Mom came back affected, doesn't colapse, some came back clear/normal. Anyone else had this happen?
Testing done by different companies.

Pls. clarify your post. What results conflicted? Who all were tested, and how are they related to the dam who came back affected? Were all those tested the puppies of the affected dam? Or did some dogs come back one thing from one company, and another from a different company?
Also, how are you testing and at what ages? Blood? Swabs? Other breeders have suggested isolating pups from each other (crate time) and dam to avoid skin and other cells from being in the mouth of the tested pups.
I know it is easy to bump one swab into another or carry cells on one's hands.
Thanks.
I know one breeder who mixed up the swabs on her stud dogs when DNAing them for AKC--oy, what a mess! She knew who was who, but the swabs were switched, going into envelopes with the wrong forms, and AKC was not amused. I think it was finally straightened out. Thank goodness for microchips!

Sorry, typo
Mom was tested by one company the "son" I kept was
tested by another company. The son was tested at 8 mo
Both were separated from other dogs long before testing. They were the only ones tested on the day
we did them. Mom was tested a year and a half ago, son tested last July. Both were cheek swabs.

It's a pain, but you should repeat both to clarify.

I agree that it would be important to retest..and IMO, the testing should be done by the U of Minn. They are the ones that have ongoing research on EIC and if the results are really an affected mom producing a clear offspring, that information would be important informtion to the research. Please let us know the results if the retests are done.

"Mom was tested a year and a half ago, son tested last July. Both were cheek swabs."

I didn't think they were doing EIC testing by cheek swabs a year and a half ago, so I am wondering about your testing. I tested November 2008, which is less than a year and a half ago and to the best of my knowledge they were only doing blood draws then.

If what you write is correct, I would get in touch with the U. of Minn. immediately and tell them of your results because there is no way an affected mother can produce a normal offspring if the test is correct and I am sure they would be quite interested in your test results and might even be willing to retest for free on verified blood draws.

Bonnie

They started offering cheek swabs in April of 2009.

Yes it was an opps, Mom was done by U of Minnesota
blood draw and son was Ingen by cheek swab. Not trying to stir anything. Only wondered if anyone
had received conflicting results as I did. You guys are something else!!!

I would pay and have DDC or U of Minn test the son and not go off Ingen results. We have gotten wrong results from Ingen for PRA. They retested our dogs but that is besides the point. We paid Optigen to retest them, 2 out of parents that were tested Optigen Normal to Optigen Carrier breedings after Ingen give us results of being Affected. There was no way they were affected. Sure enough both came back Carriers when Optigen tested them for us. So it was a lesson learned and cost a lot more money to have Optigen test them, so we knew for sure. That was a mistake on Ingen's part.

I would not mess with saving a buck anymore, when we have gotten a couple bad results back, yes they did retest but still. We shouldn't have to go through that, the waiting and not knowing what is going on with their results.

this is very interesting......you are the very first person that has said your optigen verses Ingen test were different. what reason did Ingen give you for the wrong readings? When the retested what results came back?
was these test taken during the contamination period?

I have done 8 dogs with Optigen and all 7 were done through Ingen because I had color testing done so the Prcd came with it. All 7 were exactly the same.

all tests from all makers have error.

I didn't know that the U of Minn had on going research. I heard this is their test and that's it. Did I hear wrong?[/quote]

I have a non-collapsing affected dog and they continue to follow-up with me to see if the dog remains non-collapsing. My understanding is that they are still trying to research why not all affected dogs collapse.
I can't find my last email from them requesting updates to verify if they actually stated research continues but that was my assumpton when they had me fill out the questionnaire.
The questionnaire that they sent to me is on their website and says:
Information submitted via this questionnaire is for the purposes of research. The identity of dogs and owners participating in the research will not be revealed. ALL INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL

I got my results end of March or early April 2009, that were incorrect. So I got a hold of them and said no way these 2 could be affected. So in the mean time instead of waiting on them to figure out what was going on, we went ahead and pulled samples to mail off to Optigen.

Ingen sent us new kits and retested them. They said they had a computer problem with power and the computer got off a line on a whole lot of test they were running at one time. This caused everyones tests results in that run to possibly be wrong. They retested them and got the same results as I got from Optigen the second time. The scary thing is, what if I had never tested before and sent samples off for the first time. If I didn't know what the parents were, how would I have know that they were wrong?? This didn't just happen to us and yes, they did retest for us. Only after I called them up and then they started looking into things.

I think I will continue using Optigen and pay the extra money for a more trusted lab and not have to wait months to get results back.

Ingen sent us free kits to cover the mix up to retest some more dogs. Well one of those came back as a carrier, she was out of two Optigen tested Normal/Clears. I never got any reason why she came back as a carrier out of 2 Optigen tested Clear parents. So I had to send her back in a second time and they said PRCD Clear. So they have actually messed up on 3 of our results now. Two of these mixes up were at the same time and one at a different time.

I tried talking to them about the 3rd one that was messed up but never did get a straight answer of what was going on. Do any of us really know when the contamination period started?? If since day one they were operating without the proper equipment, then who can really say.

I personally think it all started to go downhill when they had to move to the islands. before that they had Universities doing the testing so less of a chance for mix ups.

They really have put a ding in everyone's trust issues with him, to bad....
but again we all tend to over look Optigens BIG opps years back, they finally got it right.

If they would just drop their price to a more reasonable amount I dont think anyone would not use optigen.

I know of many non collapsing EIC affected labs. I had owned one of them. Having a EIC clear pup out of an EIC affected female is entirely different and should be thoroughly investigate. Many nice dogs are being sterilized and removed from breeding programs because of the results of this testing. There is no room for errors and if this proves to be correct that the test itself needs to be questioned and re-evaluated.

It makes no sense to sterilize dogs based on testing - I would think knowing what one has would allow people to use ANY dog in a breeding program if bred to the right mate (i.e., only clears to affecteds or carriers). Sterilizing affected or suspect dogs for issues for which there are no tests (dogs with TVD or who seizure) makes far more sense - there is no way to safely use them in a breeding program.

There is a BIG difference with what happened with Optigen years ago. At that time it was a Marker test and they never claimed it was 100% correct. It wasn't an OOPS - it was a marker test. They said there would be false positives but the incidence was higher than they expected. They also kept track and retest the carrer/affected dogs for free as they improved the test and eventually identified the actual gene. Ingen claims to be using an actual gene test which should be 100% correct.

I, for one, will continue using Optigen. If I have a carrier girl, I will not breed her to a dog that has been tested clear by Ingen. I will only breed her to Optigen tested clear males.

Thanks for posting your experience, Heather. I'm sure there are others out there who just don't realize their results are bad. Rick knew about your experience and yet he came on this forum and said he wasn't aware of any bad results. Not someone I'd trust.

Katie Minor has said that they are not researching any modifier genes in regard to EIC since they are incredibly more difficult to locate than the primary target. Most of the dogs tested to develop the current gene test were field trial labs who display a greater incidence of collapse than the conformation lines, even when the indiviudal is identified as have two copies of the mutated gene. Some day there may be a more specific test, but that is a long way off and down a very expensive road.

Certainly you can breed the affected to a clear and get all unaffected EIC carriers but in the field labs there are few buyers for EIC carriers pups especially males.

Why are there few buyers for EIC carrier pups? The majority of puppy buyers are pet owners - not sure why they would care whether the pup was a carrier or not.

Some day there may be a more specific test, but that is a long way off and down a very expensive road.
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I don't understand what you mean by a more specific test.

Not trying to be funny, but could you please explain a little more?

Sorry about that John, I will find out direct from UMN.

Olivia, I think the meaning is a test that includes the identity of any modifying genes that influence whether or not the dynamin 1 mutation causes collapse. Some breeders are really hung up on the fact that not all dogs with the mutation collapse. You, I, and the researchers don't see this as a sticky issue, as the mutation is recessive and it is so easy to avoid producing collapsing dogs without eliminating any dog from a breeding program, but this is a big issue to some people. They consider the test to be inaccurate because it does not completely predict whether or not a dog will collapse.