Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Urinary stones in Dalmatians linked to inheritance risk
By Bannasch, D L et al.·Published in Journal of veterinary internal medicine·2004·College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Inheritance of urinary calculi in the Dalmatian.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of male Dalmatians aged 6 years or older was studied to understand why some develop urinary stones (calculi) while others do not, despite all excreting uric acid in their urine. The research found that about 34% of these dogs showed signs of urinary stones, and the condition appears to have a strong genetic link. This means that breeders can potentially reduce the occurrence of urinary stones in future generations by selecting breeding dogs that do not have this issue.
People also search for: Dalmatian urinary stones symptoms · why does my Dalmatian have urinary problems · genetic issues in Dalmatians
Abstract
Dalmatians are unique among dogs in that they excrete uric acid in their urine as the end product of purine metabolism rather than allantoin as do other breeds of dogs. Urinary calculi form from urate (salts of uric acid) and can cause urethral obstruction in male Dalmatians. Although all Dalmatians have the primary defect, only a subset develops clinical disease. We postulated that calculi formation might have a genetic component that segregates within the breed, causing some animals to form calculi and others to never form calculi despite excreting uric acid in their urine. We used a survey to ascertain the urinary calculi status based on clinical signs of adult Dalmatians aged 6 years or older, and we used pedigrees from these same animals to estimate the heritability of the clinical manifestation of urate calculi within the breed to be .87 (.75-.96). The prevalence of the disease was 34% (24.99-43.70%) among male Dalmatians in our survey. The high heritability of the disease makes it possible for breeders to effectively select against the disease.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15320584/