I found this DNA test for JRD from Dogenes, Inc. at www.dogenes.com, it seems to be available for many breeds, including Labs.
My question, has anyone had or know of a Lab known to be affected or suspected of being affected by JRD?
I'm curious about this test and its validity in Labs, so I did contact the company for more info, no response yet. I was wondering what others have to say about it, since I have never heard of it occurring in Labs.
Yes, it occurs in Labs, much more frequently than anyone wants to acknowledge. Many die at birth from JRD. I would be very surprised to discover a gene test for this complex issue.
The company is saying that the gene is dominant with incomplete penetrance, that would certainly make it a variable and complicated disease to weed out.
Well, that makes some sense because JRD is usually fatal--often before the age of 2 and dominant transmission is often fatal diseases but variable expressivity might allow some of them to reach breeding age..
More than 10 years ago I bought a show puppy who died at 20 months from JRD. At the time most of the pedigrees of JRD affected puppies were primarily field dogs. In the process of investigating the problem, I found about 10 dogs who were affected, all from field lines. With great care some of them lived to 3 or 4 years old. Breeding these severely affected dogs would be out of the question, but maybe with variable expressivity and incomplete penetrance it could happen.
