Peer Reviewed

The handful of you who have followed my site during its short existance will be aware that I breed show dogs, and that I’ve been involved in scientific research into an eye defect in my breed, largely as a result of the gene infiltrating my line through a breeding to an unrelated dog some years ago. No, the research is not the inspiration behind naming the blog “small dead animals”, but there’s no denying that at times, it does take the “humour” out of the black humour originally intended.
Well, as of last month, I suspect I just might be the first professionally trained commercial artist to have a peer reviewed paper on opthalmology on her resume. While we haven’t found a dna test (still working on it), the disorder is clearly identified as an inherited defect, to help veterinary opthalmologists to recognize it for what it is, and help curb its spread through breeding recommendations.
By clearly establishing the mode of inheritance as simple recessive, and that the defect is present at birth, we’ve confirmed test-breeding to be a legitimate way to identify carriers and non-carrier animals. That’s progress in a practical sense.
Two dogs are now test bred as probable clears, a few have probabilities in favour of being clear, and many others retired from public stud before they could do significant damage to the gene pool.
The abstract. Published in the May issue of the AVCO journal of Veterinary Opthalmology, the full paper can be purchased here. (No, I don’t see any proceeds.)