GOLDEN RETRIEVER DNA DATABASE

By Jennifer Krawsczyn

How many of you have had a beautiful show prospect puppy that you were excited about end up not passing on one of his or her clearances? What a heartbreak that can be! All those plans, hopes and dreams have to be discarded, or at the least altered, when your puppy, the product of two clear parents, does not clear one of the list of things we check for. And was the missed clearance an injury? Or was it inherited? How can one know for certain?

Or what about that dog that did clear everything that you’ve bred and used in your breeding program, and then he or she comes down with cancer at the age of 5, 6, or 7 years old? Yikes! What do you do with the get? What decisions do you make and just how heritable is this cancer? Do you want to continue to breed this line? Will you be setting yourself up for more premature cancer deaths down the line?

CURRENT SCREENING METHODS

While it is true that we can still show a dog that didn’t clear something, and many of us do, many people see the dogs they keep and show as a future part of their breeding program and the ancestors of their own future show dogs. Obviously, we do not plan to include a dog with health failures, although in some instances, dogs with minor failures are used. And sometimes, we have already incorporated a dog into our lines that fails eyes after many passing years or dies young of cancer. While we do typically check hips, eyes, hearts, and elbows and don’t breed our dogs until they are two, we have invested a lot of time and money into these dogs just getting them old enough to clear, or even be screened. For disorders like juvenile cataracts, they are typically not visible until at least 7 months of age, and some dogs present with them well after clearing one or more times and well over a year old. I’ve personally had a dog fail at almost five years of age!

Ideally, we would all like a crystal ball to look into when those pups are still in the whelping box to know who will and will not get clearances. Imagine how much time, money, and heartbreak that could save us all!

SCREENING IN THE FUTURE?

The only way we can ever hope to be able to screen little puppies is via DNA testing. As things now stand, many dogs that will fail elbows at two will be fine on radiographs at a year of age. We can’t even get a permanent heart clearance until a dog is over a year old and eyes must be re-cleared every year. Don’t kid yourself that you are home free on eyes at two years of age! My friends and I can tell you that bombshell can hit you years down the road! And you’ve got two years of age in any dog before a permanent hip and elbow rating can be obtained. An alarming number of people have had dogs clear elbows at well over a year of age on prelims that failed at two (and although several cleared on resubmission, that is another story entirely!)

OFA’s DNA DATABASE

At this year’s National Specialty, we had something exciting available to us that may just help us realize the above scenario for very early screening. There was a booth set up to collect blood samples on our dogs. Two samples were collected with one going to OFA to be stored and used when needed while the other went specifically for a study on hemangiosarcoma, which along with lymphoma is our most common types of cancer in Goldens. The samples were collected for every Golden whose owner was willing to do it, and it is hoped that these samples will allow researchers to unravel the DNA codes for many of our troubling disorders.

I do hope Golden fanciers realize what an important opportunity this is and how their dogs can be part of helping to find the answers so that in the future, we will be able to not only select pups that are clear, but also to select our breeding pairs so that they will not reproduce the problems we can only now detect by screening.

I understand that if your club or group is interested in having a blood collection for these important data banks, that this can be arranged. Currently it is all free but in the near future, there will be a fee for non-CHIC dogs with the OFA. If you are interested in hosting one of these and for more information about this wonderful database, please go to:

http://www.grca.org/health/database.html