OK, here's a question I've been meaning to ask:

I have a lovely young male who I am preparing to unleash on the show ring any day now, and whom I one day hope to offer at stud. (I'll call him Sam.)

Sam was born into the last litter my dearly beloved old Champion bitch will whelp, sired by a handsome young import from over the Water. Both my old girl and the young Englishman are--yahoo!--OptiGen A1. Thus, Sam and all his adorable siblings are OptiGen A1 By Parentage.

Now here comes the question. It seems to me that there is a general feeling of cautiousness about assuming the complete absence of PRA genes after many theoretical generations of 'By Parentage' dogs.

So as a bitch owner shopping for that extra-special boy, would you be more likely to consider a stud if he were individually tested in his own right, in addition to being being Clear By Parentage?

I would not use a stud who was not Optigen tested, even if he were an A 'by parentage.' I need to see it in writing. JMHO

This kinda ties in with the thread I started asking for comments... so I'll follow up and ask here.

Xhibitor, would you accept or put faith in seeing a certificate issued, in lieu of an individual Optigen report) to a clear by parentage dog which attested to the fact (by virtue of DNA testing) that said dog was out of said parents who were Optigen tested and prcd-PRA Normal/Clear??

I agree with Xhibitor. I would want to visually see the optigen status. Another good subject up for discussion

If you place so much faith in the optigen status of a tested dog, then why not trust an optigen A by parentage dog without the actual test?

It only makes sense. If his parents were both tested clear, then your faith in the test should allow you to have faith in the status of the offspring without the test!
Right?

If not, why test to begin with since you aren't going to believe in the results!?

I would/will never pay for a test on any dog that is clear by parentage. Thats just a waste of money.

LOL I have lots of thoughts... but I'll just throw one out that may be a factor to some breeders.
We've tried to educate the public about the importance of hereditary screenin, and about the screening tools available to us as breeders.... and we've (meaning all breed enthusiasts) have cautioned them to see proof of clearnaces when screening breeders about a litter.
Personally, I'm flattered if someone would be williing to take me at my word, but I don't like to have to put my puppy people in that position... I rather be able to show them in black & white to back up... so if it's a clear by parentage to clear by parentage breeding, I'm going to provide them with copies of the 4 grandparents Optigen reports.

As far as feeling comfortable breeding to a dog, say, 2 generations removed from dogs actually Optigen tested, I'd have to be as absoutely certain as possible of my bitches normal/clear status, thinking at worse I might end up with a Carrier.... and I'd probably end up having any puppy I kept Optigen tested at some point before breeding.

Waste of money? Perhaps so. But whether it's a "waste" or not depends on what you value. If forking over a wad of cash along with a blood sample might improve the reputation of my dog in the eyes of others whom I respect, then that may not be a waste to me.

All depends on your priorities...

I am a skeptic, Val. I need to see it in writing for EACH dog. A 'by parentage' certificate would not be enough for me.

No matter what tests you use, there is always a margin for error. Without knowing the specifics of this test, but with a significant background in human health tests, there is always the possibility of an incorrect result reported. If it was my breeding stock, I would want to have each individual tested to verify their status.

I would breed a female of my own who was an A by parentage - to a stud that was an A by test results, but I would not breed that same bitch to a stud that was a B, without testing her. I personally think that all studs should be tested, to be sure.

Not to argue either way:
I would not hesitate to use a "Clear by Parentage" boy, if we are going to trust the test, we should trust the results.
But..........
On offering a boy for stud, I would test him, clear by parentage or not because if we missed just one stud service because the boy was not tested it would more cover the $200.

Not many comments posted on the other thread, so let me ask here instead.

For those who say they want every stud dog Optigen tested before you would use him,
would you not accept a certificate, in lieu of testing, which attested to the fact that said dog by virtue of DNA testing, proved to be progeny of sire "X" and dam "Y" who tested prcd-PRA Optigen Normal?

Mel, just playing devil's advocate here, but shouldn't all bitches be tested as well, just 'to be sure?'

BTW, a prepaid AKC DNA test kit is only $35. Compare to $150 test Optigen test fee, assuming you're prepaying/registering online and taking advantage of an satellice clinic code... add for vet/tech fee for blood draw and shpping to Optigen.
I would say most stud dogs are going to be DNA tested anyway, so even if you had to DNA test your bitch and the puppy you're keeping, it's still less expensive... and once the bitch is DNA tested, you never have that expense again for future litters.

I don't think the issue here is doubting the parentage of a A1 By Parentage dog, Val.

I think what some of the folks are saying (and personally I must say I agree) is that as new as the OptiGen test is, and with as many goofs as science has been known to make, it's a bit of a "better safe than sorry" issue. As in, yes, we trust that a dog who's been tested is clear, but to stake generations of your breeding program on just one individual dog's test results seems to be one degree too many away from safe breeding practices.

Here is my take on it. If the stud was clear by parentage, I would be OK with that.

However, there are a lot of people who don't quite get it. And then there are even more people who suspect other people in the dog world of cheating and lying. So if I had a dog with the potential to be seriously considered as stud by many breeders, I would test him. I would consider it a bit on the silly side, but a sound investment.

The idea of a clear by parentage certificate would be just for that first generation.
I think even Optigen is recommending testing every other generation, such as in the case of a litter from clear by parentage sire & dam.

I think a big concern is human error... i.e.; possibly at the laboratory, mismatings, hishonesty, clerical input, etc. As far as the gene mutating and the thinking continued testing is needed for such a case, the current test would pick up the mutation anyway, they'd need a new test for the new mutation.

I don't believe that all bitches need to be tested. If I had a bitch that was A by parentage, then breeding to a tested stud that was an A, would certainly be a safe thing to do. When offering a stud, certainly B bitches would be looking for A's - so I would be sure that if I had a B bitch that the stud was tested. It's safer.

I'm going to get the crown for typo queen! LOL

"the current test would pick up the mutation anyway, they'd need a new test for the new mutation."

Should be, current test would NOT pick up the mutation.....

I would breed to a stud dog that was clear by parentage if I was given copies of the Optigen tests for the parents. But that is as far as I would go generationally (is that a word?)

However, if it were a well used stud dog, I would expect that dog then to have an optigen test by virtue of its "popularity."

In my opinion, all breeding bitches should be tested if not clear by parentage and again I would not go farther down the line than a direct offspring. So a puppy from a breeding that involved a clear by parentage optigen A status, would need to be tested before being used as a stud or a breeding bitch.

We look at cardiac clearances and hip clearances and assume the person was honest in obtaining those clearances and one dog was not substituted for another. I also would assume a person was honest in their breeding practices and in their optigen reports.

Bonnie

Just to be sure of what??
I think Mel said if she had one of her girls that she wanted to use a B boy she would test her. I am unsure of what you are asking as it made perfect sense to me.

Here's a really dumb question - could a dog who is clear by parentage carry it anyway?

I plan on getting both of my dogs optigen tested. My male should be clear by parentage but he will be tested. Why not?

JMHO
A

I would either want to see the Optigen Certificate or DNA proof that the dog in question was the product of dogs that were tested clear. The phrase "Clear by Parentage" is only good if the parents are who you assume them to be. After one generation of "Clear by Parentage", I would want to see the optigen certificate only. Accidents happen and I would want to minimize the risk.

If I were you I would just go on and do the Optigen test on your boy. I am one that will not breed my girls to a clear by parentage dog. Genes can play all sorts of tricks on us. So to answer the question or both of them. No certificate and no clear by parentage here. We have this new test we can use, so lets test them. If my girl is an Normal/A I might breed to a really nice CBP treating it as a B dog.

>>I might breed to a really nice CBP treating it as a B dog. >>

Same way I would!

But if you believe in the test, why would it be neccessary to test offspring from two A's?

I would not trust "clear by parentage" farther than one generation, unless each dog in the pedigree was DNA proven to be the offspring of it's stated parents.

It's not that I distrust anyone in particular, it's just that if you breed a bitch to an A boy, and your B boy in the backyard gets her too, you wouldn't DNA test unless you got colors you shouldn't have. So you may very well be breeding down the road to dogs that aren't really who the pedigree says they are.

Consider, REALLY, if you had two half-brothers, one who is an A and one who is a B, would you be able to tell that the litter didn't belong to the stud it's suppossed to?

Taking that into account with how often breeders have "oops" breedings (which isn't frequent but isn't rare), it's only reasonable to assume that sometimes an "oops" happens with a bitch that's suppossed to get pregnant.

I would breed to a stud dog that was clear by parentage if I was given copies of the Optigen tests for the parents.

As one poster said, it's priorities.

If the cost of one test for one stud dog is too much of an expense for the owner of said stud-dog that might sire many 100;s of puppies then something could be wrong or taken wrong. JMHO.

If you want the best exposure to your stud dog with quality bitches then it is best to have him tested. That's my story and I'm sticking to it

I would not hesitate to breed to a stud dog who was clear by parentage and had the dna to prove who his parents were. You cannot compare this test to hips and elbows because those tests only prove the dog is not affected and coincidentally are still quite subjective depending on the quality of the x-rays and who was reading them that day. Optigen test tells us the dogs do not carry the disease- totally different. This is a brave new world.....we are eliminating the disease. When a dog has 10 generations of Optigen Clear/Normal behind him - are you still going to want to see a test!!! Well hopefully by then we'll all be forking out money for the new elbow dysplasia gene marker, or TVD or some other genetic marker, and we'll be way past PRA. That is the beauty of a genetic test- we can rid ourselves of the disease without having to throw out labbies with the bath water.
Judy

Well said Judy!!!

With so many breeders sending in blood work for everything under the sun, I wonder how often human error is made in the labratories ? It's for this reason, that I think it's a good idea to retest our breeding stock every few generations down the road just to be certain that someone in the lab didn't make an error or that some weird mutation in one of our litters didn't take place without us knowing about it.

We all know that the human error is made when humans get lab tests back for cancer or other diseases only to find out they didn't really have cancer after all. It could be an error that started with the hospital staff or someone messed up in the Labradorty. The blood work was labled wrong or read wrong in the Labs ??

I caught part of a radio program on NPR the other day and there is still a lot that can go wrong with DNA testing such as for crimes, etc., so why not PRA. From the collection of blood, or swabs to the lab...all along the way a myriad of things can happen to the sample. I do think it wise to test every so often to make sure our dogs are what we think they are.

You are absolutely right and that is certainly a good point. However one difference is this: With those other tests you are talking about, one may not find out that a mistake was made for years, or on the other hand it could be a life and death situation and the tested might find out the mistake tragically quickly. The difference here is that a lot of people breed their B bitches to an A stud dog, those puppies are going to be tested in probably less than two years, so more than likely before that dog is bred very much at all evidence is going to rear its ugly head pretty darn quickly that there is a problem. Now certainly we don't want to put puppies out there that are affected.....its why we do the tests, but in this scenario - this will be something that would occur extremely rarely, so we are not flooding the world with blind dogs, and it is also, although extremely important to us in the Labrador world, not a life and death situation. I hope this reads alright as I am having problems with my keyboard. Excuse punctuation.
Judy