Find me a dog without some genetic health issues in a pedigree and I'll call you a miracle worker or a liar. There is no doubts that there have been affected dogs in Nico's pedigree, his sibling was affected .. but because they are it doesn't mean he is. There are probably a handful of affected dogs out of hundreds in every pedigree. We test for what we can, sadly AF is not something we can test for.
With living creatures we can not make any guarantees, health problems can crop up whether they be genetic or not. All we can do is our best. I've had 10 litters and had AF sufferers in one litter, a litter well before Nico's time I hasten to add ... they were treated and made full recoveries.
Kiri's mother also had AF, we did not breed from Kiri choosing to go ahead through Krizzie instead. After some research Kiri's breeder had 4 litters from her sister Krystal. At the time the "Go-to" person with the geneticist Dr Malcolm Willis, I remember his words clearly. " Yes breed from the daughters, but do not repeat the mating that produced the affected animal." Of course this was 15+ years ago, times have changed and moved on, maybe research is different? But one thing he always said was ... "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!" Something when making decisions about breeding that we should always consider.
By the way it'll be 8 years tomorrow since I got Nico, he'd had a harder time than most rescue dogs. Thankfully he had a compassionate and kind breeder who went all the way to Belgium to bring him home. In 8 years he's been to a vet for two things ... when he had a grass seed embedded in his neck which caused an abscess and when he had a bald patch on his ear. Not bad going eh! (touch wood!)
