Frustrated...

With the Dalmatian Club of America parent club. 

A little background:
Dalmatians are the only breed known to have high uric acid values.  They are born that way, nothing to do about it.  This in turn causes an incidence of urate stones to be formed in some.  No not all produce stones or have blokages, but some do. 

In the 70's a breeder figured out a way to try to eliminate the gene for high uric acid.  He chose to breed a single female Dal to a male Pointer.  This started the backcross project.  Since then breeders have continued to breed this bloodline to AKC registered Dalmatians to continue to get the normal uric acid gene.  They are averaging about 50% of the normal gene in all of the descendents thus far. 

The frustration comes in that these backcross dogs can not be registered with AKC or be shown.  They have already proved genetically they are Dalmatians, but the people against it doesn't think there is enough science/proof behind the backcross dogs to allow them to be registered.

My opinion.  Let me breed/own/show whomever I want to, backcross or not.  No one should be able to tell me that if I want to continue showing in AKC sports that I can't use them.  I want to be able to.  It is personal for me.

I've had a 5 week old puppy block from a stone.  Luckily we were able to massage it out, but it was hearbreaking!  A puppy we sold to someone has had to take out loans on their house to pay for the dogs medical bills because he has blocked from stones and had to have multiple surgeries.

And then there is Marlin.  No he didn't pass from stone disease, he passed from Kidney Failure.  But for dals with the high uric acid gene you're always told to make sure they drink tons of water, so we did.  What is one of the signs of kidney failure, drinking tons of water.  We possibly could have caught his horrible disease if I didn't have to make sure he was drinking water so much.  Then I would have noticed more that his water intake was elevated. 

I just want to be able to own/use whomever I want in my breeding program without someone telling me that I can't.  The people who are against it, well we aren't telling you that you MUST use these dogs in your pedigree.  But we want to. 

I think that if I could do it over again, I would have stayed an Animal Science major and worked with genetics more.