What is a Natural Born Bobtail Dobermann?
As the name implies, it is a Doberman which is born with a shortened tail, commonly called a Natural Bobtail. Also known as Naturally Docked, Bobtail, Stumpy, NBBT and NBT just to name a few. These dogs carry the C189G Bobtail gene, which results in the dog being born with a shortened tail. Because mother nature is involved and the dog has not been docked at birth, the tail length can also vary. There are many breeds which have Natural Born Bobtails and the Dobermann is just one of many that is known to carry the C189G Bobtail trait. There are numerous references, that the Dobermann had the Natural Bobtail since the early 1890’s; where the breed originated in Germany. The C189G Bobtail gene is a trait, no different to Red hair or Blue eyes. It is sometimes wrongly described as a mutation or disease, many genes are mutated from the norm; does that mean we start calling Red haired or Blue eyed people mutants? Of course not, there are no health issues associated with the C189G Bobtail trait contrary to what some know-it-alls on Social Media attempt to tout, obviously people with narcissistic tendencies, that believe they know everything.
So how can we tell a dog is a Natural Bobtail?
The great thing is we can now DNA test a dog to see if it carries the C189G Natural Bobtail trait. Something that most reputable breeders have done, so they can guarantee that their dogs carry the Bobtail trait. There are now many DNA testing companies which confirm that the Dobermann is a breed associated with the Natural Bobtail trait. Most importantly, if you deal with a reputable breeder; and if the breeder says their dogs are Natural Bobtails then hopefully that is what you will get. In late 2015 we were informed by another breeder that Orivet had introduced a Bobtail test the previous year and as such to provide extra confidence to the families that adopted our pups, we decided that we would organise to test for the Bobtail gene. Since then we have DNA tested many of our Bobtail Dobermanns and they have all been confirmed as carrying the C189G Bobtail trait. We have even had third party individuals, DNA test the dogs they received from us and they also confirmed that our dogs were Natural Born Bobtail Dobermans. Below are some of the first tests we had done in late 2015, when we became aware that we could DNA test our dogs for the Bobtail trait.
Why do some people say the Bobtail Dobermann doesn’t exist?
Mainly because they have no idea what they are talking about. Exactly the same thing happened with other Natural Bobtail dogs, such as the Rottweiler. The Bobtail gene in Rottweilers, has been present in Australia since the early 1960’s. As docking was legal up until recently, it was considered unnecessary to pursue this avenue of breeding. Once docking was banned, breeders concentrated on re-establishing these old Bobtail lines. A similar predicament for many other breeds of pure bred dogs, which also carried the Natural Born Bobtail trait. There is a great deal of documentation in online forums, from Dobermann breeders with decades of experience, which confirms that they regularly had Dobermanns with Natural Bobtails. I will provide links to these discussions down below. Just look at the facts, the Dobermann was recorded as having Natural Bobtails from the very beginning, expert Dobermann breeders with decades of experience report that they had bred Natural Bobtail pups and most importantly of all; DNA science confirms that dogs like the Dobermann can carry the Bobtail Gene.
I read in a forum that a Scientific Study says the Dobermann does not carry the Natural Bobtail Gene.
You will always find, that there are some ill-informed know-it-alls, that say it doesn’t exist. Many of these so-called “experts”, many of whom have no understanding of basic animal genetics, claim there is no such thing as a Natural Bobtail. Probably the same people that say the earth is flat. They sit in their little internet forums, spewing forth their pearls of wisdom, whilst science proves them wrong. They hide in their little forums; pretending they are genetic experts, by disputing that the Bobtail Gene doesn’t’ exist in the Dobermann. They even try to be scientific, by quoting a study to try and support their ill-advised claims. They incorrectly cite the 2008 Study ‘Ancestral T-Box Mutation Is Present in Many, but Not All, Short-Tailed Dog Breeds’ to show that Dobermanns do not carry the Bobtail trait. I must give these people full credit in trying to support their stance with science, but I would suggest it is generally a great idea to actually comprehend the document you are using for your supporting evidence.
In the study; it states “In the 17breeds in which the C189G mutation was observed, there was a perfect correlation between this mutation and the short-tail phenotype“. Which means, that if a dog tested positive for C189G, then it would have a shortened tail. This study was not done to confirm which breeds carried the Bobtail Gene. When these “experts” in their little forums go down the list, they notice the Dobermann is not mentioned in the article, and with the wisdom of the ages; they add 1 and 1 together, of course getting 3 and then spruik that the Dobermann doesn’t have a Natural Bobtail. It would be interesting to know, why they claim that the Dobermann doesn’t carry the Bobtail trait; just because it is not mentioned in the study. It is at this point, the study is mentioned in a Wikipedia Article, titled ‘Natural Bobtail“. The article cites The Ancestral T-Box Mutation study, and provides a list of dogs which they say carries the C189G Bobtail gene.
If these keyboard warriors actually read the study or the article, they would have realised a number of pertinent facts. The study was done to show a correlation between the C189G mutation; and a shortened tail. They collected samples from 23 Breeds of dogs, 360 dogs in total. Of that, 156 were short tailed and 204 long tailed. Have a look at the study above and tell me how many Dobermann’s they tested, Zero, not a one, not a single Dobermann! Yet all these so-called genetic “experts”, say the Dobermann does not carry the Natural Bobtail gene, because the Ancestral T-Box Study says it doesn’t. So where does it say they tested the Dobermann and it did not carry the gene? Nowhere, these idiots are trying to use a study which did not even test the Dobermann.
To make this matter even more ridiculous, the study said they tested 5 Rottweilers, 3 with long tails and 2 with short tails and they did not find the C189G mutation. I find this confusing, as I mentioned above; the Rottweiler has been known to carry the Natural Bobtail for over 60 years in Australia alone, it has tested positive through DNA to carrying the C189G trait, leading DNA testing companies confirm that the C189G trait is associated with Rottweilers, as it is with the Dobermann, yet in this study the two Bob-tailed dogs they tested did not.
As I am not a scientist and I do not wish to sound as obtuse as the so-called genetic “experts”, who in their forums say the Dobermann does not carry the Bobtail gene, I hesitate in giving an explanation to why that is possible. As a layman, I find the numbers used in the study appear to be very low. In some breeds they only tested 1-2 short tailed dogs. Sadly I do not know, were the short tailed Rottweilers even Natural Born Bobtails? Was the testing pool large enough? What I do know, is that some people are incorrectly using this study, to say that the Dobermann does not carry the C189G Bobtail trait; when it was not even tested. We have tested dozens of Dobermanns for the C189G Bobtail trait and they have been DNA confirmed as Natural Born Bobtails.