A Selection Approach for Breeding Healthy Dogs

Abstract

Producing healthy working dogs capable of living life to its fullest potential is a primary goal of The Seeing Eye breeding program. While selection pressure has been applied for years to reduce the incidence of specific diseases, like hip dysplasia, no method has been used to specifically identify replacement breeders from the healthiest of family lines. A study was undertaken to assess the ability of a new selection variable to identify genetically healthy animals. This selection variable was defined by simply counting the number of Immune-Mediated Plus (IMP) medical diagnoses accumulated by each dog within a six-month period. The IMP variable was defined for a single dog as the number of occurrences recorded for 69 immune-mediated diagnoses plus 61 other somewhat related diagnoses that could imply an underlying genetic component related to disease expression.