UU Selia

This is Fiacre N Aberdeen Seeing Is Believing - known to her friends as Selia (pronounced Seelia) She is one of only three Dalmatians in the world that are known to be Clear for hyperuricosuria. Clear is the scientific term for having two copies of a dominant gene. In this case the gene that controls normal breakdown of uric acid during metabolism of protein the dog's diet.

Most Dalmatians have a genetic mutation that interrupts the normal breakdown of the protein they eat. The defect results in a condition called hyperuricosuria (HU) which people also call High Uric Acid. Dalmatians with HU have two copies of the defective, gene mutation.

A Dalmatian breeder named Robert Schaible, who also happened to be a professor of medical genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine, developed a line of Dalmatians that have the normal gene. When Dalmatians with the Normal gene are bred to Dalmatians with HU some of the offspring will inherit the Normal gene and some of them will inherit the defective gene.

Pups that inherit one Normal and one defective gene and are called Carriers. They are able to metabolize protein normally but they can pass the defective gene to future offspring.

At this point in time the vast majority of Dalmatians are Affected with HU, approximately 50 Dalmatians are unaffected Carriers of the defect and three are Clear of HU. It will take decades of careful breeding before we see a significant reduction in the percentage of Dalmatians with HU. But progress is being made and each year more unaffected or Normal Uric Acid Dalmatians are born.

It is unlikely that HU will ever be completely eliminated in the Dalmatian breed because a considerable number of people whose primary interest is to producing Dalmatians that can win in the show ring feel that HU is a manageable condition and see no reason to change their breeding practices.

Selia"s pedigree can be seen at: http://www.geocities.com/fiacredals/ click on Selia