
Turnspit Dogs: The Rise And Fall Of The Vernepator Cur - drjohnson
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/13/311127237/turnspit-dogs-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-vernepator-cur
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beloch
This happened before neutering and spaying became prevalent. While the
turnspit breed might no longer have been curated, the dogs themselves likely
mingled with other breeds and have various mutty descendents today (or perhaps
they have become part of certain pure breeds!).

What's interesting to see here is how ephemeral the results of centuries of
selective breeding can really be. A very specific and specialized form of dog
disappeared almost overnight once the artificial selection maintaining it was
removed. It's a testament to the ability of genes to repair themselves given
the least bit of diversity to work with. The incredible variation in dog
breeds is really due to relatively small amounts of mutation, and here we see
how rapidly those mutations can be repaired. It's humbling to realize that
humans have altered the genes of dogs far less than their forms indicate.

~~~
gwern
> What's interesting to see here is how ephemeral the results of centuries of
> selective breeding can really be. A very specific and specialized form of
> dog disappeared almost overnight once the artificial selection maintaining
> it was removed. It's a testament to the ability of genes to repair
> themselves given the least bit of diversity to work with.

That's a pretty weird way to look at it. 'Repair'? No one is shining x-rays at
turnspit dogs. What happened is that the selection pressures changed, and as
quickly as they adapted to the turnspit niche, they adapted to the alternative
niches like being mutts or lapdogs. Selection is fast, artificial or
'natural'.

Which incidentally suggests that we're wasting a lot of potential. (Like dogs
which can sniff cancer; why aren't we trying to breed dogs to do that better?)

~~~
beloch
One of the cornerstones of selective breeding is systematic _inbreeding_. This
brings out recessive traits and encourages the accumulation of what we would
normally consider mutations and errors. By selecting individuals that have
desired traits, this engine of change is harnessed to produce the desired end
results.

Consider how we would view humans who had been selectively bred long enough to
change their form as drastically as some dog breeds have been changed! We
would be _horrified_ by them. However, the deformities accumulated by this
population, when reunited with a larger population, would soon disappear. No
doubt we would would view this as repairing the damage done to their genomes.

As for breeding dogs with the ability to sniff cancer... First, you have to
get your hands on the raw materials. i.e. Find dogs who already can smell the
stuff. Then you have to hope at least some of their offspring will have that
trait. Next, you need to figure out how to reliably train dogs with the
ability to smell cancer to actually do so and communicate the results, and
you're probably going to have to do this with dogs you don't necessarily know
actually have the ability. Also, you will need to be around people with cancer
on a routine basis so you can test/teach your dogs. I'd be willing to bet few
oncologists will say things to their patients like, "Gee, you're absolutely
riddled with cancer! How would you like to help out with our cancer-sniffing-
dog breeding program before you snuff it?". Finally, you have decades or even
centuries of work ahead of you before you'll have a breed on your hands with
greater ability than random gifted individuals in the greater dog population.

The fact that some dogs can smell at least some forms of cancer suggests that
there is a mechanism for detecting cancer to be discovered. It would be much
faster and far more useful to determine how dogs detect cancer and develop
instruments directly based on that method. The state of modern science is such
that breeding animals just takes too long.

~~~
gwern
> One of the cornerstones of selective breeding is systematic inbreeding. This
> brings out recessive traits and encourages the accumulation of what we would
> normally consider mutations and errors.

It may bring out recessive traits, but why would it increase the mutational
load? Those are no more useful in a turnspit dog than in a sheepherding dog.
If your dog is growing 3 eyes because of a particularly nasty de novo error,
that's going to be selected against both by the breeder and by other
pressures.

> Consider how we would view humans who had been selectively bred long enough
> to change their form as drastically as some dog breeds have been changed! We
> would be horrified by them. However, the deformities accumulated by this
> population, when reunited with a larger population, would soon disappear.

There's plenty of physiological variation among humans; are we really
horrified by Pygmies?

> First, you have to get your hands on the raw materials. i.e. Find dogs who
> already can smell the stuff.

Not that hard, since they've already been reported, implying that they're not
so rare as to not exist.

> Next, you need to figure out how to reliably train dogs with the ability to
> smell cancer to actually do so and communicate the results, and you're
> probably going to have to do this with dogs you don't necessarily know
> actually have the ability.

Solved by animal trainers eons ago: rewards for correct selection. How do you
think drug dogs are trained?

> I'd be willing to bet few oncologists will say things to their patients
> like, "Gee, you're absolutely riddled with cancer! How would you like to
> help out with our cancer-sniffing-dog breeding program before you snuff
> it?".

Culture cancer in dishes or something. Somehow, getting cancer samples doesn't
seem to be a huge existential problem for cancer researchers.

> Finally, you have decades or even centuries of work ahead of you before
> you'll have a breed on your hands with greater ability than random gifted
> individuals in the greater dog population.

Decades is completely ordinary a timeline in medical research, so not a
problem. And I suspect it'll be on the former rather than latter timescale:
you only want one thing, and selection can act very fast. Consider how long
the Russian fox experiment took, for a much more trivial goal.

> It would be much faster and far more useful to determine how dogs detect
> cancer and develop instruments directly based on that method.

Oh, and how well has that worked so far...? Perfect, meet better... Really,
you're making this all out to be much harder than it'd actually be.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
"There's plenty of physiological variation among humans; are we really
horrified by Pygmies?"

Have you ever seen more than one dog? There's a huge variation (just for
example, my dog is 13 pounds, my brother-in-law's dog is 130).

also:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ota_Benga](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ota_Benga)
and: [http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001)

------
HCIdivision17
Here we have an example of not just a job being displaced by technology, but
an entire (sub?)species being deprecated and going extinct for it.

------
Theodores
Here is Lucy Worsley (as mentioned) with turnspit:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxghA4uXM8A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxghA4uXM8A)

You can see how poorly 'any old dog' does at the task. 'Coco' (the dog in the
clip) just wasn't focused, disciplined and able to take the job seriously.

Given that society was <1% of landed gentry types and 99+% 'poor' in these
days before the industrial revolution and or the rise of merchant types, and,
given that things like plagues had decimated the population, you do have to
wonder how many stately homes there were for these 'specialist' hamster-wheel
dogs. Personally I think that once the hot coal is thrown into the wheel, any
dog would be well motivated to perform adequately. So I would be surprised if
there ever really was a 'Crufts' grade dedicated breed rather than a generic
mongrel that, given a certain size and personality, could be called a
'Vernepator Cur'.

------
twic
Progress marches on in Greece:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d4mcIopE-k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d4mcIopE-k)

------
PhantomGremlin
To be honest, this reads like something from The Onion. I knew nothing about
it; there's so much grand "history" to study that simple mundane things aren't
discussed.

It's astonishing to me just how much progress mankind has made in a
(relatively speaking) blink of an eye. E.g. less than 100 years ago Gandhi
battled against "the British salt monopoly". And not much more than 100 years
ago even soap was a luxury good.

We've gone from that to jumbo jets and iPhones.

