Making progress ~ pug health news

Remember a few posts back when I was complaining about the lack of health testing in pugs by pug breeders? Well check this out. There is now a test to see what pugs may be carriers of the gene that causes pug dog encephalitis. From the UCDavis website:

Approximately 1.2% of Pug dogs die of necrotizing meningoencephalitis (NME), also known as Pug dog encephalitis (PDE). NME is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system that is usually progressive and fatal. Symptoms of NME include seizures, depression, ataxia, abnormal gait and blindness (1). Female, fawn-colored Pug Dogs younger than 7 years of age are more apt to develop NME than older, male and non-fawn colored individuals (2). Recent research has revealed that susceptibility to NME is associated with the dog leukocyte antigen (DLA) region of dog chromosome 12 (3). The association is at or near the region containing the DLA class II genes. Dogs that have two identical copies of the NME associated markers in this region, have an observed risk (OR) of 12.75 for NME in their lifetime over Pugs that have only one or no copies of these markers (OR 0-1.08).

Here is the original site:

http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/PDE.php

And here is the link to purchase a test kit.

http://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/dog.php

Add this to the list of things that should be checked before breeding a pug. At least in the world according to me.