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Once a popular breed in the US, the modern Rat Terrier is the descendant of generic English terriers used to control vermin on farms. Said to have been crossed to breeds such as the Italian Greyhound, Beagles and Manchester Terriers in the 19th century, their popularity decline with the advent of modern rodent control - but the diversity in the breed has remained.

Link to Breed Standard

Rarely seen, but CHIC recommends testing for patellar luxation, cardiac abnormalities, pancreatic issues, hip dysplasia, and Legg–Calvé–Perthes. Dental disease may also be of concern.

The follow includes dogs with birthdates listed in the database.

DLA Haplotypes in the Breed

The Dog Leukocyte Antigen or DLA is the region in the canine genome that controls the immune system, among other things. There are three classes or areas, and the VGL Canine Diversity Test genotypes or records the two regions with the most variation. Because it is an area that mutates more rapidly than others, the method VGL uses is ideal for identifying specific combinations of DNA, and not merely showing whether a dog inherited two of the same sets of genetics from its parents or two different ones.

"Haplotype" is a generic name for a set of genes that are bound together and inherited as a set. The DLA Class I and Class II haplotypes are very tightly bound and represent about 2 million base pairs of DNA - a sizeable chunk. These two haplotypes together make an extended haplotype that is nearly always passed from parent to puppies as a pair. We therefore have two tables below showing both the combinations of DLA found in this breed and how often they appear, and also how often they appear individually.

Remember that frequency percentages do not show how many dogs carry them, but rather how many of these haplotypes exist in the breed as a whole. Every dog has two sets of DLA haplotypes, one inherited from dam, and one inherited from sire. These almost never recombine in new generations.

DLA Class I/Class II Combinations :

DLA Frequencies :

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