Novini ot 6-tata sre6ta na Evropeiskiq Dalmatin Klub
San Remo, 25.04.2003


The 6th meeting of the European Cooperation of Dalmatian Clubs (ECDC)

San Remo, April 25th, 2003



Present: Delegates 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 Hцie 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 Petrakova (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 cooperation – 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 e-mail addresses. The German-speaking clubs complained about the lack of German-language information, such as the minutes from the 5th meeting. The committe 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.

Membership matters
In the previous meeting in Helsinki, the Croatian Dalmatian Club ”Attila Dubac” had been invited to become a member and was now formally accepted as member of 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 klub informed about the situation. The smallest club was given 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 is to the various tests that are performed in many parts of Europe. The answer was that the conditions are not ideal at the moment, but they intend to do testing 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, whereby each club has one vote.

Judging committee
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. Cronander concluded that shades of brown in two eyes should not qualify as an eliminating fault, and nobody opposed that conclusion. 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 wich group (9 or 6) the Dalmatian should belong to as well as to judges attitudes were suggested.

Health and breeding committee
Greibrokk reported on the current situation related to ARDS. He had tried to calm down the occasional hysterical reactions by more factual and balanced information. 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 Greibrokk in 1999, are available for anyone. 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. Greibrokk asked the members for registration records from all clubs, which will enable 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 desendants 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 dogґs 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 then is close to nil.

Deafness data from England were reported by Mary Greening. Currently the bilateral deaf in England numbers about 5%. The data are 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 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 hearingtests on pedigrees and valid identification of the dogs.

Hip dysplasia (HD) was on the agenda, due to questions about the occurrence among Dalmatians. 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 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 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.

It was mentioned that a company in USA has developed a genetic test to identify the gene for yellow spotting.

A report (in Italian) on 11 cases of heart problems in Italy was handed out.

Webside
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. Morgans is also looking into the possibility of using a common database to provide the clubs with information about dogs in other countries.

Statutes
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 it was agreed that 5c) in the statutes is changed to: ”The committee is elected by the MD for the period between the meetings. Reelection is possible.”

Standard
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 klubs requesting the kennel klub to act towards the FCI.

Costs and refunding
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.

Elections
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, Greibrokk was reelected 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 reelected as treasurer.

Secretary: Annemiek Morgans was elected secretary, as proposed.

Auditor: Herbert Nagel was reelected 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 reelected.

Next meeting
The next meeting will be in Kortrec, 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, 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.

Closing
The chairman thanked the Italian club for all the arrangements and the delegates for their presence and participation

izto4nici
http://dalmatin-club.narod.ru/ecdc/minutes.htm
www.findal.net/ecdc/ECDC_Minutes_SanRemo.doc

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