Chondrodysplasia (Dwarfism)

Originally diagnosed as a form of rickets, chondrodysplasia now has been determined to be an hereditory aliment involved with a simple recessive gene; both sire and dam must carry this gene in order to produce a chondrodysplastic puppy.

The condition is detectable only by x-ray before the age of six weeks. As the puppies grow it becomes more and more obvious that something is seriously wrong, because the legs become more and more deformed and seem not to grow in length.

Unfortunately, this disease can be passed on without the more obvious condition of warped limbs. Dogs can be perfectly normal looking in their appearance and still be carriers of the defect. Naturally dogs which show the defect as well as those who carry it without showing it should not be used for breeding. But when the dogs appear to be normal it is sometimes difficult to determine the carriers. Puppies bred from one normal (non-carrier) parent and a carrier will not appear to have the disease and will show no deformity. But some puppies from such breedings will be carriers through genetic inheritance of the gene from the carrier parent. And that number will remain unknown unless all the puppies out of the carrier and the clear dog breeding are themselves test-bred.

The continued breeding of possible carriers, obviously increases the number of carriers circulating in the breed, and it is this unfortunate situation that has allowed the malady to get such a foothold in the breed. Far too many breeders, knowing their stock carries this gene, breed anyways for commercial reasons, and they are responsible for the spread it has reached today.

In an effort to wipe out chondrodysplasia from the breed the parent club is requesting that owners of Alaskan Malamutes send a copy of their dogs pedigree to the American Malamute Club of America Master Plan Committee for study. The committee is, of course, in no position to determine from the pedigree alone whether or not the dog is a carrier, but will on the basis of the number of ancestors known to have produced chondrodysplastic offspring calculate the probability that the dog in question is or is not itself a carrier. The reliability of the mathematical computation depends absolutely upon the accuracy of the pedigree and the honesty of the breeders.

Through the efforts of this committee a substancial amount of information has been gathered to date to aid in determining the probability rating of Malamutes suspected of carrying the gene. The club advocates that a Malamute with a rating of 6.25% or less need not betest-bred, whereas testing is indicated if the rating is higher than that.

It must be pointed out that not every bloodline has been found to carry chondrodysplasia. In order to differentiate between those that don't and those that do the AMCA issues a certificate stating a particular line is genetically uninvolved with the disease.