101 Dalmatians Golden Book

[Robyn Ruder]

Fordog owners, this could be an easy question to answer as Dalmatians are known for having extremely high energy levels. But that's not to say goldens are lazy; they are far from it. However, it looks like this one struggles to keep up with his spotty pal.

It is no secret that the Dalmatian is an active breed; in fact, it has been ranked as No. 2 on Purina's 'most energetic dogs' list. The pet-food company has said that the Dalmatians best suit a fitness-fanatic owner as they have a need to run.

Newsweek previously shared an article aimed to help dog owners understand how long a dog should walk based on their breed. Dr. Kelly Diehl, a small animal internal medicine specialist, spoke of what to do if a dog has walked too much.

"If you're hiking and you're 4 miles from the trailhead and your dog collapses, this is a serious problem," Diehl said. "As a veterinarian, I've seen dogs in the clinic who collapsed while exercising and it can be life-threatening. If your dog is tired, carrying the dog in a backpack or using a stroller might be necessary.

Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to li...@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.

Lucy Notarantonio is Newsweek's Senior Lifestyle and Trends Reporter, based in Birmingham, UK. Her focus is trending stories and human interest features ranging from health, pets and travel. Lucy joined Newsweek in August 2022 and previously worked at Mercury Press and Media and other UK national newspapers, the Australian Women Magazines and The New York Post.

My focus is human-interest stories ranging from relationships to health, fitness, travel, and home. I am always on the lookout for relationships that go against the "norm" such as age-gap ones along with incredible weight loss stories aimed to inspire and motivate others.

I think at the very beginning, Eiger was just very timid and scared. You know, he was a puppy and Rex is a 60 pound golden retriever. It was like hovering over him. There were things that we did on our end to try to like, create that bond. The training was one of the biggest things that solidified their bond are because Rex already knew basic commands. We would just show Eiger that Rex was doing them, and then Eiger started picking up on them quickly.

We don't yet know exactly why 60% of golden retrievers will get cancer. We know this is about twice the rate for other dogs and we know it is definitely genetic. What we don't know yet is which specific genes are involved.

We also don't know why golden retrievers from the U.S. are more likely to end up with a form of cancer called hemangiosarcoma. Or why golden retrievers from the U.K. are more likely to get lymphoma. (Genetics almost certainly explains most of this difference too.)

Undoubtedly we will one day know all of these things. Dogs within a single breed are so alike genetically that it should be possible to find the responsible gene(s). Unfortunately, this inbreeding is also why golden retrievers get cancer so often in the first place.

Of course inbreeding doesn't always mean an increased risk for cancer. If that were the case, then all purebred dogs would have around the same cancer risk. They don't. But most of them do have other breed-specific health problems related to their inbreeding.

The particular health problems a purebred dog has depends on its selected traits and what disease genes its founding ancestors were unlucky enough to have. The last part is called the "founder effect" and it happens in people too.

Basically the founding dogs of the golden retriever breed happened to have genes that increased their risk for cancer. Since all golden retrievers come from these founders and no new genes are being added to the gene pool, the cancer causing genes are recycled over and over in the population. For now, cancer is trapped in the golden retriever gene pool.

It isn't surprising that the ancestors of all golden retrievers had genes that increased their risk for getting cancer. Every animal (including dogs and people) have a few deadly genetic diseases lurking in their DNA. Two things keep us all from being riddled with those diseases though.

So to end up with a disease, both parents have to have a copy of the disease-causing gene version AND they both have to pass it down to you. This tends not to be very common unless the parents are related.

Related animals share more genes in common. This means that if they have kids, they are more likely to pass on many of the same gene versions including those that cause disease. The end result is increased risk for the diseases that run in that family.

Golden retrievers, like every other pure breed of dogs, undoubtedly started from a small group of ancestors. Some of these dogs had a version of a gene that increased their risk for cancer. They passed this risk down to their pups. And down to every generation to the present day.

Since dog breeds started from so few ancestors such a short time ago, all dogs within a breed are essentially related. In nature this problem is usually solved by breeding outside of the family. But this isn't possible if a dog is to remain a purebred.

As I hinted at in the previous section, an obvious answer to solving golden retrievers' cancer problems is to stop the inbreeding. Simply breed golden retrievers with other dogs and in a few generations, the risk should drop down to normal levels. Of course then you'd lose some of the traits that people want in a golden retriever.

Another possibility is to find the gene involved, find golden retrievers that lack the gene version that increases their cancer risk, and breed only those dogs lacking the problem gene. The new golden retriever breed would then only have the usual 33% chance of getting cancer.

This sounds great in theory but may not be possible in practice. First off, it may be that golden retrievers all have two copies of the gene version that increases their risk for cancer. If this is the case, then it may not be easy to find any golden retrievers that don't have the trouble gene.

A second reason is that the disease version of the gene might be involved in some trait that makes a golden retriever a golden retriever (think golden coat). If this is the case, then if you breed out the disease, you end up with a dog that isn't a golden retriever anymore.

Dalmatians are especially prone to kidney stones instead of cancer. Researchers found that all Dalmatians had two copies of the version of the gene that led to kidney stones meaning there was no easy way to breed it away.

Breeders tried to engineer a Dalmatian without the kidney stone version of the gene by breeding them with the closely related Pointer. Eventually, through lots of breeding back with Dalmations, they got a dog that looked very much like a Dalmatian that didn't suffer from kidney stones. Except that its spots were never quite right.

Further study showed that Dalmatian spotting depended on the version of the gene that led to kidney stones. Get rid of kidney stones and you don't have a true Dalmatian anymore. If something similar is happening in golden retrievers, it may not be possible to make a golden retriever less cancer prone.

What this all means is that even if breeders find the responsible gene, they may not be able to do anything about golden retrievers' increased cancer risk if they want to keep the golden retriever breed as is. Luckily for the dogs, having a gene version that increases your risk for cancer does not mean you will for sure get cancer.

This mutation can come from the environment. That's why sunlight and certain chemicals can cause cancer. So if an owner keeps a dog away from harmful chemicals and other mutagens, it can decrease the dog's chances for cancer. But it won't eliminate them.

Mutations can also happen by accident when our cells are dividing. Each time a cell divides, it has to copy its DNA. Cells are very good at copying their DNA, but they aren't perfect. The occasional mistake slips through.

Animals that are at an increased risk for cancer often have one of their growth genes pre-mutated. This means they need just one mutation to end up with cancer. This is why they tend to get cancer both more often and at a younger age.

Barry served as The Tech Geneticist from 2002-2018. He founded Ask-a-Geneticist, answered thousands of questions submitted by people from all around the world, and oversaw and edited all articles published during his tenure. AAG is part of the Stanford at The Tech program, which brings Stanford scientists to The Tech to answer questions for this site, as well as to run science activities with visitors at The Tech Interactive in downtown San Jose.

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