Silken Windhounds and scientific health research

The Silken Windhound is as of yet a small numbered breed.
As soon as it was possible to have DNA parental marker verification for dogs, ISWS decided to require DNA parental markers in order to register puppies of the Silken Windhound breed.

Thanks to the very long lives of Silkens, many of the breed Founders were still alive and could be tested when the DNA program began.
Genetic confirmation extending back many generations provides a totally confirmed genealogy, something that is absolutely unique to the Silken Windhound breed and can't be seen in any other dog breed.

This has caught the attention of the scientific community. Breeders and owners are used to and willingly participate in testing their dogs, making it even easier for scientists to get samples for their research from more or less the entire Silken Windhound population, world wide

The UC Davies University in California got wind of the Silken Windhounds when this breed participated in their MDR1 study.
They were so fascinated that they've chosen the Silken Windhound to be the first dog breed to get it's entire genome charted, in their phenome - genome project. It will be the first total mapping of a dog breed.

MDR1 is an old mutation that never caused dogs any problems until some of our more sophisticated medicines came along.
Silken Windhounds have been part of the research leading up to the tests for MDR1, tests that many, if not most Silken Windhounds alive today have done. The tests are not mandatory but the awareness of MDR1 in the Silken Windhound fancy would make it virtually impossible to sell puppies if the MDR1 status of parents were not known.

MDR1 stands for Multi Drug Resistance. The most known effect of MDR1 is that Collie and Shelties may die if treated with Ivomec, but the problem is much, much bigger than that...
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Lotus Syndrome
Some things can be found both in humans and in dogs. Lotus is one of them.

University of Pennsylvania researchers believe that the "lotus syndrome" found in our Silken Windhound population (as well as that of many other dog breeds) is the same disorder as "fetal akinesia deformation sequence" (FADS) in humans. Children with FADS show the same clinical features as the lotus pups, including the inability to breathe properly. While the exact cause for this disease is unknown at this time, several mechanisms have been proposed. We are willing to look at all of them in Silken Windhounds.
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Breeders and owners of Silken Windhounds are proud to have been approached by researchers in their efforts to learn more about not only canine genome, but also the association of that research as it relates to humans.

Page updated February 22, 2008