Kris,

First of all, heartfelt sympathy for the loss of your little girl.

I quote below from the Dogenes site - the company that developed the genetic test for JRD. Essentailly they say (before this quote) that the only definitive diagnosis for JRD is by a biopsy where malformed cells 'fetal glomeruli' can be detected and this is the indicator for JRD. There is a wide range of symptoms from asymptotic individuals to the extreme causing premature death so it is not always noticed in dogs with hardly any symptoms. But these individuals are carriers in the breeding population and can produce affected offspring such as your lovely girl.

Now the Dogenes quote:
What you see is not always what you get. For those breeders that deny that JRD is a problem in their kennel, you would see it if you had done biopsies on you dogs.

Below is a summary of an article by Dr. Kenneth C. Bovee

In October of 2003, Dr. Kenneth C. Bovee from the University of Pennsylvania published his findings in the Shih tzu from a 10 year study involving 143 dogs and 52 matings. His findings clearly show that the majority of breeding stock had some level of fetal glomeruli, and estimates from this study indicated that the prevalence of this defect (meaning biopsy positive fetal glomeruli) was probably about 85% in the breed, however the actual clinical cases that manifested severe renal dysfunction was low.

Other critical conclusion from this 10 year study was that animals with a low percentage of fetal glomeruli could produce those with renal disease and even the breeding of 0% fetal glomeruli (biopsy negative) adults resulted in offspring with 1-3% fetal glomeruli. The apparent low incidence of disease was a danger to the breeding population as seemingly normal adults could go undetected in the breeding population, and produce clinically affected offspring. Further, while using biopsy data to try and control this disease in the breeding population limited to some degree the production of severely affected progeny, this was not entirely successful in eliminating the transmission of biopsy positive offspring from the parents.

Further Dr. Bovee speculated, based on these findings that the mode of inheritance was not a simple recessive, and could follow a pattern of dominant with incomplete penetrance.

Thus the development of a genetic test was imperative to control this disease in this breed as well as others.

So to the breeders of your dog (and all the rest of the breeders out there) I say If you don't test, you don't know. And if there is a dna test available for your breed, you are morally obliged to use it if you breed - otherwise you are storing up heartache and distress for someone who has bought a pup from you in good faith

The reason I am getting up to speed on JRA is that I breed Springers. There are 3 dna tests for ESS at the moment. But there seems to me to be a pointer, that if Cockers are prone to a condition then Springers may well be too because they originally came from the same stock. Cockers are on the affected breeds list for JRD so I was looking at what was involved to get mine tested - ESS are not on the affected list at the moment.

A full answer Kris, not to distress you further but to try to answer your question as the breeder has never had the problem.

Sgurr