New research aims to shed new light on a farmer’s best friend.
Right Dog for the Job is a three-year research project led by Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University with support from industry partners and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) through the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund (SFF Futures).
The focus of the project is digging into the genetic makeup of working farm dogs with the aim of hunting out potential disease risks and finding genetic markers for other more desirable traits.
Lead researcher Professor Matt Littlejohn said they were comparing genetic variants that cause diseases, as well as physical traits, in overseas dog populations with those of New Zealand dogs.
“If you look at other dog breeds internationally, there have been huge genetics studies that have characterised what are the diseases that these dogs have and what causes those diseases, but that information doesn’t really exist for our dogs.”
Littlejohn said the project was largely focussed on New Zealand’s two unique breeds, the huntaway and heading dog.
“They’re quite unique in the world and in New Zealand, they’re actually quite common so both those breeds are in the top five most common breeds but not really found outside of New Zealand.”
The research team has conducted genome sequencing on close to 250 dogs so far, which includes 130 huntaways, 104 heading dogs and 15 crossbreeds.
In doing so they have uncovered 19 million DNA variations across the dogs sampled.
The goal is that this information will support future breeding decisions, helping farmers and breeders improve the genetic health of their dogs.
“Of all the variants linked to health traits in other breeds, we didn’t have much of an idea about what might also be carried by farm dogs,” Littlejohn said.
“Given the influence of breeds like the border collie on working dogs, we could guess, but using genome sequencing we could know for sure.”
He said there had been a few surprises in this early stage of the research.
Of the nearly 400 variants known to affect health or physical traits in other breeds, the study identified 27 variants present in the 249 dogs tested.
Huntaways, heading dogs and crossbreeds have been sampled for the project. Photo / Pamela Stephen
“We found that indeed there are variants carried by our dogs that show up in offshore breeds and there’s five in particular that are disease variants that are found in sufficiently high frequency that they’re something we should probably be taking account of.
“Of those five variants, there were two in particular that were a bit surprising actually because the frequency in the breeds that they were discovered in, and again international populations, was actually lower than what we have here.”
A heading dog at work shifting sheep. Photo / Pamela Stephen
The two included variants found in the CUBN and CLN8 genes - the first causes vitamin B12 malabsorption which can cause serious health issues if untreated, and the other is a neurodegenerative disorder that often leads to dogs being euthanised at an early age.
While the number of carrier animals identified was not extreme - 2-8% of dogs tested - Littlejohn said the frequencies in New Zealand farm dogs were still higher than other international breeds.
These genetic variants are recessive, meaning dogs that carry a single copy are called carriers and do not show symptoms.
If two carriers mate, their puppies could inherit two copies of the variant, leading to health problems.
Littlejohn said by testing dogs for these variants and avoiding breeding between carriers, farmers and breeders can minimise the chance of producing puppies that will develop these diseases or health issues.
The research focus will turn to finding new or unique genetics only found in New Zealand dogs, as well as working with farmers and vets to measure health and working performance traits, which they hope will help dog breeders and owners avoid genetic diseases and improve desirable traits.
