Testing conducted by Dr. Center & Dr. Tobias have not been identified as conclusive.
Bile Acid testing your dogs only proves they do not have the disease, but it doesn't prove they aren't carriers. As stated above research on discovering the DNA Marker is still ongoing. We're told that it is close, but how close????
It definately is a recessive gene...and not rear it's ugly head for 9 generations. It's just a matter putting the right 2 dogs together.
Dr Tobia's conducted studies; breeding two shunt dogs and they never produced a shunt puppy. She's bred two dogs whose bile acids were with in normal limits and they produced shunt puppies. She's researched yorkies and found that shunt puppies had 1 common ancestor...and then non-shunt puppies had the same ancestor in their pedigree too. So, to date all research is non-conclusive, but it is being continued.
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