This article by Larry Mueller was published in Outdoor Life 15 years ago, in 1998. Since then the science of genetics and epigenetics have advanced tremendously but the conclusion has not changed that much. If you want to breed superdogs, you'd better start really, really early in a dog's life. The next installment will present a current perspective on the points raised in Larry's article.
Building
The Superdog
Beginning
Before Birth
The where, when, why and
how of starting a superdog
Larry Mueller
Hunting Dogs Editor, Outdoor Life, 1998
The
new century for dogs is now. Modern science has poised the dog world for a
fastforward of unprecedented proportions. In the past, superdogs were rare
accidents of nature - naturals that made even first timers believe they were
great trainers. And now we know how those accidents happen. We hold the simple
secrets to building our own superdogs from scratch.
How early
can we begin the conditioning which could lead to a superdog? Five months?
Eight weeks? Ninety days? Would you believe… in the womb? It's true. We have
scientific evidence that the fetus is not sealed in isolation. It lives in its
mother's world.
Interestingly, before
Mendel discovered genes, breeders were hunting pregnant bitches to produce
superior pups. After Mendel's theory caught on, that practice was called an old
wives' tale. Genetics allowed us to break breeding down to numbers and predict
a few traits like coat color. So, we assumed that breeding is a crap shoot of
many-sided gene dice. All traits, behavioral and physical alike, were thought
to be locked m place at birth. It was a neatly packaged theory that shrank
nature to fit our head size. To believe it, however, required ignoring all the
loopholes and protecting our ignorance against obvious evidence to the
contrary.
But this
is for the future. For now, we're conditioning fetuses to become great hunting
dogs: Proof that it's possible comes from the University
of California , Berkeley . Dr. Marion Diamond, professor of
anatomy, divided laboratory rats into two groups. In one rats were housed
singly in boxes with just food and water. In the other, groups of rats lived
together and enjoyed toys which were changed periodically - a mentally
challenging environment.
At
maturity, Marion Diamond sacrificed some of both groups and physically measured
the cortex areas of their brains. The cortexes had actually grown thicker in
the challenged rats. For the first time, it was proven that the anatomy of an
animal brain could be changed by experience. Subsequent maze tests m other
laboratories proved that rats with thicker cortexes were smarter and quicker to
learn.
In a
second study, Professor Diamond placed pregnant rats in both deprived and
challenging environments. Again, the challenged rats had the thicker cortexes.
But get this: So did their offspring! Somehow, the mother's experiences had
improved their babies ability to learn.
Can this
happen in dogs as well as rats? Of course. As Dr. Diamond points out, the
number of neurons in a single column of cortical nerve cells is the same in
rats, dogs and man. The number of dendrites (branchlike extensions) and the resulting
complexity of circuitry is what creates some of the differences between
species.
I asked Professor Diamond whether given the
olfactory propensity of dogs and the fact that scent is tasted as well as
smelled - there might be a biological connection telling the fetuses that their
hunting mother is excited and what odor is responsible. Sound reasonable?
"It does," she said, cautioning, however, that she believes
everything is possible until proven otherwise.
How might
the fetus be conditioned by the mother s experience? My own theory is that
tasted odor, like medicine held under the tongue, quickly enters the
bloodstream. At the same time, excitement releases adrenaline into the
bloodstream. Brain chemicals such as seratonin fire into the gaps between the
dendrites. A percentage of those chemicals are recycled to be used again by the
brain. The remainder enters the bloodstream, which, in a pregnant bitch, also
flows through the unborn's brain where it reproduces sensations much like the
mother's.
Whether
my theory is right or wrong (veterinary neurologist and Auburn University
professor Larry Myers says I'm close, if not dead on) we're certain that
challenging the pregnant bitch will enlarge the offspring's cortex. Training
will be easier. And if my theory is right, the pups will likely have a strong
preference for the scent that excites their mother. Deer chasing should be
minimized.
I believe
that the time to make the greatest impression on the fetus is the last 21 days
of gestation. (Since this was published in Outdoor
Life, NBC reported that Dr. David Min used ultrasound to track heartbeats
and movements of human fetuses. They began responding to parents' voices and
music at 26 weeks, verifying the third trimester as the time of greatest
opportunity for influencing the unborn.)
Additional support for hunting the pregnant
bitch comes from Missouri
educator, Red Setter breeder and trainer, Bruce Ludwig. Except for
heat-of-summer litters, Ludwig hunts his bitches until the last week.
"I've definitely seen more pointing intensity in pups from hunted bitches,
Bruce said. And as an educator I see a parallel in children. From all walks of
life and degrees of intelligence, those mothers who are physically and mentally
active during pregnancy bear children who react noticeably better to sight,
sound, and touch. It's most apparent before learned responses form, but it
carries over to superior grades later."
But will
breeders hunt their pregnant bitches? Should we risk hunting ours? We've always
pampered them. I can only answer with more questions. Have you ever known a
coyote who took off two months from hunting to have her pups? Have you ever
known a young coyote that wouldn't hunt? Not hunting the pregnant bitch may
well be the first step in producing all those worthless dogs we see.
2 comments:
I believe this and it features in our breeding program. Of course genetics is very important too.
John Jeanneney
I take my girls out until the very end. I want them super fit to be able to push out those babies! If better hunting is a side effect, all the more reason to take 'em out!
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