Question on Cryptorchids
 

Ok I, actually, am a long way about thinking of the possibility of breeding Beau ....but looking at "rule out" factors along the way...he does bring great hunt drive and some interesting old Danish lines to the table....but we have many many hoops to go through before getting serious.

His mother has never produced a cryptorchid
His father (who is normal) has, with a different female.

That means there is a chance that Beau *could* carry 1 copy of a gene for cryptorchid - I was told simple recessive; I read it may be polygenetic.

So my question - if one PARENT of a dog who has normal testicles has produced cryptorchid offspring, should the offspring of the dog (who has normal testicles) be pulled from the gene pool?

It is a decent general quesiton I think about other things where a dog may be a carrier of some undesired trait but you don't know whether or not they actually are. Obviously if you discovered they were through the process of breeding, you would strongly consider pulling them.

IMO, no.
If we eliminate from breeding every dog with a first degree relative who exhibits or produced a problem, even when the individual dog we're looking at is clear, we'd be out of GSDs to breed at all.

Since it's recessive, and BOTH parents have to carry the gene for it to occur, I'd say it's not a HUGE issue. Yeah, it's bad when it happens. You can't control everything, though. A VERY well respected repro vet who is well known doesn't feel that these dogs should be pulled from breeding. So it's actually not my opinion, I'm sharing his.

Would you pull a normal male known to produce cryptorchid offspring? (i.e., he has the gene?)

No to both questions. It is rarely a serious issue and you would be eliminating a huge portion of the population. IMO there are far worse things to worry about.

No - that is not enough to pull a male.

Depends - is he consistently producing cryptorchid testes even with different females? There are a few popular studs that produce this issue every so often - they are still being bred and used!

I was told that's not enough to pull it. He's only half the equation. This is Dr. Hutchinson, BTW. He's a very nice guy with a lot of knowledge!

Thanks for the insights. Information filed away.