Day Eighteen

Today's blog post is not going to be about cute puppy pictures. I want to talk a little about why I bred this litter. First, I want to explain what LUA in a Dalmatian means. For those of you who know all about this I am sorry if I am preaching to the choir. For those of you who are saying HUH right now please read on! What is hyperuricosuria? It is a mutation that is fixed in the Dalmatian breed. Fixed means that all Dalmatians have 2 copies of the mutated gene. Well almost all Dalmatians...there is one line of Dalmatians that carries the normal gene. There are not very many of them at this point in time but that is about to change! For the last 30 years many people wanted to keep the status quo but there were others that wanted to do something to improve the health of an already relatively healthy breed of dogs. In 1973 a geneticist, Dr Schaible harvested the normal gene from a pointer and incorporated it in his line of Dalmatians. Fast forward 38 years and many generations later we have a growing number of Dalmatians that are not at risk of forming urate stones.  Right now there are 8 Dalmatians in the world that carry 2 copies of the normal gene! A dismally small number I'm sure but that is 8 dalmatians that will not have and cannot produce dogs that will suffer from hyperuricosuria or high uric acid. There are quite a few Dals now that carry one copy of the LUA gene and they also will not produce urate stones however with only one copy of the gene they can produce puppies that can suffer from urate stones. Maks the father of this litter is one of the eight homozygous Dals in the world. I am thrilled to have been trusted with this wonderful dog.

So now to the reason I bred this litter. What we (a growing number of LUA proponents) are now in the process of doing is slowly spreading the gene throughout the general Dalmatian population. I say slowly because if it is done with out thought a genetic bottleneck could occur. I bred this litter to incorporate Maks's genes into my line of Dalmatians therefore the best puppy or puppies will be kept and places in situations where they will carry the gene into the next generation.

That said. I am pleased that I can offer male Dals that can live out their lives without the fear of blocking from urate stones! I say male but the same goes for females but female stone formers don't block the way males do.

I would be happy to answer any questions about LUA dogs.

My battery in my camera died so not so many pictures to share today. Below is Nancy who escaped and Emily, Kenny and Wade looking on.

 Growing!

 Lila my liver LUA girl trying to talk Bizzi into letting her in with the puppies while grandfather Garrett looks on