Before we can understand the health situation of Akitas, we need to
understand basic genetics. Genes make all living organisms, including man,
work. I could explain about genes, alleles, and genomes but let's keep this
very simple. The health issues of Akitas are mostly autoimmune problems like SA
(sebaceous adenitis) and VKH/UDS (Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease/uveodermatologic
syndrome) and lesser problems including allergies and hypothyroidism. Dogs have
over 25,000 different genes, but there is one area in all our genes that makes
the immune system work. In humans this is called the MHC area (major
histocompatibility complex) and in dogs this is called the DLA area (dog
leukocyte antigen). The best example to describe this system when it's working
well is a full symphony orchestra with all the different instruments. A good
immune system has it all and can play awesome music!
It's very hard to study autoimmune diseases and find a solution. Many
studies before and now have shown that it's almost impossible to find one
common genetic factor among sick dogs with SA and VKH/UDS. There's no one bad
gene that makes these dogs sick; past studies have shown that there are
multiple genes behind these diseases. When we narrow genetic diversity, things
can go badly wrong and the chance to get bad genes is very high.
In the history of dogs there have been many genetic bottlenecks,
starting when dogs separated from wolves and domestication started, over 10 000
years ago. Each of these genetic bottlenecks will take some instruments away
from our well-working symphony orchestra, and we're not getting them back. Once
you lose these genes, you can't get them back in a closed population. Let's
think about Akitas. We could say our first genetic bottleneck was after World
War II when the Japanese started to rebuild the breed with the few Akitas left
after the war. Let's say then we lost the brass section of our orchestra by the
genetic bottleneck. Closing the registry and making Akitas an official breed
also made us lose some parts of our orchestra and stopped the process where we
could get new genetic material from different populations.
The next biggest bottleneck came when the Japanese established the
breed. In making the type stable, they chose only three colors from all they
used to have (look at American Akitas and you see the color range). This was
when we lost the woodwind section from our genetic symphony orchestra. We can
already hear that the music this orchestra makes is not right, but we can still
hear and recognize the new music, though it is not so marvelous as it used to be.
Now we move to the golden 90s, where it was natural to use only popular
show-winning sires for breeding. This effect can be seen in every Japanese
Akita pedigree when you see ten or more generations. With Akitas this popular
sire was Ise Unryu No Ise Meiwa Kensha, who is now behind all Japanese Akitas.
In most pedigrees this dog can be found several times. The use of popular sires
makes us lose the string section of the glorious symphony orchestra. Now we can
clearly see that things are not working, and we are losing other orchestra
sections one by one and never getting them back. The music is not great
anymore: you can still tell which song they are playing, but the power and
glory are gone and the orchestra struggles to play. This is the genetic situation
with Akitas and many other breeds at the moment.
Many people think you should see clear signs of inbreeding, like this
funny banjo-playing dog, or like more dead, seriously ill, or retarded dogs.
But inbreeding is not like that: the signs are smaller, like more allergies,
more autoimmune issues, and more breeding problems. All this comes because we
are losing genetic diversity and our immune system orchestra is not working
right.
So what can we do now? We can't get the lost genes back in a closed
population. We can try to find lines that have been lost and not used that
much, but the fact is these problems are old problems. Early Akita breeders in
the USA remember these same problems from the start, and lines didn't matter.
Because these health problems can be found in both Akita breeds, we can say the
problem started at an early stage of the breed's history, and we surely have
not made the situation better. But does this mean the breed is dying? Most
likely not, but the health situation will only get worse with closed population
breeding. We can try to monitor the genetic situation with gene testing and try
to keep all the instruments playing in our orchestra, but that won't let it
play the marvelous music again.
The solution to this problem is very simple: we need to outcross. This
means we need to crossbreed the Akita to another breed or breeds to get more
genetic diversity--more instruments to play in the orchestra of the immune
system. Crossbreeding is the only way to get it all done, because you can’t get
new genetic material after the breed register is closed. It's a scientific fact
that in time all closed populations start to show signs of inbreeding
depression (e.g., autoimmune and breeding problems). This happens not only with
domesticated animals but can be seen in nature with wild animals, too.
If we want to keep this breed alive and healthy, we need to be creative
with solutions. We need to rebuild the breed genetically and continue to breed
with close monitoring of genes (We can’t do just random crosses..). Luckily
these days we have good tools for that with gene testing and health tests. One
of the biggest factors is that breeders need to be open about health issues and
not hide them. It is always better to know the problems before you make your
breeding choices than to find out afterwards.
This text was inspired by my conversation with Dr Niels Pedersen at the
University of California, Davis. Big thanks to him for taking the time to talk
with us Akita fanciers!
This article have also been published in Akita Unleashed and in German
