Moonlake

I agree with the above - puppy size is no indication of adult substance or height. Presumably you picked the sire for a reason - I would choose the puppy that has the closest to what you wanted from him.

My original query was how do you deal with puppies that have one copy of the gene, given that it is potentially fatal but more likely to have no effect at all. Obviously, you can endorse the registration so that they cannot be bred from but will anyone buy a puppy if they know there is a risk of it dying in the first two years, however small the risk? I was looking for input from someone in a breed who has "been there, done that and got the t shirt". There are 11 breed clubs with varying views on health testing; it seems likely that we will get 50 random whipoets tested plus those from breeders like myself who want to know the status of their stock, however small the risk. Gay

Thanks, Guys. As I am sure you know, it will not be easy to persuade breeders to dna test anything, let alone everything, since nobody thinks they have this in their line. I think it is fair to ask that if this is a potentially fatal disease from just one copy of a mutant gene, how come we have never even heard of it, let alone knowing about puppies becoming sick and dying. However, in every breed, there are breeders in denial about health problems in their line and unwilling to accept that the only way to overcome a problem is to share knowledge. This could be why we have never heard of it, coupled with vets not realising that kidney disease could be inherited and thinking it idiopathic and basically bad luck. I suspect that it is not just one basic mutant gene but a more complex inheritance and I had hoped to hear from people who were already testing for this and whether pedigree analysis had shown any patterns. The Dogene dna test is not breed specific so anyone can get their stock tested. If it is a breed not already listed as affected it would probably be worth asking for special rates (we were offered the litter rate for any unrelated dog we wanted to test) as they are keen to widen their database of breeds and their incidence. I may have looked at the wrong Bernese site because it wasn't mentioned on the American club site. I have talked to a gundog breed here that have started to test for it but it has not been easy for them even though they already test for familial nephropathy. It is easy to say, don't breed from anything carrying the mutant gene but only 5% of those with one or two copies develop clinical signs which can be mild, late onset or severe enough to be fatal in youth and that is not a compelling argument for a breeder who has been producing puppies for years without any sign of it. If their dog/bitch tests positive, should they immediately stop breeding from them? UK whippet registrations are in excess of 3000 per annum and that includes plenty of puppy farmers who are certainly not going to start testing their stock. We don't have to have a strategy to preserve the breed, there are plenty of them (although the winning show dogs come from a fairly small gene pool) but a strategy to know more about the disease and its mode of inheritance would clearly be a good thing. We also do not want to start a witch hunt on specific lines just because a couple of breeders have been entirely honest and open about the problem which is certainly not their fault. Is this thought to be a rare disease? Is anyone on this forum in a breed that has another rare or uncommon disease and do the clubs have a strategy for it? I am really just trawling for info in the hope that there are some breeders who do not think that any talk of breed problems is taboo and likely to end in lawsuits - our dogs are our family members and surely anything we can do to protect them or improve them should be done?

I raised this question in the Carrier thread and as advised, am starting a new one on the subject. Renal dysplasia as an inherited condition has recently been found in UK whippets. The good news is that there is a dna test for the condition which is not breed specific - more info on the subject here https://www.dogenes.com/JRDarticle-en.pdf The website of dogenes that offers the test lists 33 breeds known to be affected to which we must now add a 34th of whippets. The bad news in this condition is that the mutant gene is dominant, with incomplete penetrance which means that a dog with only one copy can still become ill and die - after it has been bred from. The penetrance of the disease is thought to be only 5% (obviously, not in individual litters as it was the death of two puppies in a litter that started the enquiries and their parents were found to have three copies of the mutant gene, previously unknown in the breed, between them). We are trying to raise money to fund the testing of 50 random whippets and in the meantime, some of us are testing our own stock. I have sent off four sets of swabs today and am waiting for the results with some trepidation. This is new territory for whippet breeders who have until now been in the comfort zone of no known (to the Kennel Club) inherited diseases so I am hoping to find on this list, people who have experience of dna testing their stock (especially if for rd or jrd) to ask them what is the protocol, particularly for a dominant gene where there is only a 5% chance that a puppy with it will be ill? Do you test all puppies and put down regardless those with even one copy? Do you sell them? What do you tell the buyers - that there is a 5% chance that their puppy may die before it is two years old? The mother of the puppies that died has two copies and seems perfectly healthy and so were the puppies from her first litter - so far. Has anyone any experience of this kind of time bomb?

The diseases my breed have DNA tests for are all recessive so breeding with carriers is not an issue because they will never be affected. It doesn't matter if there are carriers of recessive conditons in the gene pool for 20 more generations, so long as they are always bred to genetic normals, no affected puppies will be produced. The story though with dominant genes is very different. Personally I would avoid breeding with any dog that is genetically affected by the condition. They are not "carriers" with a dominant gene but "affected", even if they show no clinical symptoms. If avoiding breeding from genetically affected dogs is not possible they should be bred to genetically normal partners and any gentically affected puppies euthanised. I would not take the chance on selling them and in fact in one state of Australia it would be illegal to sell them. Each puppy in the litter would have a 50% of being genetically normal and if you only keep genetically normal offspring from this mating then you get rid of the problem completely while keeping the line. Thanks dancinbcs. I should have said that the incomplete penetrance is thought to be only 5% so the puppies with one or two copies of the mutant gene have, in theory, only a 5% chance of being affected, although this came to light when two puppies in a litter died of kidney failure and the parents were found to have three copies of the gene between them. I think I shall take the advice of LizT and start a new thread because I understand this affects many breeds, not just Lhasa Apsos and Shih Tzus as previously thought and there may be people already testing for this in Australia.

I think you underestimate the peer pressure (where peers are pretty novice in their breed) to appear really caring and careful about what happens to the puppies they breed. Some of it is genuine but nobody would admit to just taking the money from people who wanted to buy a puppy. In 40 years, I know I have made a mistake at least twice about puppy buyers, one of them was OK in the end but I still lose sleep over the one where I broke one of my own rules which proved a mistake.

Hi - I am a UK whippet breeder and would like to tap into the experience of people who routinely dna test for disease. We have always thought that whippets were free of inherited diseases although there is anecdotal evidence of heart and eye problems in some lines but recently, it has been discovered that whippets (in the UK at least), can carry the mutant gene that causes renal dysplasia, both in puppies and in older dogs. This is a dominant gene with incomplete penetrance which means that not every puppy in a litter will be affected but one with just one copy, i.e. a carrier, can be clinically affected but while it can die as a puppy (juvenile renal dysplasia), it might also not develop kidney disease until much later and after it has been bred from. Fortunately, there is a dna test, not breed specific, so that we can at least discover the status of our breeding stock and I am about to send off four swabs with some trepidation. I am familiar with the "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" theory in relation to using carriers or even affected dogs but I have never read what you are supposed to do with puppies that test positive (in the case of rd, they only need one copy to be at risk but let us take the example of a recessive gene where they have two)? Do you sell puppies knowing they could die before the age of two with all the heartache that entails for the owner or do you euthanise them, knowing that the disease might not manifest itself until old age? Testing for disease is unfamiliar territory for us and I'd be grateful to know if there is some kind of protocol in dealing with it.