring Labradors.

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About the Author Debby Kay has spent a lifetime associated with breeding animals, particularly dogs. The Chilbrook breeding program was established in 1969 and continues today as one of the most sought after sources of broodstock for working Labradors. Debby has lectured, as well as trained and shown dogs all over the world. She is a widely published author in the field.

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Sample Excerpt

from Chapter 5

Congenital and Heritable Disorders of the Labrador Retriever

After one looks over this imposing list of "problems" you may begin to wonder how in the world can we ever produce a so-called "clean" dog? In the previous sections I discussed some of the issues of the breed and how breeders can control traits in a bloodline. In this section I offer a listing of other things that can cause a dog and a breeder misery if they are present in a line. My intention here is to provide a convenient listing of what an exhaustive literature search, and personal notes from interviews with many Labrador breeders has turned up, of disorders recorded in our breed. Most of these disorders thankfully are rare. I have been told (but could not verify from the breeders) that some lines regularly produce problems such as dwarfism and those puppies that are affected are put down at birth but their littermates that are not affected are bred from. My hope is that by providing what is known so far about these disorders perhaps some lives can be spared in the future. I strongly suggest that anyone wishing further information contact The Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, PO Box 2008, Davis CA 95617-0208. They publish a very complete work on congenital and heritable disorders with very clear explanations. Their web address is www.avar.org. I also want to repeat here that any serious breeder should read Malcolm Willis' book Genetics of the Dog. He has many Labrador specific examples of hereditary problems and methods of dealing with them. The book is much more technical then I have attempted with this material but well worth reading and studying.

Recently a very important merger occurred that has significant impacts to serious breeders. The Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) has combined it resources with the Institute for Genetic Disease Control (GDC). They maintain some of the most comprehensive databases and it is from these data sets researchers can learn things about problems affecting our breed. In 2002, it was planned that a Canine Health Information Center (CHIC) database would be established that breeders could access information for information needed to make wise breeding choices. The database includes, as I understand, information from many sources making it very useful. Labradors are one of the enrolled breeds. The web site for the database is www.caninehealthinfo.org.

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Catalogue Information

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