The Functional Breeding Podcast

Oct 28 2024 59 ep. 61 mins 206

The Functional Breeding Podcast artwork

The Functional Breeding Podcast is about how to breed dogs for function and for health, behavioral and physical. It is brought to you by the Functional Dog Collaborative, a non-profit organization founded to support the ethical breeding of healthy, behaviorally sound dogs. The FDC’s goals include providing educational, social, and technical resources to breeders of both purebred and mixed breed dogs, helping us all learn more about how to breed good companions who are fit for sports or work. You can find out more at functionalbreeding.org or at the Functional Breeding facebook group, which is a friendly and inclusive community.

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Daniel Mills, BVSc, ECAWBM(BM), PhD: Pain and behavior problems

Oct 28 2024 61 mins

This week I'm talking to Daniel Mills, Professor of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine at the University of Lincoln and director of the University Animal Behaviour Clinic. Daniel is internationally recognized as an authority on companion animal behavior, cognition, and welfare. His lab studies, among other things, the association between untreated pain and behavior issues. I asked him

Dr. Cat Henstridge: Unlicensed fertility clinics in the UK

Oct 17 2024 61 mins

This week I'm talking with Dr. Cat Henstridge. Cat, who is a primary care veterinarian in the UK, has been on several TV series, including the Pets Factor. She writes for veterinary and non-veterinary publications, and is known as Cat the Vet to her many, many social media followers. Cat and I talked about the rise of unlicensed fertility clinics in the UK - why they have sprung up

Jane Ladlow, VetMB, DipECVS, MRCVS: Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome

Sep 30 2024 69 mins

This week I'm talking to Dr Jane Ladlow. Jane is a veterinary surgeon who is widely known as an expert on BOAS, or brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome. BOAS is the umbrella disorder that covers a variety of different airflow obstructions in different flat-faced breeds such as the pug, French bulldog, and English bulldog. Jane developed the Respiratory Function Grading Scheme

Gina Bryson and Drs O'Neill and Packer: The Doodle Dilemma

Sep 16 2024 94 mins

Today I'm talking with the researchers who recently published a paper that's been getting a lot of social media buzz. The paper's title is "The doodle dilemma: How the physical health of ‘Designer-crossbreed’ Cockapoo, Labradoodle and Cavapoo dogs’ compares to their purebred progenitor breeds." This interview was a big party featuring Gina Bryson, the first author on the pape

What is the coefficient of inbreeding (COI) and why does it matter?

Sep 09 2024 39 mins

This week you get just me (Jessica Perry Hekman) talking at you! I'm talking about the coefficient of inbreeding (COI), a measurement of genetic diversity that's commonly mentioned in discussions of individual and breed health. I talk about what it is, how to interpret it, how to get the measurement done for your own dog(s), why we care about it, and give the take-home messages fro

REPLAY: Jane Lindquist: Puppy Culture

Aug 27 2024 71 mins

I will have new content for you all soon - but for now, enjoy one from the archives! -- Jane Lindquist is the founder and owner of Puppy Culture, a widely used educational resource for raising and socializing puppies. She herself breeds and competes with bull terriers. As it turns out, she is very thoughtful when it comes to how to apply science to the raising of puppies. We had a

Mary Peaslee, MD, MPH: Breeding for Population Health

Jul 18 2024 89 mins

This episode I welcome back Mary Peaslee, MD, MPH, to talk about a breeder's perspective on all the advice Dr Dan O'Neill gave us in his recent episode on how to approach disorder testing. Mary works in population health and brings that perspective to her breeding practice. So what does all this stuff look like in the real world? How can breeders focus on the future health of the d

Jessica Hekman, DVM, PhD, on "Lifetime Prevalence of Owner-Reported Medical Conditions"

Jul 02 2024 62 mins

We have a flipped episode this week with Sarah Stremming of Cog Dog Radio interviewing me. We're talking about the new paper out of the Dog Aging Project, "Lifetime Prevalence of Owner-Reported Medical Conditions in the 25 Most Common Dog Breeds in the Dog Aging Project Pack." There's been a lot of buzz on social media about this paper and we wanted to dig in to its findings. For t

What's up with FDC and the podcast

Jun 19 2024 15 mins

There's a lot going on behind the scenes of the Functional Dog Collaborative and I have a lot of plans for upcoming podcast episodes. I also have had a bunch of people say they can't record this summer and so it may be a few weeks until I get the next episode out. So here's some stuff to tide you over - explanation of what's going on and what episode topics I have coming up! (If yo

Dan O'Neill, MVB, PhD, FRCVS: Disorder Testing

Jun 07 2024 92 mins

Last episode I talked with Dr. Dan O'Neill, a veterinary epidemiologist who studies canine disorders that have an inherited component - what the rest of us might call "genetic diseases." During that interview he mentioned that he didn't think disorder testing - what most of us call health testing - has been workinig to improve canine health. I cut that section because I felt we nee