Open Registry

[anne]

Was doing some research on something else yesterday and came across the White Shepherd Genetics Project, an open registry for health research. The database can be viewed sorted by dog's name, parents name and by ailment.
www.wsgenetics.org/

What kind of mechanisms do you have in your country to share information of this sort?

(Wonder if something like this would ever fly in Weimaraners in the US?)

[syrinx]

I would like to think it would work, but really, I doubt it. I guess the OFA is the closest thing, but really people usually only put good stuff on it, or bad if they are upset about someone.

I have a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier, and the breed has two nasty kidney problems that are inherited, but the pattern is unknown. It has now raised it's head in Australia and my boy is at great risk of being affected. There is an Open Register for Wheatens, but not many people here knew about it, and we can't get the main test for it done in Australia anyway. There is no DNA test for it. The Open Register costs to put info on it, it is voluntary, and most pet owners wouldn't have a clue about it. And many dogs don't develop it until later in life, so wouldn't think to contact the breeder. Whole litters need to be tested for things, as the ones who don't get tested will be the ones with something.

They are a great idea, though not perfect, but I do not know of a better one.

[syrinx]

Just looking back to your original post, to my knowledge, there is nothing in Australia. I may be wrong, but if there is, it just goes to show that it is not well known.
The Wheaten one is in America as well.
Wendy

[Irena]

anne said:

Wonder if something like this would ever fly in Weimaraners in the US?

Nope, I don't think it would work anywhere in the world with our breed. From being around GSD people a LOT (have a close friend that breeds them and am on at least two forums), their 'mentality' is completely different, and they routinely disclose a LOT more information than Weimaraner people would ever do. They generally have no problems sharing and asking for opinions, information, help etc. (Imagine a section "Critique this Weimaraner" on our board? LMAO Or a section where a complete newbie can ask for opinions about a particular breeder/kennel, and the "good" stuff may be posted on the forum but the not so good stuff has to go privately via email?) I admire them for that and sometimes wish I was in love with the GSD.

Here is another project (and a few more if you look at the links) by the GSD people.

"Heaven's Gate: a Database for the Causes of Death in the German Shepherd Dog"

www.germanshepherds.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=125338&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1&nt=2

[syrinx]

I agree, Irena. The Dobermann breeders had to work together and disclose to beat von Willebrands Disease. Wheaten people are working together to beat the kidney stuff. That is how I know my boy is at great risk of developing it, and he won't be bred, certainly not now, possibly never. In Weis, whenever you are told something, it is as a big secret. In America, I understand they know you don't put a certain dog, as has been put to me, on the top and the bottom of a pedigree as this is what has been found in the pedigrees of pups with Shakey Puppy Syndrome. Or this line has Auto Immune probs, and you can work out who is a carrier, big winner, big name, and that is a line common to three countries. Or this line seems to have a problem with puppies who just drop dead. BUT you are told stuff like that as a State Secret. And then you know people who are about to double up on something that you have been told not to. Then the question is, do you tell them, and risk never being told something again, or not tell them, and possibly puppies would be born that had something nasty and you would have known. The breeders may tell you to go away and not believe you. And then it would be too late. We are all supposed to be doing this stuff for the betterment and improvement of the breed.

I personally wonder just how true that is. I see lots who are very interested in the betterment and improvement of their kennel name.

Wendy

[christina]

****What kind of mechanisms do you have in your country to share information of this sort?

Hello Anne,

You must have read my mind - over the past few days I also have been thinking about "open registries" ..... To the best of my knowledge, nothing of this kind exists for our breed ..... and I often wondered why not! Is it not in all our interests to breed more healthy dogs? What are people so afraid of - to find out the truth ? Can we really afford to leave our heads stuck in the sand?

If there is nothing to worry about - as we are told by our Kennel clubs - then why not make public the identified carriers? ..... at least that would put it all into perspective. I would like nothing better than have my own worries proved wrong. As far as I am concerned -
if anybody, anywhere, is prepared to construct an open registry to identify the known carriers, they can have my own dogs pedigrees and I am sure I can convince most people I know who have Weims with AI diseases to add their pedigrees too. I haven't got the expertise to start one myself, but my own very limited research into the matter is already showing a worrying trend... it is pretty easy to work backwards through a pedigree - once you have an "affected", you automatically can identify both the parents as "carriers" , and with a breed that is as inbred as ours, even to my untrained eye the same names keep popping up....

This is what Dr Jeff Sampson, Canine Genetics Co-ordinator at The Kennel Club, said at a dog seminar on Auto-Immune Diseases in October 2000 :

....Open registries are incredibly valuable. They can give lists of affected animals. Most of these dogs will be affected by recessive genes, so by definition the parents of those animals are ‘carriers’.
To say that known carriers must not be bred from would be detrimental to the breed. Open registries might be able to identify dogs clear of diseased genes. The problem is that a carrier cannot be distinguished from a clear simply by looking at it. ‘Carriers’ and ‘clears’ both appear clinically clear. However, you may be able to identify the clears by pedigree analysis. This is particularly useful for stud dogs which may generate hundreds or even thousands of puppies by being mated to numerous bitches. By analysing their progeny you can get a fairly good idea as to whether the stud dog is likely to be a carrier or not. If a dog has mated many bitches the chances are that one of the bitches would be a carrier. If an affected puppy is produced then this would show him to be a carrier. Therefore one can look retrospectively at pedigrees and get an indication of clear dogs. This is not so easy with bitches as they do not have so many puppies. With this information, if you have a carrier bitch and you mated her with a clear dog then you would not produce affecteds. It is not the ideal scenario but it may be a starting point to limiting the disease. In the short term, a little bit of thought about breeding with compatible lines will at least reduce the disease level.

At present, there are screening schemes for HD, OCD (elbows) eye problems and thyroiditis. These will identify the dogs that are affected. If you stop breeding from your affecteds, it has a very marked result, and the overall incidence of the disease falls quite precipitously over the generations.

Unfortunately, withdrawing affected dogs has much less effect on the most important population - the carriers. The carrier frequency does reduce, but not as dramatically as the affecteds. Carriers have a silent reservoir, and they pass their diseased gene onto half of their off spring. These carriers are the continuing source of mutant genes within a population. What is really needed is to identify carriers.

If a litter has one or more puppies that are affected with a disease known to result from a single recessive mutation, then both parents are carriers. It has already been stated that when two carriers mate 25% of the litter will be affected. Unfortunately this is only a probability estimate. So there is a need for identifying the diseased genes.

Christina

[daniela]

Hi Christina, if you haven’t visited the health section of the Kennel Club’s website I would like to refer you to it because it demonstrates the growing number of DNA screening schemes which are available for certain breeds.

The DNA tests used in these schemes can accurately identify clear, carrier and affected animals, and can be used by breeders to effectively eliminate undesirable disease genes in their stock. You will also see that you can download, for example, the pdfs for Irish Setter CLAD clears/carriers.

At the moment, here, there are no DNA health screening schemes for Weimaraners run by/in conjunction with the KC. Having said that, if the breed clubs would like to investigate a particular condition, I believe they can apply for funding for DNA tests for use in the identification and control of inherited diseases through the Kennel Club Health Foundation.

[greydove]

I would like to hear from some of our USA members about some of the comments about what has been said about shakey puppy etc

Narelle

[anne]

Shaky puppy is pretty common here and there are known carriers, unforutnately dogs that have been used extensively in the past have turned out to be carriers.

As you probably know, shaky puppy is a disease that is currently being studied with funds from the WCA, AKC and concerned individuals. This was thanks to two breeders in the US who took it upon themselves to "make some noise" about it. This required others that participated to be open about having produced it, and submit DNA samples and so on. Controlled test breedings have also been done.

[greydove]

Thanks for your comments Anne, I do indeed appreciate the efforts of the Weimaraner Clan in the USA myself having had some very open and honest discussions with breeders there it seems to me that both the club and breeders in the US are indeed concerned and takes steps to solve problems....I haven't heard of any cases of Shakey Puppy in Australia...which is not to say there haven't been any cases.

Narelle

[christina]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks - I am not quite sure where to look and what to look for. I am obviously searching in the wrong places - since I am not a breeder, it's pretty unfamiliar territory for me, and my computer skills leave much to be desired .... - have you got a website that would direct me to those DNA screening schemes? I would be very interested to read up on it.

However, I did have a look at the Weimaraner Club webpages - American and UK .... interesting to note the differences. The WCA has got a health section, and a relatively comprehensive list of problems that Weims are prone to - the WCGB hasn't got a health section at all, but I found one site that acknowledges Weims being prone to bloat and hipdysplasia, hypertrophic osteodystrophy and tumors.... but were on the whole a "hardy breed of dog" ..... hmmmm.

****The DNA tests used in these schemes can accurately identify clear, carrier and affected animals, and can be used by breeders to effectively eliminate undesirable disease genes in their stock.*****

For some known hereditary defects there are some DNA markers available, I know. But are there markers for AI diseases? I believe that the Bearded Collie Club was working on identifying DNA markers for HD, OCD, Eye problems, Thyroiditis and Addison's. And I read that some years ago Dr. John Angles was looking into the mode of inheritance for MMM and later for HOD in Weims. The only success story I have heard of though, was that a DNA marker for Addison's has been found in Beardies. Has there been more successful research in those fields?

Too much is still unknown. Until those DNA markers are found - which might take many more years - without having an open registry to look up known carriers - as I see it from a lay persons perspective - it must be impossible to select with any degree of certainty "clear" animals for a breeding program. So I am very much in favour of an open registry - simply from my own selfish stand point as a mere pet owner. The past 10 years of my life (and that of my dogs) would have been happier if I have had healthy animals instead of our life's being regulated by drugs, vet visits, bills and heartaches.

Christina

[anne]

I would imagine that it would be hard to find a marker for AI diseases, just guessing that it's polygenetic. Also I do believe that the lack of diversity in the MHC is a big reason for immune system problems (but we've had that discussion before....)

I had no idea that Angles was working on MMM.

Here is something that I will share and also the only way I have been able to research any kind of genetic diseases:
I have been looking into spinal dyraphism because I suspect that my Indy could be a carrier for it. I found a reputable breeder who was also interested in this because her dog carries it. We compared pedigrees and found some common dogs, which were already dogs each of us had suspected. We then found someone else who had a pet dog that had it, looked at that pedigree and lo and behold, same dogs show up many generations back. A fourth dog also turned up (hard to say if this one was affected or not) and based on some suspicious, we looked at pedigrees... and we started seeing a pattern.
Of course this is in no way scientific, and the mode of inheritance is not as easy to track as autosomal recessive, but so far, it appears that if I ever bred Indy there are dogs that I would just stay away from to be safe.

The only method that has worked for me for health research is to talk to other people and as someone else mentioned it's all hush-hush. I have found that certain people that have turned up some problem have done a lot of their own research and have their own database. Very difficult to do the right thing unless you are well connected AND people are honest. That is hard for a new breeder with ehtical intentions to do the right thing! IMO there is no reason to make it harder than it already is!!

I am honest about what I know about my dogs, but dont' want to hurt their breeders so I am very discretet. Since Indy comes from a "bad" breeder, I am free to say that I believe she might be a Spinal Dysraphism carrier. Too bad there is so much stigma attached to somethign that shouldn't be a big deal. We all know that no one has clean lines anyway!

[christina]

****I had no idea that Angles was working on MMM.

Hi Anne,

Dr. Angles has done a lot of research on hyper-inflammatory diseases specifically in Weimaraners. He was working on MMM around the time Thomas fell ill with it. Thomas possibly has to thank him to be still alive 9 years on. MMM had been news to my vet back then, and when Pete and I found Dr. Angles by chance on the net, my vet was happy to confer with Dr. Angles and take his advice on how to best treat the condition. He advised to put Thomas on the Pred/Azathioprine (Imuran) combo, and we have never looked back. The "usual" treatment of just using steroids would have taken Thomas to an early grave - I am sure of it.

Christina

[anne]

christina said:

Dr. Angles has done a lot of research on hyper-inflammatory diseases specifically in Weimaraners.

Ah good to know. I knew that he was studying hyper-inflamatory diseases (good article in the WCA magazine from last year) but didn't know he had looked into MMM in particular.

[syrinx]

With the DNA research that is being done, there is no guarantee that the same condition in different breeds will be found at the same place. So just because they can identify the vWD marker in Dobes, doesn't mean it is the same for Weis. Aslo, the company that finds it, patends the test for that disease for that breed. So no one really shares research. $$$$$$$ This just makes it slower.
Wendy

[syrinx]

Is there anywhere that the findings or disclosures about Shakey Puppy are accessible?
Wendy

[daniela]

Here you go Christina:

www.the-kennel-club.org.uk - then click on the burgundy kennel at the top of the page. It's called 'health issues'.

Can someone enlighten me and tell me what MMM stands for?

[Ingvild]

MMM masticatory muscle myosititis

[anne]

Wendy
As far as I know there is no central location to look for information on shaky puppy. The research is still being done so maybe at some later point.
Anne

[syrinx]

Thanks Anne.
Is there anywhere you can read up on those lines or the past sires who were carriers? Not like a data base, I was just wondering if anyone is saying anything on their web sites, or something like that. It's just that American lines are all around the world. In a perfect world it would be wonderful if the disclosures that have been made, were made in such a way so that others with these lines might know what they may, potentially, be at risk of.
This is one of the main problems I have with line/in breeding. If you have something like this lurking in a line you have, you may have a carrier with out knowing. And of course, the dog will not be sick, it will be no different to any other. If you then line breed, the mate you chose may also be a carrier, then, Bingo, you score carriers and affecteds. If you don't line breed, the chances are reduced. Then the resultant litter would be approx 25% carriers and 75% clear. Statistically. Better odds. Unless people start to put their hands up for all sorts of things, nobody truely knows what they are dealing with.

Wendy