The 6th meeting of the European Cooperation of Dalmatian Clubs (ECDC)
San Remo, April 25th, 2003
Delegates present: Ursula Voitle (Austria), Frans de Ridder (Belgium), Ivana Bakal (Croatia-”Attila Dubac”), Tarja Tuomisto (Finland), Sally Ann Clegg (France), Herbert Nagel and Alfred Ronneburg (Germany-DDC v. 1920), Edith Eggli and Pia Pedercini (Italy), Rhys Morgans and Martin Buijtenhek (Netherlands), Helle Höie and Tyge Greibrokk (Norway), Ake Cronander (Sweden).
Not present: Dalmatian clubs of Denmark, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Germany (DDV and CDF).
Other committee members and observers: Annette Vieler (Denmark), Mary Greening (England), John Weston (England), Joan Curtis (England), Rita Stokes (England), Zeljka Halper (Croatia-”Dalmatinac”), Branko Galiac (Croatian kennel Club), Irina Petracova (Russia), Aase Jakobsen (Norway), mrs. Ronneburg (Germany), mrs. Nagel (Germany), Annemiek Morgans (Nederlands), mrs. Buijtenhek (Nederlands), Arnesto Allessandro & Manola Odechi (Italy), Maggie De Rozario (France).
On behalf of the Italian Dalmatian Club, Pia Pedercini welcomed the delegates to San Remo, at the blue Mediterranean, with 21 0C in the air, with hopes for an active co-operation – also between the meetings.
After a presentation of the delegates and observers, the chairman Tyge Greibrokk gave a brief report on the activities in the previous period.There has been some difficulties in communicating with some members, because of malfunctioning of e-mail addresses. The German-speaking clubs complained about the lack of German-language information, such as the minutes from the 5th meeting. The committee had tried but not succeeded in obtaining volunteers for translation, and a professional translation agency in Copenhagen was charging too much, in the opinion of the committee. However, the problem will hopefully be solved within this period, since Frans de Ridder promised to do all the translations to German and Sally Ann Clegg to French. The minutes should be available on the homepage.
The financial statement was presented by the treasurer Alfred Ronneburg, with the comments from the auditor Herbert Nagel. By the end of March, 2003 the bank accounts totaled 10.016,55 euro. The delegates accepted the financial report.
In the previous meeting in Helsinki, the Croatian Dalmatian Club ”Attila Dubac” had been applied to become a member and was now formally accepted as member of the ECDC. Another Croatian Dalmatian Club, HUPDP-”Dalmatinac”, applied for membership shortly before the meeting convened. Both clubs are recognized by the Croatian kennel club, and a representative of the Kennel Club was present at the meeting. The clubs have, so far, approximately 100 and 35 members, respectively. The chairmen of both clubs and the representative of the Croatian Kennel Club informed the meeting about the situation. The smallest club was given an observer status for the next period. At the next meeting in 2005 the question of membership will be discussed.
A Hungarian dalmatian club had applied for membership, as well. Due to limited information about this club, the delegates decided to come back to the application at the next meeting in Belgium.
Rhys Morgans put the question to the Croatian clubs what their opinion was to the various tests that are being performed in many parts of Europe. The answer was that the conditions are not ideal at the moment, but they intend to do tests in the future.
The question of voting rights was brought up. Different opinions were voiced, but the delegates decided not to suggest any changes in the present system, where each recognised club has one vote.
Ake Cronander reported on the comments to the standard, which are available on the web in all three official languages. The issue of heterochromia was debated. Ake Cronander concluded that different shades of brown in two eyes should not qualify as an eliminating fault, and nobody opposed that conclusion. Ake Cronander also asked the members for wishes for new activities of the judging committee.
Wishes for a judges seminar, more uniform judging to the standard, and pressure on FCI for uniform guidelines as to which group (9 or 6) that the Dalmatian should belong to, as well as to judges attitudes, were suggested.
Tyge Greibrokk reported on the current situation related to ARDS. He had tried to calm down the occasional hysterical reactions by more factual and balanced report. There is unfortunately no news of a possible genetic test. The tables containing lists of carriers and the descendants of carriers, which was offered to the delegates by Tyge Greibrokk in 1999, are available for everyone. Unfortunately there appears to have been little openness and desire to report this kind of information in some clubs. The recommendation, not to use the first 5 generations after a carrier in breeding, was reported to have been neglected by some. The Finnish club followed the recommendations, but postponed to 2004, compared to 2003. Tyge Greibrokk asked the members for registration records. This would give the health committee an overview of the situation and allow a better service to the members. The clubs will also be asked to state their official policy on breeding with descendants after ARDS-carriers.
Anybody wanting to get an ARDS-status of a particular dog should be able to get that by providing the chairman with the dog´s pedigree. Dogs which are 7 or more generations, after known carriers, are considered to be free of the genetic disposition, since the probability of generating a problem in breeding is then very close to zero.
Deafness data from England were reported by Mary Greening. Currently the bilateral deaf in England numbers about 5%. The data is a mixture of numbers of whole litters and single dogs. A written report from DDC v. 1920 on 2494 dogs showed 4.37% bilateral deafness among the males and 4.27% among the females. The unilaterally hearing constituted about 10% of both sexes. More data are expected later, from other clubs. An evaluation of the multigenerational breeding on bilaterally hearing dogs should be performed, but the numbers are still too small to be of significance.
In the Netherlands all dogs, within the club, are tested and the test results are considered to be representative for the breed in the Netherlands.
There was a debate on breeding with patched dogs, registration of hearing tests on pedigrees and valid identification of the dogs.
Hip dysplasia (HD) was on the agenda, due to questions about the occurrence among Dalmatians. Tyge Greibrokk showed the x-ray results from Norway of a total of about 1000 Dalmatians, with an average of 8.4% HD (predominantly with the C-status). More than 50% of the Dalmatians are currently hip-photographed in this country. According to the specialists, lower than 10-15% of HD of the population can be considered satisfactory for our breed. In the UK there have been some worries about side effects of the sedation used at x-ray examinations, but this was not a problem in the other countries. It should be also be added that Dalmatians with C-hips have no functional problem related to their HD-status. In some countries (Austria and Norway) only A and B hips are allowed in breeding, while other clubs allow dogs with C-hips to be combined only with dogs with A-hips.
The member clubs will later be asked about their rules/recommendations on breeding related to ARDS, deafness and HD. Apparently several countries recommend that the HD-status is required before using dogs in breeding.
Several clubs make HD-results public via their Club Magazines.
It was mentioned that a company in USA has developed a genetic test to identify the gene for lemon spotting.
A report (in Italian) on 11 cases of heart problems in Italy was handed out.
Rhys Morgans reported on the changes and improvements. Many clubs should be more efficient in reporting alterations in the mail adresses and contact persons. The vision is that all clubs should be able to retrieve information which is not publicly available from the webside, by a password. Rhys Morgans is also looking into the possibility of using a common database, on the web, to provide the clubs with information about dogs in other countries.
A change in the statutes concerning the length of the time period between meetings had been proposed. The delegates decided that the period could vary between two and three years, to be determined by the meeting of delegates prior to the next meeting.
As a consequence of this decision is was agreed that 5c) in the statutes is changed to: ”The committee is elected by the MD for the period between the meetings. Re-election is possible.”
The proposed changes in the standard was recommended with minor changes. The chairman will write a letter to the FCI Standard Commission requesting these changes. A copy of this letter will be sent to all the member clubs. The member clubs will send this letter to their respective Kennel Clubs requesting the Kennel Club to act towards the FCI.
Several suggestions concerning the refunding of travel costs for delegates and commission members had been proposed, but all were rejected. A majority of the delegates voted to cover the costs of the chairman and the secretary at this meeting, but not in the future. The majority wanted committee members to be delegates with costs covered by their respective clubs. Committee members without funding from their clubs will then have to cover their own costs. The delegates had different opinions on whether this was a good organisation policy for ECDC. As a consequence of the discussion, the proposed candidate for treasurer, Anette Vieler, withdrew her candidacy.
The proposal to transfer a percentage of the net profit from the ECDC-dogshow to the organisation itself, was withdrawn when it appeared this would have little impact on the finances.
The delegates decided that the committee members should send individual bills for refunding costs of telephone, fax, internet etc., rather than receiving annual sums decided by the meeting.
Chairman: The DDC v. 1920 proposed Frans de Ridder as another candidate, in addition to Tyge Greibrokk who was up for reelection. Without further discussion, Tyge Greibrokk was re-elected as chairman, after a very close vote.
Treasurer: Frans de Ridder had proposed his candidacy at the beginning of the meeting, but withdrew when it became apparent that Alfred Ronneburg wished to continue. Ronneburg was then re-elected as treasurer.
Secretary: Annemiek Morgans was elected secretary, as proposed.
Auditor: Herbert Nagel was re-elected auditor, as proposed.
Judging committee: The committee, consisting of Ake Cronander, Alfred Ronneburg, Liliane de Ridder and Radana Zachova, supplemented with Aase Jakobsen from Norway, was reelected.
Health and breeding commission: The commission, consisting of Tyge Greibrokk, Asa Boholm, Radana Zachova , Rhys Morgans and Mary Greening, was re-elected.
The next meeting will be in Kortrijk in Belgium, either the 20th or the 27th of November 2005, on a Friday, arranged by the Belgian club. The ECDC-dogshow will be on the Saturday and an international dogshow on the Sunday.
The Croatian club ”Attila Dubac” proposed to arrange the meeting in 2007. The invitation was supported by the Croatian kennel club and the Croatian ministry of tourisme. The delegates decided to accept the invitation only if the current restrictions for some countries connected to rabies are lifted by then. The committee was authorized to propose a reserve country well ahead of time, if the meeting + dogshow cannot be arranged in Croatia in 2007.
The chairman thanked the Italian club for all the arrangements and the delegates for their presence and participation.
Suggested changes in the standard
FCI-Standard No 153 / 14.04.1999 / GB
(Dalmatinac)
Lips : Clean, fitting the jaw rather closely, not pendulous. A complete pigmentation is desired.
Our recommendation: Remove the sentence about complete pigmentation of the lips.
Why: No previous standard has expressed this desire. We also consider this to being apart from reality and with no support from anyone known to us.
Flanks : Narrow.
Our recommendation: Remove the statement.
Why: The statement is interpretated differently by different clubs and judges
Lower line : Belly distinctly tucked up towards the loin.
Our recommendation: Replace with: Belly tucked up towards the loin.
Why: The present statement may lead to an interpretation similar to the belly of a whippet, which is incorrect for a Dalmatian.
· Limited patching around eyes (monocle) or elsewhere, yet acceptable for breeding).
Our recommendation: Replace with: Large patches.
Why: Small patches cannot be identified by a judge since they also could be overlapping spots. The problem with patches is the large ones, not the small ones.
Recommendation:
In order to reduce the incident of deafness in Dalmatians (20-30%)
- Bilaterally deaf Dalmatians and blue-eyed Dalmatian should be discarded from breeding, ideally unilaterally deaf dogs likewise.
- Dogs with limited patching around eyes (monocle) or elsewhere should be accepted for breeding.
- Dogs with pigmented scrotum should be preferred
Our recommendation: Remove the whole recommendation.
Why: Breeding recommendations do not belong in the standard, unless there are pressing arguments for such inclusions. This is really not the case for deafness.
The deafness rate among Dalmatians in Europe is 4-5% according to the reports based on examinations based on whole litters. The 20-30% number include dogs which are only hearing on one ear. In Europe this is 15-20%. In US the number is 20-30%, mainly due to previous breeding on blue-eyed dogs. However, there is no reason for calling dogs with reduced hearing for deaf, because it is almost impossible to establish this as a defect in normal family life.
We support the intention, but this is a matter of concern for the breeders, not for the judges.