Health Report Final - Flipbook - Page 11
The Embark Project
At the 2023 AGM the membership voted for the WCSS to run a project with Embark to
DNA test 20 dogs to help gather data on gene c health of the breed. Through this project
20 dogs DNA were submi ed to Embark for analysis. Dogs put forward for tes ng were
aged from 6 months to 12 years with the majority below 5 years old, a variety of lines and
roughly equal numbers of each sex.
There has been a great response from other members of the Clumber community with
another 14 dogs from WCSS members being tested using the WCSS discounted tests
provided by Embark using the breed group discount (Please speak to Dr Lizzie if you would
like more informa on about these).
Another 22 dogs DNA results, working and show lines were submi ed to the Health
Advisory Panel from owners of dogs that had already been Embark tested giving a total for
56 dogs data to use in the project. These results spanned both working and show Clumbers
with some prominent working and show lines included in the data collec on.
NB Embark has tested around 85 Clumber spaniels (working type), so it is brilliant that the
Health Advisory Panel have a record of the more than half of those results.
One test submi ed to the project was unable to be used as the test showed another breed
present in its gene cs, this would have skewed the results, but we thank the owner for
their par cipa on.
A big thank you to all those who have provided results so far Please speak to the WCSS
Health Advisory panel or Dr Lizzie if you would like your results to be included in our data.
Results can be submi ed to embarktes ng.wcss@gmail.com
Overall, the results were very posi ve with the majority of dogs tes ng clear for over 250
different gene c diseases. No dog tested affected for EIC or PDP, though EIC Carriers were
seen, all those bars one had already been iden fied as puppies before going to their new
homes due to vigilant tes ng by breeders using a carrier dog in their breeding program.
NB (One senior dog tested as an EIC Carrier and had no status on the kennel club website
but was born and bred before the advised tes ng was brought in to affect in 2015, his
subsequent offspring were tested prior to breeding as was advised from 2015 onwards).
5
