A decision was made by BoxerJKD team early on not to report any cases earlier than 10 years ago. The disease has been with the breed for a very long time and it was not thought to be beneficial to look back too far as it is the current dogs that are important to the future of the breed. We also decided not to comment on the potential line of inheritance of the disease within the published pedigrees. A pedigree study easily identifies the common ancestors. Only producers of confirmed cases of BoxerJKD are shaded in blue. It is worth noting that many dogs in the published pedigrees could be shaded as being deduced carriers or as siblings to cases or other confirmed JKD carriers. So a dog being unshaded in a published pedigree does not mean it is completely without risk.
The gene responsible for JKD is widespread and appears in almost all of the current breeding lines in the UK. There will be 'clear' dogs in those lines too. We just need to reduce the risk of using the sub clinical and carrier dogs and increase the chance of breeding to the clear dogs.
To preserve the genetic diversity you can not simply exclude all dogs with carriers or deduced carriers in their pedigrees.
To decrease the current risks, it is suggested that breeders screen all their stock for low USG readings, reduce the inbreeding in their planned litters, not to double up on pedigrees containing carriers.
Any new cases of JKD found by the screening process needs to be reported and the information shared with other breeders, the parents of all JKD cases need to be immediately removed from breeding programmes.
For the overall genetic health of the breed, breeders need to use as many different stud dogs as possible rather than giving only one or two dogs all the stud work nationally. A 'popular sire' effect can be very detrimental to the genetic health of the breed in more ways than just the risks of JKD.
If breeders become more acceptable to the recommendations and problems of BoxerJKD, then we may consider publication of the deduced carriers and full JKD inheritance history. But in the current climate it is hard to see the benefit of doing this.
The solution to the problem is working with the current dogs, having an efficient USG screening programme of all puppies and breeding stock, together with the effective sharing of all of the available information with all Boxer breeders worldwide.
Unfortunately, there is still much more to do, as only the pedigrees that have been shared to BoxerJKD team are available in the public domain. This is still is not the full current available picture. The incidence of JKD is relatively low due to the low penetrance and the over capacity of the kidneys. It is therefore extremely important that all BoxerJKD cases should be reported and the pedigree information shared. Too many cases are being lost to the study for many different and diverse reasons. But the open reporting and the sharing of all available pedigree information is fundamental to continuing to reduce the frequency of the JKD gene within the population.
The gene responsible for JKD is widespread and appears in almost all of the current breeding lines in the UK. There will be 'clear' dogs in those lines too. We just need to reduce the risk of using the sub clinical and carrier dogs and increase the chance of breeding to the clear dogs.
To preserve the genetic diversity you can not simply exclude all dogs with carriers or deduced carriers in their pedigrees.
To decrease the current risks, it is suggested that breeders screen all their stock for low USG readings, reduce the inbreeding in their planned litters, not to double up on pedigrees containing carriers.
Any new cases of JKD found by the screening process needs to be reported and the information shared with other breeders, the parents of all JKD cases need to be immediately removed from breeding programmes.
For the overall genetic health of the breed, breeders need to use as many different stud dogs as possible rather than giving only one or two dogs all the stud work nationally. A 'popular sire' effect can be very detrimental to the genetic health of the breed in more ways than just the risks of JKD.
If breeders become more acceptable to the recommendations and problems of BoxerJKD, then we may consider publication of the deduced carriers and full JKD inheritance history. But in the current climate it is hard to see the benefit of doing this.
The solution to the problem is working with the current dogs, having an efficient USG screening programme of all puppies and breeding stock, together with the effective sharing of all of the available information with all Boxer breeders worldwide.
Unfortunately, there is still much more to do, as only the pedigrees that have been shared to BoxerJKD team are available in the public domain. This is still is not the full current available picture. The incidence of JKD is relatively low due to the low penetrance and the over capacity of the kidneys. It is therefore extremely important that all BoxerJKD cases should be reported and the pedigree information shared. Too many cases are being lost to the study for many different and diverse reasons. But the open reporting and the sharing of all available pedigree information is fundamental to continuing to reduce the frequency of the JKD gene within the population.
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