Am trying to find out if cleft palets can be down to genes.

Someone I spoke to had 2 cleft palet pups in her bitches first litter, then none in following litters.

Theres seems to be alot about a vitaminA imbalance and chemical exposure causing them but in regards to it being genetic and passed on i keep coming up with the phrase:


An hereditary basis for the disease is suspected for congenital clefts but the mechanism has not yet been determined. Any such genetic trait is thought to be multifactorial recessive, polygenic and dominant with partial penetration.

Does anyone know what this means?

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2 pugs Poppy-Mae and Lily-Lou and CKCS Daisy-Boo

It is certainly considered to be genetic, though its also thought that giving supplements (folic acid) to the bitch during the pregnancy can lessen the likelihood of having cleft palates. We have had 2 litters of pugs (11 pups in all) and never had a cleft. There are a few stud dogs in the UK who are known to pass on cleft palates in EVERY litter yet the owners dont tell anyone this so people who perhaps dont know the lines are left very disappointed when whole litters have had to be pts I certainly would avoid any dogs known to produce cleft palates.

Did you have some clefts in your litter? Which stud did you use, out of interest? PM me if you'd prefer

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Dogs: Riley, Maya, Delilah, DeeDee, Susie & Evie the Chi
Cats: Dylan (who is a GIRL! ), Oliver and Molly
Parrots: Summer, CJ, Ziva, James and Sweet Pea
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Reptiles: Stanley the Iguana

Hiya, can you past the source,...

it's a bit confusing that sentence:

literally it means:

multifactorial recessive: that is triggered genetically and from the environment (nutrition, an infection, whatever...) and it is recessive because ceasing the environmental stimuli, it will not re-appear

polygenic: as it depends from more than one gene

dominant with partial penetration means that it might be caused by a dominant variation at the allele level (or several variations where at least one of which is dominant) but that does not appear every time

this is my understanding, however if it's not enough i guess that some google-scholar or medline search can help further
hope this helps

best
D