Mijke, I have a question, maybe naive, but I had classes in genetics only at school, and that was very long time ago.
Am I right assuming that if a carrier is matched with a carrier,
absolutely every pup born from this match is a carrier of the gene, only most of them do not simply develop the illness... ?
In that case there is no need to test parents and full sibilings of dwarfs, because they would be 100% carriers.
But there is definitely sense in testing first ONE parent of a carrier (if he/she's free, there is no need to test the other one) or/and half-sibilings of carriers, because some of them might have taken the gene after their carrier-mother or carrier-father and some not. Does my reasoning make sense?
I'm asking, because if breeders openly declared in which litters there were dwarf puppies born, some owners would not have to test their dogs to learn the positive results (ie dwarf+).
On the other hand I suppose sometimes it's hard to recognize the true reason of a very young puppy's death - it could be either dwarfism or some other genetic or inborn malformation.