Another thing to think about in our desperation for answers to genetically inherited disease: one gene doesn't cause just one thing, there are correlations and other factors, some which make no sense but are obvious by simple observation. Heart attacks in humans use to be attributed, or at least observed to be paired with "Type A" personalities. People who were go-go-go, driven to work hard &/or long hours. So doctors would "prescribe" those victims a slower pace, learning to find a less stressful lifestyle. I digress, but if we ever find the gene(s) responsible for DCM, what other factors are riding along with those genes? Good, bad or ugly, those genes are carrying along other traits in the Doberman. Just thoughts and rambling here...
In “The Origin of Species,” Charles Darwin writes about the fact that genes (not yet discovered or understood) carried code for more than one thing.
He talked of “whimsical” correlations:
“Some instances of correlation are quite whimsical; thus cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf; colour and constitutional peculiarities go together, of which many remarkable cases could be given amongst animals and plants.
“From the facts collected by Heusinger, it appears that white sheep and pigs are differently affected from coloured individuals by certain vegetable poisons.
“Hairless dogs have imperfect teeth; long-haired and coarse-haired animals are apt to have, as is asserted, long or many horns; pigeons with feathered feet have skin between their outer toes; pigeons with short beaks have small feet, and those with long beaks large feet.
“Hence, if man goes on selecting, and thus augmenting, any peculiarity, he will almost certainly unconsciously modify other parts of the structure, owing to the mysterious laws of the correlation of growth.”
In “The Origin of Species,” Charles Darwin writes about the fact that genes (not yet discovered or understood) carried code for more than one thing.
He talked of “whimsical” correlations:
“Some instances of correlation are quite whimsical; thus cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf; colour and constitutional peculiarities go together, of which many remarkable cases could be given amongst animals and plants.
“From the facts collected by Heusinger, it appears that white sheep and pigs are differently affected from coloured individuals by certain vegetable poisons.
“Hairless dogs have imperfect teeth; long-haired and coarse-haired animals are apt to have, as is asserted, long or many horns; pigeons with feathered feet have skin between their outer toes; pigeons with short beaks have small feet, and those with long beaks large feet.
“Hence, if man goes on selecting, and thus augmenting, any peculiarity, he will almost certainly unconsciously modify other parts of the structure, owing to the mysterious laws of the correlation of growth.”
