Page 13 - Autumn 2024 Newsletter Online_Neat

HEALTH NOTES

Keeshond Health Matters Report for Autumn 2024
Anji Marfleet
The Kennel Club Keeshond Breed Health Coordinator

The Kennel Club are not releasing their ‘revised health updates' until
mid October.
Anji Marfleet

PHPT out of Tragedy

A Final Push for the New Test at Cambridge

By Jane Saunders

Many of you will know of my 20 plus This scheme brought the expertise of
year quest to help the research team the Canine Genetics Unit, then at the
to unlock the genetics of the PHPT Animal Health Trust, into our
gene that is specific to our breed, research. Fate has dealt the team
starting when my own dear Anni two blows, the first when the AHT
succumbed in 2002. went into liquidation and the second
when the Kennel Club removed
Throughout this time Barbara Skelly funding from the Centre.
has loyally supported us in this
quest. When the Cornell test was How lucky we are to have such
announced, our own UK research had talented and committed professionals
to be put on hold as the Kennel Club supporting our breed.
funding would not continue once the
test was announced in the USA. A few weeks ago, the information I
Thankfully vital samples were have always dreaded came to me
from Canada. A young female bred
retained and when the ‘Give a Dog
in Europe from negative by descent
a Genome’ scheme was launched
Barbara paid for a third sample to be parents had tested positive at
processed, giving us two positive Cornell. This should have been
PHPT sample genomes. impossible! I have all the data trail
for her status as negative by descent.
We must ask three questions: Is it a
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