Weatherbys Scientific partners with the Irish Kennel Club to offer canine genetic testing to Irish dog owners and breeders

February 28, 2018

Weatherbys Scientific has been selected by the Irish Kennel Club as the preferred provider of Genetic disease testing and parental verification for Irish Dog owners and breeders.

Weatherbys Scientific will offer Irish Kennel Club members an extensive menu of tests for genetic diseases, genetic trails and parental verification. The genetic disease tests are packaged into easy to navigate CombiBreed® packages for common breeds and the 10 FCI breed groups. Parental verification packages include the testing of one dog to a nominated dam and sire. Traits such as coat colour are available as a complete package that includes all of the genes that contribute to canine coat colour.  Samples for testing will be submitted directly to Weatherbys Scientific’s laboratory in Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland.

Speaking on behalf of the Irish Kennel Club, President Mr Sean Delmar said “Weatherbys Scientific’s long history of managing bloodstock in Ireland and the UK combined with their introduction of genetic services for dogs makes them the ideal partner for the Irish Kennel Club. We are pleased to be able to source these services in Ireland at an affordable cost and are confident it will help our members and societies in background confirmation and health profiling of the various breeds”

Speaking for Weatherbys Scientific, Head of Commercial Operations, Ian Sanders said, “We are delighted to be working with the Irish Kennel Club, we believe that we can provide an easily accessible range of genetic services with industry leading levels of customer care to Irish Kennel Club members”

About the Irish Kennel Club:

Our mission is to advance the health, breeding and sport of purebred dogs and promote responsible dog ownership.

Trustworthy – You can trust the Irish Kennel Club to keep our promises and to display behaviours that encourages others to place their confidence in us

Professional – The Irish Kennel Club will always act in a professional manner and will deal fairly with all its constituents

Dependable –The Irish Kennel Club is always there when you need us providing knowledge and expertise on canine matters

Transforming – Whilst respecting our heritage the Irish Kennel Club will seek and embrace new ideas to keep us relevant

Find out more at www.ikc.ie

About Weatherbys Scientific:

Weatherbys Scientific commenced parentage testing thoroughbred horses using blood typing technology in 1985, and established operations at a facility on the same site as the Irish Equine Centre in Johnstown, County Kildare, Ireland.

In 2000, the technology for parentage verification changed to Microsatellite DNA markers. We started offering parentage testing services for other species – bovine, ovine, canine, companion and exotics. As the level of scientific expertise developed in the business, so too did the suite of DNA based services offered, and in 2010 the laboratory commenced genotyping cattle using SNP technology. The team quickly developed a reputation for service and versatility and genotyped cattle using the Illumina 7k low density SNP chip in 2012.

Weatherbys Scientific’s reputation for service has been strengthening over time. Close relationships were established with the Irish Cattle Breeders Federation (ICBF) in 2012 and 2013, and the Weatherbys Scientific team collaborated, through a research project, in the development of a customised SNP chip (IDB) for dairy and beef breeds, genotyping 25,000 cattle/week (the largest program of its type in the world).

Weatherbys Scientific has achieved significant technical milestones – it is an institutional member of the scientific body of the International Society of Animal Genetics (ISAG) and it is also accredited by the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR). It is also approved with Propel certification by Illumina, and has been selected as an Illumina Beta testing laboratory for new technologies.

In January 2018 Weatherbys Scientific extended its portfolio to include genetic tests for companion animals offering genetic disease, trait analysis and parental verification of Cats and Dogs.

The CombiBreed® tests provided by Weatherbys Scientific are provided in collaboration with VHLGenetics.

Find out more at WeatherbysScientific.com/IKC

Find out more about CombiBreed® tests  combibreed.com/DNATests/CombiBreedDog

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