Quote:
Originally Posted by MyFairLacy  LS has been known to skip 10 generations. Not too many breeders will know the complete history of EVERY dog in a pedigree up to 10 generations back..that is a LOT of dogs. And what if there was an unethical breeder that owned one of those dogs that didn't fully disclose all info? There may be a LS dog in the pedigree that no one knows about...
And what if the dog is asymptomatic? It happens... The asymptomatic LS dog might be bred and pass on the defect.
A BAT is so easy and pretty inexpensive. It causes no adverse affects on the dog. There are no negatives to BAT a dog...well, unless it turns out that a dog does have a shunt and a breeder is forced to spay/neuter a dog they have a lot of time/money invested in. But an ethical breeder would want to know that so that they wouldn't go on to produce more with the defect. I see only positives by doing a BAT.
Seriously...why NOT do it? The only reasons I can see not to do it is because a breeder is afraid it is there and doesn't want to stop breeding the dogs, the breeder doesn't want to take the time or spend the money to do it, or because they don't know any better. Everyone here KNOWS how common LS is and how serious it can be. So again...why not do it? |
I agree 100%. Hopefully Dr. Center will have her grant proposal approved by the AKC and there will be a definitive genetic test for liver shunts soon. She should get an answer from the AKC this month. Even if she doesn't get the grant, she will still continue her genotyping project. One of the breeders on the Maltese forum I belong to is providing samples for her study now.
Until a genetic marker is discovered, the best tool is BAT testing the parents before breeding and BAT testing all Yorkie puppies before they even go to their new homes as Dr. Center recommends.
Since the test no longer requires fasting, is only about $40-80, I don't see a compelling argument not to get it done.