Health & Other Info

Dog Years to Human Years

Dog --- Human

6 Months ----10

1 Year ------15

18 Months ---20

2 ---24

3 ---28

4 --- 32

5 ---36

6 ---40

7 ---44

8 ---48

9 ---52

10 ---56

Oldest recorded K9 - 26 Years Old

I think the oldest AKK is 18 years old

My lil Chako passed at 15 years old...

Understanding A Dogs Senses

Nose

A dog interprets the world by smell, where humans interprets it by sight. This is why a blind or deaf dog can get along fine if allowed to be a dog. Given the proper leadership and exercise and their sensory whiskers are not cut off. A dog's brain is one-tenth the size of a humans, the part that controls smell is 40 times larger than a humans. A dog's sense of smell is about 1,000 to 10,000,00 times more sensitive than a humans (depending on breed). A human has about 5 million scent glands as compared to a dog who has anywhere from 125 million to 300 million. Your dog's nose is wet because the mucus on a dogs nose actually helps them smell by capturing scent particles. When a dog's nose is dry they lick it to aid them in scent. When a dog smells something they are not just registering a smell, they get the entire story. They can smell pheromone which is not only found in the urine and fecal, but on skin and fur. From this they can tell alot about another dog or human including if they are male or female, what they are, where they have been and what mood they are in. They have been known to smell cancer on people, alerting them to it and saving their lives. This means when your dog smells another person, tree that another dog has peed on, pant leg that another dog has rubbed up against, or a chair that someone has sat in, they are actually reading a story, not just smelling a scent. While a human will smell something like spaghetti sauce as one smell, a dog smells each ingredient. Unlike humans, dogs can move their nostrils independently allowing them to know what direction a smell is coming from. A dog can sniff and breathe at the same time. These are two different functions. Breathing is for air, but when they sniff with short breaths they actually save some scent that does not get exhaled. When a dog is over heated and actively panting their sense of smell is reduced in their nose by as much as 40% as they use air to cool themselves rather than for smelling. Puppies have heat sensors in their nose to help find their mother during the time their eyes are closed. These sensors disappear by the time they are adults.

Eyes

Dog's color blind ? No, not exactly, they do not only see in shades of only black and white. Studies have shown that dogs see in colors of various shades of blue and yellow. Example, a rainbow to a dogs would be as dark blue, light blue, light gray, light yellow, dark brownish yellow and dark gray. Purple and blue are both seen as shades of blue. Greenish-blue is seen as a shade of gray. Red is seen as a black or dark gray. Orange, yellow and green all are seen to a dog as various shades of yellow. This means that bright orange toys are seen as the same yellowish shade as the green grass. Ifyou want your dog to clearly see his toys in green grass you should give him blue toys, but if you have orange, yellow or green toys the dog will find them with his nose. Dogs can see better at dusk and dawn. Their low light vision is much better than humans. A humans vision is considered perfect at 20/20 a dogs vision is a average of 20/75. Dogs can recognize objects better when they are moving and sometimes overlook the same object when its still. Dogs see images on a TV screen, but most likely also see a rapidly flickering resolution ability is about like a stroble light. A humans flickering resolution is about 55 Hz and a dogs is about 75 Hz.

Ears

Puppies are born deaf and can't hear until they are about 21 days old. Their eyes are also closed. During this time they rely solely on scent to interpret their world. However by the time their sense of hearing is completely developed they can hear about 4 times the distance of a human who has normal hearing. Dogs can hear higher pitched sounds that a human can't hear. They often bark at vacuums because they hear a very loud annoying pitch that the motor makes. They detect sounds in the frequency of approximately 67-45.000 Hz. (varies with breed) compared to humans with the approximate range of 64-23,000 Hz. As humans and dogs get older they loose the ability to hear certain frequencies. Dogs have 18 or more muscles in their ears allowing them to be mobile, where humans only have 6 and can only move their ears slightly if at all. Dogs with perked ears can usually hear better than dogs with hanging ears, especially if they can move their ears in the direction of the sound.

Energy

Animals can feel energy (emotions) It is a universal animal language. Dogs interpret human emotions like worry, anxiety, fear, anger, pity and nervousness, as a weakness and they do not listen to these emotions. Dogs listen best to someone who i calm but firm in their approach. They use their sense of energy to determine who should be the leader of their pack. The one being the strongest, and most stable energy is the one they look up to, it could be themselves or another. While you can hide your emotions from another human, you can't hide them from a dog.

Reference: Dog Breed Info Center

Coefficient Of Inbreeding ( COI )

Coefficient of Inbreeding (COI) is a calculation which gives a breeder an indication of how inbred a sire/dam or litter will be. Knowing the percentage of the COI will enable a breeder to make the best choices toward reducing inbreeding in a litter. Coefficient of Inbreeding is the calculation of the level of inbreeding in a sire/dam with common ancestors.

In an article written by J. Armstrong (1998) for NetPets.org, his findings impact the breeding world and states, "The inbreeding coefficient is a function of the number and location of the common ancestors in a pedigree. It is not a function, except indirectly. of the inbreeding of the parents. A breeder can mate two highly inbred dogs who share little common ancestry and produce a litter with a very low IC" (Increeding Coefficient). Because the potential number of ancestors doubles every generation, eventually a point is rached where the number of ancestors exceeds the number of individuals alive at that time. A breeder is therefore bound to find some common ancestors if he/she goes back far enough, preferably 7-10 generations. It is also possible to mate two closely related dogs, both of which have low IC, and boost the IC substantially.

Calculating inbreeding for only the first few generations is not particularly useful. If there are more than one or two common ancestors in a four or five generation pedigree, the inbreeding is probably already higher than desirable. Unfortunately, having none is no guarantee that common ancestors will not occur in abundance further back, and some pedigrees of this type still achieve moderately high inbreeding coefficients (Armstrong, 1998)

High COI percentages increase the probability that genetic defects will be carried from common ancestors on both sides of a pedigree and will match up to cause a disease or defect in an animal. Many other problems of a high COI also affect offspring such as an Autoimmune disease and inbreeding depression symptoms, which result in reproductive and longevity issues. (Pongracz, 2008).

Inbreeding depression symptoms are seen as the loss of viability or function resulting from excess inbreeding. At times these symptoms are very suble, can sometimes be gradual. and are often blamed on diet, pollution, and other environmental factors. While these factors may also contribute, it is the sire/dam genes that make it more susceptible. The most frequently inbreeding depression signs are: 1) Chronic poor health 2) Higher incidence of disease in a line or breed of one or more diseases than is seen in the breed. 3) Higher incidence of immune system disease. 4) Difficulty in getting and keeping a female pregant. 5) Females that abandon a litter or are poor mothers. 6) Studs that are indifferent to a female in standing heat. 7) Studs cannot breed without help. 8) Low sperm count. 9) Earler age of death in a line. 10) Retained testicles. 11) Bad bites and missing teeth. 12) Temperment problems. 13) Stillborn and deformed offspring..(Pongracz)

A COI of 15 % is ideal but most AKK are in the 20% or higher range

25.00 % = Parent/Offspring or Full Brother / Sister Cross

12.50 % = Half Brother / Sister, Grandparent / Grandpup or Double

First Cousins Crosses

9.75 % = Great Uncle or Great Aunt / Great Niece or Great Nephew Cross

6.25 % = First Cousins

All of these factors make it incredibly important for breeders to do a COI calculation on any planned litter. Conducting a COI calculation will keep the Alaskan Klee Kai breed healthy for the future generations.

"Man's Best Friend Software" has two very good programs; "The Breeders Standard" and "CompuPed". Both programs have automatic calculations after the data is loaded. I use "The Breed Standard" and would be happy to run COI for anyone interested. You are welcome to email me at Sibridge1@yahoo.com

Here are a couple of websites worth visiting to read information pertaining to COI: Animal Genetics: http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/genetics/genetics.html

Playing COI: http://dogstuff.info/playing_coi_sharp.html

References:

Armstrong, J. (1998) Demystifying Inbreeding Coefficient http://www.netpets.org/dogs/healthspa/demyst.html

Pongrac, C. (2008) Coefficient of Inbreeding (COI) Calculation

http://www.americanmudiassociation.org/coefficient-of-inbreeding-article.pdf