Yes absolutely. I understand peoples anger, but blaming one dog is wrong, especially when they are quoting the findings of one man, yet the same man said both parents must have the gene for it to be passed on. No mention of the bitch nor her breeders/owners in all this though. Thats what I mean by selective believing. Its wrong. These witch hunts will never further developments into cures.

Was it not the point though that the stud in question was in the bitches lines on both sides??? Wasn't he the father of the bitch but then also the grandfather on her sire's side or something like that?

That's true, he didn't mention any names.

the belief has come from tracing the effected dogs lines, which all lead back to two dogs, and one goes back to the other.

As yet no marker has been found, it still early days in the research, so a long way to go,


My understanding is the bitch in question was bought from the breeder in question who owned the stud dog, so assume she also owned the bitch that whelped.

The man in question Dawn is an eminent geneologist who has been at the forefront in research of AS and cardiomyopathy in our breed, he is also behind the bobtail.

He is like marmite, love him or hate him, sadly the hate him always comes when the problem is pinpointed to your lines.

This research is very much in its infancy , as its only just raised its head above the pulpit, (publicly ) .

You are all missing one tiny but important pointer here. A lot of the dogs affected are diagnosed young & die young. There are a few & granted they are a few, that have JKD who live beyond expectations. I have one of them beside me at present who has been utterly wretchedly sick for the past two days

You can blame new breeders for being niave at the start of their breeding/show career etc etc however you could have some feeling for those of us with affected dogs. I wouldnt blame Sharon if she didnt come back to Dogsey.

Blaming achieves absolutely nothing, the situation is here & seemingly not small scale. Everybody NEEDS to work together to help control this dreadful disease

Katie has always had a weak bladder & i say that loosely, for years she was treated for bladder infections. It took us after we moved house & had a change of Vets, who wanted to do investigations, to find out the shocking truth, that we had a dog in Stage 3 renal disease.

For goodness sake get off your high horses and start to think about what really matters - how best to
proceed from now onwards!!

There were 3 other affected ups from a previous litter, BUT the first was not known until the repeat mating, and was told by my vet and the stud dog owner that this was a one off, as does sometimes happen, I accepted this, Madge was mated and dead when some of the others came to light, the dam, had a litter to another dog, previously and nothing came from that, they are all healthy and are all over 6 years old, so yes, if this is a recessive gene then my bitch has it too, I have never argued against this, but I used the dog on another bitch, and his son on another and both of those bitches produced affected puppies, all three bitches are connected 3-4 generations back, but all bought from dffeerent kennels, one being bought from the kennel with the stud dog owner, allthe cases were not disclosed until the matings and puppies had been born,, I have only ever had affected

I am not a vet or geneticist but find it really hard to beleive, three diff bitches to one dog and his sone says something

AMEN! Pointing fingers and back biting isn't going to help the breed or stop further dogs dying of genetic diseases. If everybody in the breed co-operated and were honest over their own dogs and able to take responsibility without fear of being judged by their peers, something like JKD could be conquered quickly.

Especially as it affects young dogs. Shar-Pei are blighted with a genetic disease that is unpredictable in it's symptoms and age it strikes dogs down. Often a dog can drop dead with no previous signs when it's 8 or 9 and if that's a top winning sire, hundreds of descendents for several generations can be out there. Boxer people need to pull themselves together and thank heavens they don't have something equivalent to FSF in their breed.

Hope your doglet is feeling better soon and you have lots of time left together.

If they were knowingly breeding affected dogs then i agree with you. Dreadful experience to lose a dog like this in a way that could have been prevented in the first place

What are the dogs like in Europe Sharon, is it spread out there too, new unaffected stock brought in from abroad - could this help do you think?

I asked my vet last week / had emailed him Dr C's results & he says he has never seen or heard of a case here (apart from Katie) its mainly cats with renal disease they see. Could it be a case it hasnt got such a strong hold in Ireland yet?

The "guy" in question is an eminent Geneologist! He is also a Boxer breeder/exhibitor of many years standing