In some breeds, admitting to the occurrence of an inherited defect is hazardous. Many breeders will openly condemn those who confess to having had a problem. It is as if breeders believe that silence will make the defect go away. This is clearly not the case, indeed, it is more likely that defects will spread. [...]
Test mating dogs for recessive defects is often rnooted and it can be effective in certain instances. Table 2 The percentage error in test mating as A? animal to as or Aa mates Number of normal pups born Percentage error when mating to affected (aa) mate Percentage error when mating to carriers (Aa) mate 1 [...]
Most breeders would like to think that they could eliminate/ eradicate a defect. Generally this is not feasible. If we are faced with a dominant gene like VWD we could on testing dogs, cull from breeding all those with the condition and thus eliminate the gene in one generation. For this reason, few defects in [...]
Dogs, like wolves from which they probably descend, have thirty nine pairs of Chromosomes. These are long thread-like structures found in each body cell and along the length of which are the genes. The number of chromosomes is fully documented but the number of genes quite unknown and likely to remain so in the foreseeable [...]