UC Davis is conducting a DNA study on canine epilepsy. We (rather, all of my dogs living at that time) donated DNA for this project more than a year ago (New Year's Day, 2007) at the TRACS agility trial in Rancho Murrietta, CA. The friendly folks from UC Davis took blood from Bid, Chief, and Coal and took cheek swabs from Augie, Bid, Chief, and Coal (who was then just a baby puppy and very brave about the whole thing).
I just found out yesterday that Bid and Chief have made it into the study in the 90-dog-member (non-epileptic) "control group". It's too bad that Augie could not contribute blood to the project since he had experienced some seizures late in life, but at that time he was an unwilling participant in the blood drawing process and neither I nor the staff wanted to torture him at that time.
I don't know what will come out of all of this, but it's exciting to be a part of the ongoing research studies at UC Davis. The research staff will be mapping other traits, behaviors, and appearances besides canine epilepsy. They are even going to attempt to map the genetics for the type of spot that is on top of Chief's head!
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