Remember
- The family relationships demonstrated in these pedigrees are a “snapshot” of the situation as it pertained at the time of upload from the database. For the younger dogs these patterns will likely intensify in time – as more affected dogs are added (the connections will never dilute)
- The jigsaw of the incidence of VIP is incomplete. There is knowledge of only SOME of the dogs that are affected. There will be many others of which we are unaware. It is almost always the owners of affected dogs that come forward – breeders are rarely helpful
- The knowledge on the confirmed incidence of VIP goes back only to the late 1990s.That is why the familial trends become less clear in those early diagnosed dogs There are anecdotal reports going back to the 70s of dogs with the clinical signs that we now associate with VIP – but that historical data is not reliable enough to include in the pedigrees on this website
- There is little data of the incidence of VIP in the histories of IMPORTED dogs. It is only in the UK that the disease is being tracked. The imported dogs have helped enormously to reduce the inbreeding of UK vizslas (and that is good news) – but the use of an imported dog for breeding does not per se rule out the risk of producing VIP. Quite a few imported stud dogs now feature in the pedigrees on this website
- For some of the more recently diagnosed dogs the inheritance patterns are less clear. This is because it takes a generation or two for all the affected dogs to filter through – especially where there has been late onset of the disease process