Pedigree dogs suffer from some 400 types of disease. Human beings are afflicted by about 4,000. About 90 per cent of dogs will not suffer health problems that have a detrimental impact on their quality of life – a figure that is improving.

The Kennel Club funds the development of health tests for pedigree dogs. The most common of these, hip scoring, has seen breeders invest £20 million in testing since the scheme began and the likelihood of dogs suffering from hip dysplasia has lessened significantly. More DNA tests are also being developed that will enable breeders to identify carriers and ultimately breed out disease.

Good health also comes from responsible breeding practices and the Accredited Breeder Scheme was developed to ensure the breeding of healthy, well-adjusted puppies. We welcomed the Imperial College research, which would have been impossible without our collaboration and which will help us to identify the genes involved in inherited disease in the future. These coefficients reflect many decades of dog breeding and today’s dog breeders have inherited the problem. However, it is clear from this research that the high inbreeding coefficients are not the result of breeders mating brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters etc.

We are optimistic that continued health testing and responsible breeding can help to rectify the problems that we have inherited, for the benefit of pedigree dogs. Caroline Kisko is secretary of The Kennel Club

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