[Kenneth Niles Bora]

degenerative myelopathy question?
　
　
Hello RTF,
If a person (me) is in the process of taking their pup (avatar photo) in for the standard 24 month fully sedated hip & elbow x-ray. (They looked GREAT! BTW)
And the vet is also, at the same time doing the blood draw to send out for an EIC test. Does the responsible puppy owner also do the degenerative myelopathy cheek swab test? Both of this pups parents have listed DM clear on each of the web pages they have. Am I clear by parentage, or should I do the test anyway? Your thoughts?
　
　
ken

 

[Julie R.]

You don't need to do the test--your dog is Clear by Parentage and even LVL will list him on her database as DM CBP. If anyone doubts you, you can refer them to the parents' OFA pages. Where it gets to be a gray area is if you bred him to a CBP female, but even then I personally wouldn't bother testing the pups if I could refer any Doubting Thomases to all 4 grandparents' DM test results.

 

[BHB]

I've hear the same thing. Clear by parentage.

BHB

 

[Kelly Greenwood]

I am that one person who might actually check just to be sure. My reasoning is that not every test is 100% because people are involved. Never know when the lab tech who has been partying all night is going to do a bunch of work with a hangover or the flu or has just gottne a call from their significant other and breaks up with them and distracts them just enough to make a simple mistake.
Having a friend with a CNM Clear and a CNM Carrier certificate on the same dog mistakes can happen. (Turns out the lab tech switched the results between two dogs and the only person that caught it was my friend because he did a second test when he tested for everything else later).

 

[Hunt'EmUp]

Hmmm I guess it depends on how much value you place on the particular test. I'm a lab person so I'd always recheck for EIC and CNM, because mistakes can be made and I want to ensure I have records of my own to go back to if people ask for them. Also EIC and CNM are a single allele two recessive gene = affected dog (very high percentage of showing condition) I've done reading on DM; I believe it's more of a grey test, as in even if you breed two carriers and produce a genetically affected dog, they still have a very high chance of never showing the disease (~12% if I remember). The early results were mostly from testing affected dogs, after death to determine if they had the disease very skewed, towards the dogs showing. Why would you test an older dog for the gene if they appeared to be normal. Basically all they know is that dogs determined to have this disease have two copies of this allele, however they don't know that this particular allele has anything to do with showing the disease. Such dogs could just as easy have two copies of several alleles, that could also make them prone to DM. Not sure I'd retest a clear by parentage dog for an uncertain test. We could test our dogs for a variety of things they have very low percentages of showing, to the point of being ridiculous. If OFA lists it, I'd call it good.