all of the dog breeds available in the world have originated with the grey wolf, to get the sleekness of the saluki or the size of the yorkshire terrier a great deal of selectiveness and breed development has to be undertaken. Unfortunatly there is no way to develope a breed of dog (or indeed any other species) without any genetic consequences. The founding principals are exactly the same, you start with a small number of founder animals taken from existing breeds that display the characteristics you desire in your new breed and mate them together. at each new generation you keep the ones that display the charateristics you want and discard those that dont. once you have the basis of the breed more inbreeding and selection is required to fix the characteristics as the breed type. this means that the use of a small number of founding animals and the continuing discarding of genetic materiel in those that dont display the correct characteristics results in an already shallow gene pool becoming shallower and the closing of the breed to genetic materiel from other breeds when a breed register starts restricts the gene pool further. ALL dogs breeds regardless of whether they are numerically large or small represent genetically unusual populations with extremly restricted genetic variation. This restricted genetic variation is a contibuting factor in the buildup of genetic disease and sometimes the dogs genetic lack of ability to counteract other diseases.

once a disease mutation has been identified it is usually a simple task to develope a genetic test to identify not only those affected and clear but the carriers in the population. as carriers have one copy of the mutant gene yet appear clinically normal they are responsible for continuing the occurence of affected dogs by breeders unknowingly mating carriers together thereby giving the resulting offspring two copies of the mutant gene.all of the 50 currently available genetic tests are for single gene mutations causing inherited disease in dogs, however as technology advances and techniques are perfected there is no reason why dna tests for polygenic mutations like hip and elbow mutations and autoimmune diseases cannot be developed. MHC genes are responsible for the immune system and some breeds have very few variations of the MHC genes, this poor gene pool leads to susceptability to disease and infection and there is a belief that white coated animals have further reduced skin immunities. fortunatly the majority of the 600 known inherited canine diseases are autosomnal recessive which means that a copy of the mutated genes has to be recieved from both parents for the offspring to be affected and dna tests can be relativly easy to develope. the second largest group are the familial type which are carried through breed type and are usually breed specific, the next are the autosomnal dominant of which only one copy is neccesary for the offspring to be affected. there are also the x type which are recessive down the femal lines where female offspring are the carriers and males are affected and the polygenic type, ie hip displaysia where multiple genes have to be present

health screening will become increasingly important in breeding programmes in the future and the more genetic tests that become available can only be seen as a good thing. However, breeders will have to use this information responsibility. it is the belief of not only myself and a few other breeders, but of the kennel clubs chairman Dr Jeff Sampson that no breeding programme be driven by health screening results alone and that to use the tests to only breed clear to clear makes developing the tests pointless. at the recent k.c breeder symposium he stated clearly that breeders prime responsibilty is to choose breeding pairs in the expectation of producing puppies with the correct breed type and characteristics and, most importantly, of good temperment. Health screening results should always be a secondary albeit important consideration. Parental health screening should be used to give breeders the added confidence that the breeding pairs the select will not produce clinically affected offspring, but the primary selection should still be breed type and temperment. excluding carriers whilst seen by some as they way to go will not help the breed in the long term as too much genetic diversity will again be lost forever. a lady who bred irish setters warned me of the mistakes made in that breed when the first test for pra was developed. the breed societies made the decision to exclude carriers and a lot of quality and typey dogs were lost, years on from those decisions the breed is now seen by some as genetically less diverse and a lot of the good breed type and characteristics that early breeders strived for was lost. she told me the biggest regret she had was that they didnt look into the long term effects that reducing an already shallow gene pool even further would have.

i also think its equally important to remember that if you only wish to have a pet dog then it is irrelevant if you have a carrier or a clear dog, neither can get the disease which they have been tested for, the only time the carrier status becomes important is if you intend to breed, even then if your animal has sufficient merits then as long as you are prepared to deal with the consequences of a carrier litter, ie testing the pups, endorsing the k.c and using a known clear to your carrier you should still consider a carrier pup. i do not endorse people who push the puppy/stud price up just because the dog is tested trying to make as much money as they can or those who breed poor quality carriers just for the money and dont inform the buyers of their test results or people who claim their dog is health tested just because they have had its yearly booster done. I have seen a number of Stud Dogs advertised who have produced large amounts of puppies yet have no health results listed only that they have had all the health checks done by the vet which usually means they have been vaccinated and wormed. I have also seen ridiculously high stud fees/ puppy prices because the they are clear which may result in the buyer opting for a cheaper untested dog. All of these practices will only hurt the breed we love in the future.

Hopefully by stringent testing, informing the general public of the need for health testing and making tested puppies more desirable than untested we will gradually weed out the affected dogs and less carriers will be produced enabling us the rid the breed of these diseases forever. however it only takes 1 carelessly bred litter to undo all the work we have done so far, if you know of someone planning a litter then please inform them of the need to do these tests, these diseases are still making puppies blind by 12 months old and still causing suffering and death from fits, please do all you can to get the message out there. Feel free to pass on my details if anyone you know needs help getting the tests done or any information about them.