While discussing the Optigen tests with a fellow breeder, the discussion shifted to "CLEAR by PARENTAGE".

Apparently, according to Optigen, the idea of breeding an A to an A is not a guarantee you will produce get being clear/normal.

I thought that sounds particularly interesting and think it invalidates the testing protocol altogether.

Planning on calling Optigen to discuss - I was curious, has anyone heard of this? Please pass along.

Of course. Without DNA testing confirmation, there is always the possibility that the clear parents listed are not really that dog's parents.

What Laura said!!! My policy is that at least one parent in every breeding MUST be Optigen tested A.

Breeding a 'tested normal' will guarantee a normal or normal carrier. Breeding a normal by parentage is no guarantee, because there is no guarantee that that is the true parent. Stud dog owners have shipped the wrong semen, and bitch owners have had oops breedings in their own home. It is not Optigen's job to guarantee parentage. They are responsible for the results of DNA presented to them.

I am thinking they also want to push more testing because it means more revenue for them as well.

But I have several Clear By Parentage dogs. When/if I decide to breed them, I would only breed them to tested dogs, and naturally THEIR pups would be tested.

Doesn't have anything to do with Optigen's revenue. It's simply a matter of common sense and good breeding practices!

If I had a tested carrier, I would not breed to a "clear by parentage" as OOPS happen. JMO

Clear by parentage is good enough for me. The chances of a "clear by parentage" breeding producing a carrier are so low that it could almost be considered statistically insignificant. I also depend on the integrity of the stud owner to ship me what I ordered so an "oops" should not happen.

Until a dog's parentage is proven with DNA testing, it can not be accurately called "clear by parentage." You can have both parents and the offspring DNA profiled and submit the results to OFA along with copies of the Optigen reports for the parents and get a "Clear by Parentage" certificate. For about the same cost (or less) you can have a dog tested by Optigen for half price if both parents are tested clear. This gives the individual dog its OWN clearance (not just by parentage) and its offspring would also be eligible for half-price testing down the line. Either way, just having a registration on a dog from parents that are Optigen tested is no guarantee that it is clear - AKC cancels or corrects over 1000 registrations each month due to errors discovered by DNA parentage testing.

Maureen, bless your heart...you are just too analytical at times.

If DNA results came back to me indicating different parentage then that would mean the stud owner lied to me. I trust the stud owners I deal with and I know the parentage of the bitches I own. So, in addition to the stud owner's work, clear by parentage is based on my individual work and is not dependent on others.

Considering how many dogs are registered with the AKC and considering how many puppy mills exist, 1000 corrections per month does not surprise me.

Just to answer the OP's question. Breeding an Optigen Clear Normal Dog to an Optigen Clean Normal Bitch will ONLY produce clear normal puppies. This is the value of testing. The genetics are clear - no PRA will crop up in this breeding.

So, by proxy, clear by parentage is a legitimate and reliable way to indicate the status as it refers to PRA.

Not addressing the ooops or the wrong sire (mommy's baby = daddy's maybe syndrome).

It isn't necessary for a stud owner to be a liar to make a mistake. It has happened more than once to breeders with multiple stud dogs to accidentally send the wrong semen. Some times it is discovered, and sometimes it is never discovered. The point is that it is not Optigens responsibility to guarantee parentage.

OK...now come on. I have multiple stud dogs and I always know who I sent.

"If DNA results came back to me indicating different parentage then that would mean the stud owner lied to me."

Not necessarily. It may mean that your bitch was bred by another dog at home and you didn't know it. It may mean another dog bred the bitch at the stud owner's home and nobody knew it. It may mean that a busy stud kennel sent you a semen package that was intended for another breeder. There have been some of these cases already that were investigated BECAUSE Optigen results were not clear for a dog from clear "parents". All of these instances have been eventually resolved by determining the "real" parents of the dog. In all of these cases, the breeders and stud owners were shocked by the discovery - nobody lied or intended any deception. So far, the Optigen test is accurate - but parentage may not always be

As to being analytical, what is the point of using the latest DNA technology if you aren't analytical enough to use it accurately??? There is nothing "slipshod" about most of these tests and our methods of applying them should be just as scrupulous.

No one is saying that everyone does it! You are missing the point entirely! The POINT is that Optigen cannot be responsible for the parentage of our dogs. Just because a pup is the result of two Optigen normal parents, Optigen can make no guarantee's on the status of that pup, because they have no way to know for sure that the pup is the result of the reported breeding. With DNA proof, then they can say the pup is clear. That is all. And yes, the wrong semen has been sent to bitch owners. It is not unheard of. If the breeding produces the expected colors, it may never be discovered.

I will not breed a bitch to a dog that is "Optigen Clear by Parentage" unless parentage is proven. There are many breeders using "Clear by Parentage" for several generations down the line where no dog has actually been optigen tested for quite a while. If people want to save $ on testing that may be fine for them but I am not risking the health of puppies I produce.

Y'all are all right...there are no absolutes. But, the chances of any one of the scenarios mentioned would actually happen and me not know about it....are very slim indeed.

I have had an accidental breeding...but I knew about.

I appreciate that the stud dog owner may missunderstand which stud dog the bitch owner wants...but they should know who they sent.

In other words, all of these things happen but I still know who was bred. If I don't then I would DNA test because I would know...that I didn't know what the breeding was.

Still, clear by parentage is enough for me.

Seems like there could always be chance the gene could mutate even with clear by Parantage.. like it must have done with the very first dogs.

Clear by parentage is good enough for me, too. Specifically, I have a clear by parentage pup here who has Optigen Normal parents who are both DNA'd. Why in the world would I want to spend more money for Optigen to tell me what they've already told me?

My Havanese stud "sired" a mystery litter. I know darn well the bitch (who was with me to be bred) did not get bred to anything else at my house, and she was definitely bred to my dog! I had a witness! The experienced breeder who owned the bitch was equally sure that she did not have an oops either. But the AKC happened to do an inspection while she had the pups there and to our shock, the pups were not my stud dog's! We DNA tested every intact male that was present in both locations and did not find a matching dad. Even my Labradors and some younger pups at her place. It's still a mystery who the dad was. Luckily, they were all slated to pet homes anyway. But the point is, oopses happen even if you think they can't. Maybe Junior's girlfriend brought her poodle over to visit and nobody wanted to tell Mom. Or the neighbor's dog pushed the screen door open, jumped your fence, and returned home after doing the deed, nobody the wiser. Or in my area, coyotes and coy dogs are roaming at night... And it doesn't take a tie for them to get a bitch pregnant.

Back to common sense - one parent always has to be tested A. Simple, easy to remember, safer than trusting that parentage is correct.

Many that are putting Clear by Parentage are simply stating that because of going through the pedigree behind their dogs/bitches and scientifically reducing where or if PRA has shown up. This is not what Clear by Parentage means and it burns me up everytime I hear someone say this or put it on their web site.

Nancy,
You tell some great stories, Not sure they are true but great just the same.

Fire's mystery litter is absolutely true. We learned more about DNA testing than you would ever want to know, and we used a second lab to verify the AKC's results. And we spent a ton of money. Fire was absolutely not the father of that litter, and neither were any of my dogs or her dogs. That's why I will never trust "clear by parentage"! (BTW - he has sired 7 other litters, some before and some after this one...) Maybe CSI could figure it out, but we couldn't.

I did a test on one of my boys that was clear by parentage and yes, by DNA too with both sire and dam as well. Optigen received the blood on a Friday afternoon, (I called to check to make sure it arrived),and by the next Wednesday morning I had results sent to me via email,(and yes, he was optigen normal).
Why would it only take a few days to run the test for this boy and 3 weeks+ for all the other dogs that I tested in my kennel. Please, if anyone can enlighten me I would like to know.

If the gene mutates, the current test would not identify it.

I've also noticed some people advertising their dogs as Optigen Clear. If you check closer, they're Clear/Carrier. Could be misleading to some inexperienced breeders.

It was probably not such a busy time for OPtiGen. I recently had 4 of my dogs tested. They recieved the sample on Friday and I had email results by the following Wednesday. This was a few weeks ago.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

I did a test on one of my boys that was clear by parentage and yes, by DNA too with both sire and dam as well. Optigen received the blood on a Friday afternoon, (I called to check to make sure it arrived),and by the next Wednesday morning I had results sent to me via email,(and yes, he was optigen normal).
Why would it only take a few days to run the test for this boy and 3 weeks+ for all the other dogs that I tested in my kennel. Please, if anyone can enlighten me I would like to know.

I have received my results in as little as 4 days or a long as 3 weeks. It is likely a matter of when a "batch" is processed. You were lucky to catch a batch when your sample arrived and it may have run over the weekend (I don't know if they do that). If it had been sent a few days later, it might have been 3 weeks before you got your results

I have had some rabies titers run recently and talked with the lab about what day was best for sending blood samples. They only run batches twice a week and only a certain number in each batch. They advised by what day mine should arrive to have the best chance of running early in the week and having a short processing time. If I missed the early batch, it could add a whole week to processing time!

Clear/carrier is not possible. They are mutually exclusive. The individual DOG is either clear or a carrier. If that is being used to mean that one parent is clear and the other a carrier, then why mention it at all? Unless the DOG is identified as clear or a carrier, you have no idea what you are breeding.

I used to know an ES breeder who advertised all her dogs as "OFA evaluated". That was true - but she never let the evaluation affect whether they were bred or not! Many of her dogs were OFA moderate and remained in her breeding program. The poor families who bought her pups because the parents were "OFA evaluated" were certainly in for some surprises down the line. This was before OFA had an online database, so unless you ASKED to see the reports, a lot of breeders could misrepresent their dogs. Heck, I think a lot still do based on your post!

Don't we have blatant examples in the history of our breed of an oops breeding? I may not have the whole story. It's like this - a breeder has 2 stud dogs, bitch comes over to be bred to dog #1, and get/future breedings follow path of dog #2, Breeding produces a beautiful stud dog, who is very unlikely to be sired by dog listed as sire, based on what he, the young stud dog produces. but no one ever said anything.... and dog #1 is listed as sire... Beautiful stud dog of the original breeding was extremely well known and used a lot.

Thats why I always tell people to ask for copies of certs not only for health but also for titles if they arnt online. Some breeders advertise champions but they are not AKC Or even CKC champions and i don't know if you can even look up a CKC champion online.

Very true. People advertise "Ch so and so" but it's not AKC or CKC it's Int or UKC or something worthless but puppy buyers don't know the difference!
Any way to make something not so good look a bit better I guess...