Volume 16 Issue 2 Summer 2016

The Coton Malgache

President’s Message—Linda Brookes p. 2

How I came to Love Breeding the Coton de Tulear p. 3

Membership in the CCTC p. 4

DNA database p. 5

Dogs May have been Domesticated more than Once p. 7

CCTC Information p. 12

Inside This Issue

Sugar trying out the sport of Chase Ability (very first time around the course ); related to Lure Coursing - Sugar is chasing a

“rabbit skin” attached to a string.

2

President’s Message By Linda Brookes

Hello CCTC Members,

Here we are in August and sadly quite far through summer. As much as I enjoy each season I ap-

preciate those without snow much more. I hope that everyone has had some great weather and

made some great memories so far this season.

The Coton breed is sure on many people's mind these days. We are seeing increased emails from

the CKC who are taking steps to fully recognize the breed. We are getting information from the

CFC, our registration body about the same thing. Regardless of whether the breed stays with CFC

as our registration body or moves to CKC; my goal is to ensure that the outcome is in the best inter-

est of protecting the breed for the future. We need to be aware of what it means both now and in

the future for our breed if we are through CFC or CKC. If we see a benefit to one or the other now,

we have to delve deeply into what it could mean for our breed in the future. How will it impact the

breed standard? The longevity? The continued good health? Will it mean increased public aware-

ness of the breed which could result in more puppy mills taking an interest in breeding them? Will it

encourage ethical breeders to continue to work towards maintaining the special beauty of our

breed?

The CCTC Board of Directors will do its utmost to provide as much information as possible to all mem-

bers. We encourage you to ask questions through any of the board members and we will do our

best to find out the answers and share them with all members. I encourage everyone to educate

themselves on this topic thoroughly and do what is best for our breed in the long run, not what is

best for our own personal agenda today.

Stay safe, hug your fluffs,

Linda

Some of Linda’s clan; From left to right in the photo are: Cassi, Isla, Vienna, Karma, Griffin

3

How I came to Love Breeding the Coton de Tulear by Marie-France Prayal

I got my first Coton in 1995, 21 years ago. I was

lucky to be in touch with a breeder who quickly

became my mentor. I learned a lot from her

about health testing, shows, grooming, registra-

tion, heredity and much much more. Through

her, I also started to get involved with the Coton

Club and since then I was hooked.

She was always just a phone call away to help

me with my first breeding & whelping and this

adventure was a success. As for breeding, I re-

member calling her to find out about artificial

insemination. I was at work and had urgent

questions. I called her from the hall outside of

my office and we had a long discussion about

ties, artificial insemination, semen, AI tubes, etc.

Two crazy ladies; crazy conversations between

two people passionate about the Coton de Tu-

lear. I showed my Cotons with her and I will ne-

ver forget her advice about fur mats: one should

never try to demat a Coton just before going in

the ring!

Time and experience taught me to become

more critical of my approach to breeding, to

doing things my way, to developing a personal

philosophy and opinion. Now it’s my turn to be

a mentor. My teaching background provides

me with a good skill set; to listen, find the best

way to explain or give advice, to be available

and to share my knowledge and experience.

My partner Lary has also been part of the men-

toring process. He works with my females

through the whelping process, will be on the

phone coaching new breeders, and answering

questions. He is the one who is available 24

hours and is willing go in the night to help and

assist another breeder.

(Sorry, I have to stop for a moment and answer

a call from one of my mentor friends...)

For me, it is totally normal and natural to share

all that I have learned about the Coton. I res-

pond quickly, answer all questions, and I am

ready to ensure the information is understood

even if I need to repeat my response many ti-

mes. This has given to me more than just men-

tor relationships. One becomes quickly very

good friends. I have had the pleasure to meet

many ringside, share a good meal and have a

lot of conversations! I’ll continue to share and

cherish with others my life-long experiences about

the breed that has captured my imagination and

my heart.

4

A chance to be part of the future for

the Coton de Tulear in Canada

Lends credibility to your kennel and sets

you apart from puppy mills

Receive a quarterly newsletter, which

includes updates in health in the breed

Ask a breeder email – response from a

breeder within 48 hours

Periodic club sponsorship of genetic/

health testing

Thank you so much for your time. We appre-

ciate your consideration and hope you will

consider joining us. If you have any

questions, please let us know.

Greetings from the Board of Directors for the Canadian Coton de

Tulear Club (CCTC)!

Please share this message with all of

your Coton owners and contacts.

The purpose of this correspondence is to in-

troduce Coton breeders and fanciers to our

National Breed Club. We invite you to peruse

our website at http://www.coton.ca/ and

consider joining the CCTC.

We are a group of dedicated breeders inter-

ested in the preservation and promotion of

the Coton de Tulear in Canada. We actively

promote health and welfare in the breed.

We hope to update the dog fancy and in-

crease interest in the breed. Our mission

statement is, “Celebrating the Coton. Pre-

serving the Breed”.

We invite you to read our Code of Ethics and

see if you are interested in joining this group.

Here is a link to our Code of Ethics, http://

www.coton.ca/code-of-ethics. If you share

our Mission and Codes please fill out our new

member questionnaire, https://

cctcsecretary.wufoo.com/forms/

mh4dq650fxptxx/ . Our bylaws indicate a

sponsor is required. Please let us know if you

do not have a specific sponsor and we can

see if one of our board members will sponsor

you. It is our intention to become an inclusive

club with a common goal. We sincerely

hope you will be interested in joining our

group.

New Member benefits:

Keep in touch with the Coton Commu-

nity in Canada

Free listing for your kennel on the club

website after one year of membership

Free litter announcements after one

year of membership

Please feel free to use our

new "ask a breeder" email for

any questions you may have.

This CCTC service is exclusive

to our members. Email any

questions to: askacotonbreeder@gmail.com

and you will receive an an-

swer within 48 hours. One of

our board of directors will an-

swer with possible collabora-

tion from the board. Feel free

to ask anything Coton related

from breeding to training! We

hope you enjoy this new ser-

vice!

5

DNA Database Information

To: Members of the Canadian Coton de Tulear Club

Re: DNA Database of Coton de Tulear

At a recent meeting of the CCTC Board of Directors we discussed the initiative of the DNA database

that is underway in the USA. This is open to all breeds everywhere.

Our board has agreed to earmark a total of $500 for DNA database costs. The CCTC will reimburse

our members in good standing up to $7.00 per dog for submitting their dog’s DNA cheek swabs for

inclusion in the database. This is offered to members with breeding (intact) dogs as well as spayed/

neutered dogs (pets) so long as they are purebred registered Coton de Tulear.

Below I have copied information for your reference on this project as well as how to participate. At-

tached to this email is the DNA Application form and Instructions for submission of the samples.

Once you obtain your test kit and submit the samples to the University of Missouri, please email our

Treasurer, Marie-France Prayal, at mf.prayal@eastlink.ca and provide her with: your full name, cur-

rent mailing address, and scanned copies of proof of payment for the test(s). In the body of the

email ensure that you state how many dogs’ samples you sent in (this will be verified against the

proof attached). She will in turn issue cheques to members accordingly.

Sincerely,

Linda Brookes, CCTC President

Enclosures reprinted below

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Objectives Facilitate more rapid research progress by expediting the sample collection process

Provide researchers with optimized family groups needed for research

Allow breeders to take advantage of future DNA based disease tests as they become available

Foster a team environment between breeders/owners and the research community improving the

likelihood of genetic discovery.

Instructions for Updating Health History of dogs with DNA samples banked in

the CHIC DNA Repository. If your dog has DNA banked in the CHIC DNA Repository and has had any significant health status

changes since filling out the original phenotypic health survey, please remember to email the OFA

with updates. Include the dog’s name/number, as well as any updated diagnosis. As the number of

researchers interested in this resource continues to increase, it is important to keep the health histo-

ries up to date, as that is typically the primary selection criteria for supplying samples to a given re-

search proposal. Email updates to: chic@offa.org.

Submission by Cheek Swab Cheek swab-derived DNA is a viable option for DNA banking. Although the yield and purity of this

DNA is inferior to that obtained from blood, the material is suitable for most genetic approaches. The

swabs are inexpensive, and the samples can be taken by the owner of the dog without the neces-

sity of a veterinary office call. Swabs are easily shipped in standard envelopes using the postal mail,

and they can be stored for at least a decade at room temperature, so long as they are stored un-

der conditions of low humidity. The success rate for obtaining DNA from a swab in the laboratory is

roughly 98%, so multiple swabs should be submitted for each dog to ensure representation in the ar-

chive.

6

DNA Information continued . . .

Laboratories The CHIC DNA Repository has partnered with the Veterinary Genetics Lab at the University of Califor-

nia–Davis and the Animal Molecular Genetics Lab at the University of Missouri. UC Davis will receive

and store all swab samples, and Missouri will receive and store all blood samples.

How to Participate To participate, complete the application form and submit to the OFA. You will receive the appropri-

ate swab or blood collection kit in the mail. The health survey may be completed online, printed,

and mailed to the OFA with the DNA samples.

For application form please follow the link: http://www.caninehealthinfo.org/chic_dnabankapp_main.pdf

7

For years, scientists have debated where dogs came

from. Did wolves first forge their special relationship

with humans in Europe, or in Asia? The answer, ac-

cording to a new study, is yes. This week in Science,

researchers report that genetic analysis of hundreds of

canines reveals that dogs may have been domesti-

cated twice, once in Asia and once in Europe or the

Near East, although European ancestry has mostly

vanished from today’s dogs. The findings could re-

solve a rift that has roiled the canine origins commu-

nity—but the case isn’t closed yet.

“These are fantastic data that are going to be ex-

tremely valuable for the field,” says Peter Savolainen,

a geneticist at the Royal Institute of Technology in

Stockholm and the leading proponent of Asian dog

origins. But Robert Wayne, an evolutionary biologist

at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose work

has shown that dogs arose in Europe, says the results—

although plausible—are too preliminary to settle the

question. “The story is still a bit of a muddle.”

The study includes a unique specimen: the inner ear

bone of a nearly 5000-year-old dog unearthed from

Newgrange, a football field–sized mound of dirt and

stone on the east coast of Ireland, built around the

time of Stonehenge. Researchers led by Laurent

Frantz, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of

Oxford in the United Kingdom, sequenced this speci-

men’s entire nuclear genome—the first complete ge-

nome from an ancient dog to be published—and

compared it to the nuclear DNA of 605 modern dogs

from around the world. The team then created a fam-

ily tree for the animals, which revealed a deep divide

between European dogs (like the Newgrange canine

and the golden retriever) and Asian dogs (like the

shar pei and free-ranging village dogs from Tibet and

Vietnam). “I was like, ‘Holy shit!’” says project leader

Greger Larson, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford.

“We never saw this split before because we didn’t

have enough samples.”

To figure out when this divide occurred, the New-

grange specimen was critical. Researchers used it, in

conjunction with the complete genomes of several

modern dogs and wolves, to calculate a genetic mu-

tation rate for canines. This rate suggests that the East-

West split happened sometime between 6400 and

14,000 years ago. The analysis also revealed a

“genetic bottleneck” in Western dogs—a reduction in

genetic diversity typically tied to a sharp decline in a

population’s numbers, as can occur when a small

band of individuals splits off from the main group. (A

similar pattern is seen with the original human migra-

tion out of Africa.)

Taken together, the data suggest that humans do-

mesticated dogs in Asia more than 14,000 years ago,

and that a small subset of these animals eventually

migrated west through Eurasia, probably with people.

This implies that all modern dogs, as well as the New-

grange canine, can trace their ancestry back to Asia.

Science

But here’s the twist: Archaeologists previously had

found the remains of dogs in Germany that may be

more than 16,000 years old, suggesting that dogs

had already been domesticated in Europe by the

time the Asian canines got there. Some of today’s

dogs may carry genetic traces of that early domesti-

cation—but it’s hard to find, in part because scientists

are still trying to recover DNA from those ancient Ger-

man dogs. “We don’t know if the dogs that evolved

[early] in Europe were an evolutionary dead end,”

Frantz says, “but we can safely say that their genetic

legacy has mostly been erased from today’s dogs.”

To Savolainen, the story makes sense. “If people in

one place got these fantastic dogs, of course every-

one wanted to have them,” he says. “Over the course

of a few hundred or a thousand years, you could

have dogs spread throughout all of Eurasia.” Still, he’s

not completely sold on the idea of two domestica-

tions, arguing that if the team’s mutation rate is just a

bit off, it could allow for all dogs, even those ancient

European ones, to have Asian roots. Wayne adds that

interbreeding between dogs and wolves could have

muddied the picture. Both say that many more sam-

ples, especially of ancient dogs and wolves, are

needed.

That could happen soon. Although neither Wayne nor

Savolainen were involved in the current study, both

joined Larson in 2013 as part of an international col-

laboration to solve the mystery of dog domestication

once and for all. Dozens of scientists have been pool-

ing resources and gathering thousands of new sam-

ples from around the globe. “The new model is pro-

vocative and exciting, but the full collaboration is go-

ing to be essential to untangling this complicated

story,” says John Novembre, a population geneticist

at the University of Chicago in Illinois who is not in-

volved with the collaboration or the new work.

For now, a dual origin for dogs remains an intriguing

possibility, especially because research has also sug-

gested multiple domestications for cats and pigs.

Does that mean these animals were bound to be do-

mesticated? “If it only happened in one place, it was

probably a very hard thing to do,” Savolainen says.

“But if it happened twice, maybe it wasn’t as hard as

we thought”

Dogs may have been domesticated more than once by David Grimm

David is the Online News Editor of Science

8

About Us….

Denis Carriere founded the Coton Malgache Publication in 1994

so that breed fanciers might share their mutual interest. The

club’s aim is to support, educate and advise owners, members

and prospective owners about the Coton de Tulear.

All members of the CCTC will abide by a code of ethics that will

govern the breeding and prosperity of these lovely animals, pro-

tecting and preserving the qualities of the Coton de Tulear, and

striving for its betterment.

CCTC publishes the Coton Malgache quarterly in March, June,

September and December. We encourage your submissions!

Please send photos of, and articles about your Cotons.

Photos will be returned upon request if you include a S.A.S.E.

Deadline for the Fall issue 2016

Coton Malgache is October 15, 2016. Theme’s for this issue are:

Please send all submissions for the Coton Malgache to:

Email: hawks_n_hooves@yourlink.ca

Subscriptions to the Coton Malgache are included with a CCTC membership.

The CCTC is a Canadian non-profit organization .

All renewing memberships are due January 31 each year.

The opinions expressed in the Coton Malgache are those of the

authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher or

CCTC.

The articles in the Coton Malgache belong to their authors and

cannot be reproduced either in whole or in part in any form with-

out written permission of the author.

CCTC Executive

President: Linda Brookes

Email: shoes.and.dogs@hotmail.com

Vice-President: Sonja Femia

Email: femias@sympatico.ca

Secretary: Paula Campbell

Email: paula@chapalabaycotons.com

Treasurer: Marie-France Prayal

Email: polana@ns.sympatico.ca

Director: Corinna Yannoulopoulos

Email: demcor@sympatico.ca

Director: Margaret Stagg

Email: mstagg1@cogeco.ca

Director: Ed Cooper

Email: ejcooper@bellaliant.net

Director: Linda Stevens

Email: hawks_n_hooves@yourlink.ca

Website Liaison : Marie-France Prayal

Email: polana@ns.sympatico.ca

Newsletter Editor: Linda Stevens

Email: hawks_n_hooves@yourlink.ca

www.coton.ca

Advertising is available on our website.

*

Sponsor Advertising

$25 per calendar year for a business card

$45 per calendar year with a live link to a website

*

Breeder Directory

Members Only

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Litter Announcements

Available FREE of charge to Breeder Members Only

Contact Marie-France Prayal

polana@ns.sympatico.ca Tel. 902-757-0826

This magazine is your opportunity to share your stories. I will print all submissions.

Puppies-all about puppies/photos/house training/grooming/coat transitions