A Conversation with Lisa Shaffer, Founder & CEO of Paw Print Genetics

Watch our webinar with Lisa Shaffer, Founder & CEO of Paw Print Genetics:

About Good Dog:

Good Dog is on a mission to build a better world for our dogs by educating the public and advocating for dog breeders. We are a young, tech-savvy company with an online community that educates the public, supports breeders, helps people connect directly with responsible breeders who have passed our screening and comply with our standards, and promotes responsible dog ownership.

Our goal is to use technology as a force for good and empower the good forces in the dog world with technology – to be a voice and platform for dog breeders, to counter the extremist propaganda, and change the conversation so the public realizes how critical it is to support and recognize breeders. We’re free for breeders (breeders also can’t pay to be listed) and provide support (legal, tech, breeding), and discounts on health testing.

Transcription

Cat Matloub [00:04] I think we can go ahead and get started. Thank you, everybody, for joining. For the folks who are new to these webinars or who are not Good Breeders or Good Dog members yet, we like to host these webinars on a weekly basis, to basically help have discussions and conversations around things like physical health of dogs, mental and emotional health of dogs, and really anything to do with breeding practices or breeding programs, how we can help, and how we can all have these conversations together—take this unfortunate Covid-19 situation as an opportunity to actually maybe even connect a little more, in some ways. We’ve been really, really pleased and so fortunate for great guests and great attendance, so thank you all. A huge, huge thank you to Lisa Shaffer, who is joining us today. Lisa, as I’m sure you all know, is the founder and CEO of Paw Print Genetics and comes from an incredibly successful background in human genetics, which is such an incredible story—to have taken that expertise and apply it to giving our dogs a better world. It’s so in line with a big tenant of ours—and a big part of our mission—which is improving canine health and hoping to improve standards overall, across the board, and working together to develop those best practices, and as they continue to prove, to have those standards in place. Paw Print Genetics is such a phenomenal example of doing exactly that and really putting in place standards and helping breeders have better practices and healthier dogs. It’s really incredible, so we’re so grateful and so appreciative of Lisa’s time. I’m really excited to have a conversation. Judi Stella is our Good Dog Head of Screening and Standards, so she’ll ask Lisa some questions after Lisa does a little background about herself as well. And then we’d really love to have this be as interactive as possible. Please ask questions in the chat or in the Q&A. We’re excited to dive into genetics with you guys. Judi, do you want to take it away?

Judi Stella [02:39] Hello, everyone! Thanks for joining us. As you all know, we do focus pretty heavily on the health of our breeding animals. We make sure we have all of our breeders understand and screen for all possible health problems that have been identified within the breed. We do have these levels that we’ve created, and we include genetics along with phenotypic testing and screening (where applicable) so we can decrease the risk of inheritable diseases in our populations. We do believe at Good Dog in an inclusive approach, so we do have these three different levels. We have our entry level, which is the Good Level, which typically is the most prevalent and severe condition that’s been identified in the breed, and we make sure that all dogs are screened for that. And then they increase up to our Excellent Level, which goes above and beyond and pretty much tests for everything that’s been identified in the breed. So, some breeds have more genetic tests that have been identified or conditions that’ve been identified that we have tests for than others do. But we do think it’s really important to make sure it’s included in screening processes. With that background, I would like to introduce Dr. Shaffer and have her give a little bit of her background in genetics and how she came to be the founder of Paw Prints. 

Lisa Shaffer [04:10] Thank you, Judi. First of all, thank you to Good Dog for having me here. I’m very excited to be able to do this. It got me out of my regular routine and into real clothes today, so that’s good! I’m the founder and CEO of Paw Print Genetics. I have a PhD in human genetics. I got my degree at the Medical College of Virginia, in Richmond. I ran human genetic testing laboratories for many years. I was at Baylor College of Medicine for almost twelve years, running one of their genetic testing laboratories, and then I moved to Spokane, Washington. The reason why I moved to Spokane, Washington was (first of all) I grew up near Spokane and wanted to get back home, wanted to raise our kids here in Spokane. But also I had developed a technology in my research program. My research program was looking at the genetic basis of developmental disability, and we developed a technique that we wanted to apply to human genetic testing and so, in order to do that, I really felt I had to be outside of the university setting. I started my own company called Signature Genomic Laboratories. So that was my first company. That company was acquired in 2010. By 2012, I was feeling rather restless and feeling like I really wanted to try another company, and I knew I wanted it to be something in the genetic space. I had always enjoyed doing a little bit of animal genetics. So, I was very lucky as a human geneticist; I got to work with the San Diego Zoo, both at Baylor and at Signature Genomics. We used to do genetic testing on some of their primate samples. That was super cool. But in thinking about a new company, I realized that zoos always wanted to have that done for free. They didn’t want to pay for it. And I had to be able to pay my employees to do the work, so I thought: What’s another area that I could get into? And I thought about companion animal testing. In 2012, I took samples from one of our dogs—Trixie the Weiner Dog, who’s our spokesdog for Paw Print Genetics—and I took samples from Trixie the Weiner Dog, and I sent them to all of the existing laboratories at the time. This was in 2012. 

I kept a really thick notebook, keeping track of what I felt were all the gaps in the industry. If I felt that breeders and dogs were being well taken care of already, I would have figured out something else to start as a new business. But I actually identified a lot of gaps. I put together a business plan, and I thought that we (myself and a couple of other people from Signature Genomics that had been with me for many years) could do better than what was currently out there. 

Some of the gaps that we identified: Obviously Trixie the Weiner Dog is a Dachshund, and in order to get all the tests that I needed done on Trixie, I would’ve had to have sent to several different laboratories. So back in 2012, there were many labs, and some of these labs had been around for 20 or 25 years, but they only had a handful of tests. As a geneticist, I know that DNA is DNA, and if you’re going to send a sample to a lab, why doesn’t that lab just do everything? That was the first thing we set out to do, one of the gaps we wanted to fill. We wanted to have one of the largest menus possible, to offer genetic testing for all different breeds. The second thing I noticed is that you had to figure out for yourself (a lot of times) what to order your dog. We set up breed-specific pages and breed-specific panels. Some dogs, such as the Labrador for example, have 18 different tests that are available through Paw Print Genetics. But some of those are really, really rare and some of those are really, really common and some—even though they’re rare—you really want them because they’re severe. So we put together panels based on both whether a mutation was common in the breed and whether or not it was severe, a severe phenotype that you would want to avoid. If you’ve ever been on our website, you’ll see that for some breeds, such as the Labrador who has a lot of different tests, we’ve divided the tests between an essential panel (which we know are the most common and/or severe conditions in the dog). We feel that dogs that are going to be bred should at least be screened for the essential panel. And then we have supplemental panels. And then we have additional diseases. Supplemental panels are the rarer conditions, and the additional diseases are typically (but not always) newer diseases, where we really don’t know the prevalence of that disease in the breed. So we don’t really know if it should go on the supplemental panel or whether it should go on the essential panel. 

A lot of people ask me, “If something’s so rare, why do you even offer it?” And the reason is because breeders are not the only ones who use our services. We provide testing for a lot of veterinarians, so a veterinarian is more likely to see a rare disease in a dog, and that veterinarian needs a way to be able to confirm their suspicions or their diagnosis that they’re trying to make in a dog—so that’s why we offer everything. We really try to make it easier for breeders to figure out what to order, because for some breeds (like I said), there’s a lot to choose from. 

Finally, one of the other things where I think we’re different is that we’re very inclusive. So, whether you agree with it or not, people are making mixed-breed dogs, and we feel very strongly that we want every dog to be healthy. So we’ve tried to put together panels for some common mixed-breed dogs, so you’ll see that as well, whereas we found that back in 2012, some of the laboratories would only accept AKC pedigree dogs for testing. Again, we want every dog to be healthy. We want every breeder to have the opportunity to do genetic testing, if they choose to do so. And then, finally, it’s becoming more common now that you can place orders on websites, and you can have accounts at different laboratories, but we were really the first to offer online accounts and being able to order online and basically streamline things—bring it into the 21st century, as far as testing for dogs. 

That’s really, back in 2012, how we were different. One of the things that we did identify early on which, as a human geneticist, really scared me is that it really seemed like it was sort of the Wild West out there, as far as laboratories and what they were doing—because there were no standards and guidelines. I approached other laboratories to find out what standards and guidelines they were using, and they didn’t even know what I was talking about. That’s because I come from human diagnostics. Human genetic testing is a highly regulated industry. Everyone doing human genetic testing follows the exact same protocols. We were used to having surprise inspections. You never knew when the inspector was going to show up. We had to have quality manuals. We had to be following our quality manuals. There were huge checklists that the inspector would go through to see if you were following good, standard practices. There were no good, standard practices in canine genetic testing back in 2012. So when we started Paw Print Genetics, we implemented human genetic testing standards. It was a large undertaking, but it was really all we knew how to do. Coming from that highly regulated environment, we only knew how to offer this highly accurate testing. Our rationale was—beside the fact that we only knew how to do it one way and that is best practices—for many people, their dogs are their family. They are their children. If we have standards for pediatric genetic testing in children, why wouldn’t we have standards for testing our dogs? Paw Print Genetics implemented these standards, and we wrote our quality manual, and—just like in human testing—we had to live by it, as if an inspector would show up any day. We called the state of Washington, where we’re located, and we actually asked them if we could get into an inspection program. They laughed at us. They said, “No. You’re veterinary testing. We don’t inspect veterinary labs.” And I said, “Well, you should. Or at least think about it.” We had to govern ourselves and make sure, every year, we review our quality manual to make sure that we are living these standards. 

Fast-forward to about 2017. We were in business for about four years. It became apparent to us that although we had implemented these standards, nothing else had really changed in the industry. We were finding a lot of mistakes. People were coming to us after testing, perhaps, with another laboratory. They get a result that doesn’t make sense. For example, they have a known carrier, and they’re breeding it to a clear, and now half their puppies come back as at-risk or affected with two copies of the mutation. Well, all of you listening know that if only one parent carries for it, you can’t have puppies that have two copies of the mutation. So we would end up having to resolve a lot of these cases. We still resolve a lot of these cases. People come to us to try to figure these things out. In 2017, I started approaching other laboratories and saying, “Let’s get together. Let’s write standards and guidelines that canine genetic testing laboratories can live by.” So we did that with the few labs that decided to join us. These standards and guidelines are free on our website. There’s a link where you can go and download the standards and guidelines, if you would like to have them. They’re open-access. But basically VetGen (here in the United States) joined us in writing these standards and guidelines, as well as Feragen (who is in Austria) and Animal DNA Diagnostics (which is in the UK). So the four of us got together and wrote standards and guidelines. They were published in the fall of 2018 and became freely available in 2019, after we published our checklist for laboratories. We published a follow-up checklist for laboratories in the hopes that more labs would adopt these standards. The checklist is a very nice way to just go through and see what you are following, versus what you can improve. The whole purpose of standards and guidelines in human genetic testing was to identify what we call deficiencies. Where are there areas that you could improve your practices, to improve better outcomes, meaning fewer errors? That’s why we created the checklist.

Judi Stella [17:02] That’s great! That’s really interesting to see how you translated from the human side into the animal side to make it more valid, to have more validity around our testing. Now we’ve got this really great history about what it is and now that you’ve got them published and everything—can you tell us a little bit more about what is included in those standards and how that impacts the validity and decreases mistakes in the testing?

Lisa Shaffer [17:30] Yes! We wrote the standards in the hopes that any laboratory—no matter what level they were currently at—could fulfill some of these areas that we felt needed to have some guidelines. What I’m trying to say is that there’s a minimum standard for everything, and there’s a desired standard for everything. We hope that most laboratories can fulfill the minimum standard, and if not, they will make changes in their processes or in their facilities, so they can meet the minimum standards—with the hopes that over time, they strive to meet the desired standards. There’s two levels to every standard. The standards cover things like personnel. What sort of personnel do you have in your laboratory? We want to make sure that someone has a medical director. So the minimum standard is you have a medical director in your laboratory who’s a veterinarian. They can be a consultant. The desired standard is that they’re actually on staff and they’re available to talk to your customers. That’s one example. Personnel. 

Facilities: People don’t think about how genetic testing is done, but when you do genetic testing, you have to have an area for sample receiving that’s different from the area where you do the testing. You want to keep them separate, and you want to have protocols that follow that sample throughout the lab, so when your client calls and says, “Where are my results?” we know exactly where it is in the testing process, and we know—provided that everything continues to go well—about when it’s going to be completed. You’re able to follow a sample through the lab. So you need to understand your facilities, you need to have areas to keep certain samples separated. We have a minimum and a desired standard for quality practices within the lab, such as: How do you handle samples? How do you discard samples? How do you handle the DNA after you’ve completed the testing? Because we have a lot of people who want to screen for one test they know one of the parents is a carrier for, but they’re thinking about keeping a puppy back. First, they’ll screen for degenerative myelopathy, for example. And then once they have a clear puppy, they’ll want to test that puppy for additional tests—maybe colors, maybe other diseases. We have to be able to find that DNA, and it has to be labeled properly so we know we’re pulling the correct DNA and we’re doing the right tests on the right dog. Again, those are the kinds of standards that are written in this document. 

The other standards are for the consumer. You need to have protection for our clients. There’s several areas where we want transparency to the consumer. The laboratory must be willing to provide education, either through a webinar like this, or on their website, through blogging, or even when you click on the test, there should be additional information about the test. Is it a recessive disease? Is it a dominant disease? Maybe it’s even X-linked. What does that mean? If it’s X-linked, will my females get the disease? We could talk about those sorts of things later on. But that’s the kind of information you find on our website because it’s important that the customer or the client or the breeder is informed when they order testing. We actually have a written policy regarding people ordering correct tests. So, for example, if you need a PRA test done in your Labrador, you go on our website. You search PRA, very unfortunately the first thing that comes up is for Papillons, because it’s called PRA-1. We look at every single order, and we try our best (through our protocols) to identify when someone has ordered the wrong test. Because when we see a Labrador get ordered for PRA-1, well, that’s for Papillons and it’s a waste of money. It’s a waste of time for the breeder, and the information will not be helpful to them. So we will then contact the client and we say, “We see that you ordered PRA-1 for Papillons in your Labrador. Is this something that you really wanted? Maybe you’re going to breed a Labrador to a Papillon, or maybe it’s an error.” It’s always an error, in that particular example. Then we’ll fix it for them, because it’s very important that we’re ordering the appropriate tests for their dogs. We want the information—once they get the information back—to be meaningful and actionable and having the PRA mutation only found in Papillons done in a Labrador is not meaningful and not helpful. 

We have standards regarding reporting: what needs to be on your report. We have standards regarding: How does the lab develop tests and validate the tests? And we have standards that laboratories should be required to provide genetic counseling. It’s not enough just to offer testing. We need to be available to make sure that clients are ordering the appropriate test at the beginning, and when they get those results, we want to make sure they understand them. What’s the point of having genetic information if you don’t understand how to use it? That’s what genetic counseling is all about. 

Judi Stella [23:15] That’s great. We agree with everything you’re saying. We actually encourage people to get genetic counseling so that they really understand and can incorporate the results into their breeding program. We don’t want them to just do the test for the sake of doing the test—getting their badge on our platform. We really want them to incorporate it, to breed healthier dogs as we go along, so that’s really great. 

Okay, so you’ve got the checklist for the laboratories and why it was developed. And then you did publish it in a peer review journal, right? Why was that important, to get that information out there?

Lisa Shaffer [24:01] Exactly. It’s just for that: to get information out there. We also have research that we do here. We’re looking for the causes of epilepsy in Chinese Crested dogs. We’re looking for the causes of the Straight-Leg Syndrome in German Shepherd dogs. We have research projects going on here, and when we find (and we will) those mutations, we will publish them. By publishing the results, it allows other laboratories to develop the tests as well. This is all part of the standards and guidelines, that genetic mutation should be published in the literature so that other laboratories can offer the tests. The reason you must do this is for the dog. If a customer uses a lab and that laboratory is the only one that offers that test, and you get a result that doesn’t make sense for that dog or you’re concerned that it isn’t correct, you have no option for a second opinion. This, again, goes back to the human standards. There is no human genetic test now that is only offered by one laboratory. You could always get a second opinion. The perfect example is the breast cancer test, that Myriad Genetics used to be the only one that could offer it because of patents. Now, since that patent was found to be invalid, almost every genetic testing lab for humans offers the breast cancer test. So women can get a second opinion! You don’t want to undergo a mastectomy if you haven’t had a second opinion, right? It’s the same for your dog. You don’t want to euthanize a dog because you’ve been told it has a lethal condition that’s going to continue to get worse and not have the ability to get a second opinion to make sure your dog really has that before you euthanize them. So we feel very, very strongly that every mutation out there should be peer reviewed and published in the medical literature. Sure, it allows other labs to develop it and sell it, but so what? Seriously. It’s about the dogs. 

Judi Stella [26:18] Do you have any examples of anything that you have found, just because we’re curious—anything that you’ve actually found?

Lisa Shaffer [26:25] So, we seem to pick the really hard stuff. We have not yet published any mutations, but we certainly do publish. So we published a really nice paper on merle testing in Australian Shepherds and related breeds. We feel very strongly about publishing and getting our information out there. As soon as we get those mutations, we will publish them, because it’s so important.

Judi Stella [26:52] Do you think epilepsy is going to be complex, or do you think it’s going to be a simple one in that breed?

Lisa Shaffer [26:57] Oh no. It’s not simple. We have very high expectations that we will get the Straight-Legged German Shepherd mutation. But the epilepsy in the Chinese Crested—the problem is that there could be many causes of epilepsy, and so when you have what’s called a heterogeneous group of dogs (heterogeneous meaning there’s more than one cause) but we’re looking for one cause, it sort of muddies the waters and makes it really hard to find the mutation. We’ve had some pretty good success with that project, but it is ongoing and we are looking for more Chinese Crested dogs that have epilepsy so we can confirm some of our findings. So if anyone out there has these dogs, please contact me because we are accepting more samples for that. 

Judi Stella [27:47] So we’ve had a couple of questions, just while we’re on this. There was a question about Portuguese Water dogs in the EOPRA and the PRA testing. Is there a test for PRA in that specific breed?

Lisa Shaffer [28:05] I don’t want to move away from this because I’m afraid I’ll close you out, but if it’s not listed on our website, it’s unlikely that that mutation has been found. People with those specific questions can always contact us, because we have a fairly long list of about 70 tests that we have validated and will be launching over the next few months. So, that could be among those. Please feel free to email us and ask us that. We just launched six new tests this morning, so these are coming out in little droplets—much slower than I would like. But again, we’re all about quality. We need to make sure that when we offer a test, it truly accurately identifies the mutation. That’s one thing I forgot to touch on when it comes to minimal and desired standards. The minimum standard is that you have one test, and you have shown that it accurately detects the mutation. The desired standard ( all Paw Prints Genetic tests meet the desired standard) is we have two independent tests—two different methods—that will detect that mutation, and every dog that’s tested by us gets both of those methods. We only report it when both methods show the same genotype in the dog, whether it’s clear, carrier, or at-risk/affected. That’s the desired standard. There’s very few laboratories out there that meet the desired standard. But again, that’s the human standard. You are not going to take a baby off life support unless you very well know that that is the correct diagnosis, and we feel the same way about dogs. When you get something done at Paw Print, it might take a little bit longer, but just keep in mind we’re doing those two independent tests to verify the results, so when we report it to you, it’s accurate. 

Judi Stella [30:02] Great! Let’s continue on with what we were talking about, with the standards and guidelines. What is hoped to be gained by providing all these standards and guidelines and this uniformity in testing? What is the ultimate goal? The gold standard is my understanding of it, correct?

Lisa Shaffer [30:21] Right. It’s the standard, though, that we want every laboratory to achieve. We recognize that there’s going to always be other laboratories out there, and I think it’s great that breeders have choices, because you can get second opinions, right? If someone has a concern with a result from us, where do they go? We can’t recommend most of the other laboratories because they’re not using these standards and guidelines. So, an example is we offer a clear by parentage program. The only time we will clear your puppies is if you did both the mother and the father with us, because we can’t trust that the results from other labs are correct. So if someone does the sire with us but they did the dam with another lab and they’re like, “I want to get cleared by parentage on all my puppies,” we can’t do that because we have no way to verify that the mom’s results are correct. Our goal is that as more labs adopt the standards and guidelines, and if we requested, “Let me see your checklist from 2019” and they could show it to us, then we would feel more comfortable having our clients maybe do some of their dogs in one lab and some with others. We would feel more comfortable trusting the other results. Our goal is to increase the accuracy in the entire field. We hope that we’ve set the bar not so high that others can’t do this. I mean, we’re able to do it. Other labs are able to do it, such as Pherogen in Austria. We hope that everyone can do this. It’s the right thing to do for the dogs. 

Judi Stella [32:16] So, what is it important to select the lab that has adopted the standards and guidelines? I think we just answered that, right? Because they’re the most valid tests then.

Lisa Shaffer [32:30] Well, the standards and guidelines help a laboratory ensure that they are producing accurate results. Period. Part of the standards and guidelines also discusses the fact that your send-outs should be minimal. So, for example, Paw Print has a very large menu—probably the largest menu of any laboratory. Sometimes another lab actually sends samples to us, because they want to offer that test but they have not developed it and validated it. If you are sending samples out to another laboratory, the only way you’re really going to know that they have good quality is to request their checklist that follows the standards and guidelines. And I’ll tell you that Paw Prints Genetics follows the checklist, but we can’t check every box. We check 90-some percent of the boxes, but we have a couple of things we’re still working on—and that’s the whole point! The whole point is for laboratories to develop a protocol where they are improving. Every day. Every month. Every year. We all have areas that we can improve. The other point of the checklist is to force—if I can use that word—other laboratories to be transparent with their customers. There are other sellers of genetic tests that don’t even have their own laboratory. They send all of their tests out. If they send all of their tests out, there is no way they can receive the quality that’s being done on those samples. I’m not saying that you can’t send your tests out. I’m just asking, through the standards and guidelines, that there’s transparency to the consumer—that the consumer understands when they send a sample to that company’s “lab,” it’s actually not even going to a lab that they control because they send everything out. This is where we really feel very strongly about transparency. 

Cat Matloub [34:42] I just have to say it’s just so awesome and really a couple of the tenants of Good Dog and things that we strive for, in terms of having a road map—showing people steps that they can take to always be improving and always be learning and having different stages to work for. Minimums, but you’re still working, and it’s always going to change, and we’re always going to want to improve upon even what the excellent standard is. And the transparency element as well! I just think it’s really incredible, really admirable, and so hugely helpful to insights into canine health, because in order to be able to get those from the genetics, you have to be able to rely on the genetics. I think it’s extraordinary.

Judi Stella [35:30] We always have lots of questions about how the genetics world works, like how are the companies ranked, how are they different. Is it just in the tests that they offer? This is really interesting to me because there is a lot of concern that maybe the tests aren’t as accurate as they should be. How reliable are they? People are making breeding decisions, so this is really interesting because it’s the behind-the-scenes, how the world of canine genetics works. It’s very interesting. 

Lisa Shaffer [36:06] What’s really nice about the standards and guidelines is it doesn’t care what method you use. So there are many different kinds of genetic methods to look at mutations. In fact, Paw Print has at least five or more (I lose track) different methods. Because all sorts of things can happen to DNA. You can have one tiny base pair change. You know, the ATCG that you’ve heard about? Well, one of those little letters in the DNA can change. But you can also have big chunks of DNA missing, and that’s called a deletion. You can also have a big chunk of DNA that’s been added to a gene, and that’s called a duplication or an insertion. So there’s all these different things that can happen to DNA. You need to have different methods in order to investigate them. What’s really nice about the standards and guidelines is it doesn’t matter which method you use; you can still follow the standards and guidelines to improve your accuracy. 

Judi Stella [37:13] I know this is part of the standards because I was reading your papers earlier today, but we did have a question: Do you keep the genetic material in every animal? So, can I do another test on a dog that has already been tested previously in your lab? Can you speak a little bit to what samples you can run the genetics on (because I know your lab has several samples; it’s not just a cheek swab) and also how long do you keep those for? So, if they want to add a test, how long could they do that?

Lisa Shaffer [37:44] All of that is in the standards and guidelines, which we follow. The DNA, once it’s extracted from the sample, is retained indefinitely. It doesn’t necessarily always work seven years later, but we still have it. If the dog is deceased, as long as the customer understands that if they want us to go ahead and try that DNA, we will certainly do that for them, but we do talk to them about the fact that the DNA is pretty old. DNA, when it sits around, we keep it in a buffer that it likes to be in, and we keep it in the refrigerator, which also helps with degradation. But DNA can break down over time, so we talk to our customers about that, but we keep the DNA indefinitely. And then if you send us a tissue sample, such as a docked tail or a postmortem sample (perhaps tissue from a dog that’s died), we try to keep that for , I think, at least two years. I’d have to go back and look at the standard, but we follow the standard. And so we can always go back to that tissue as well. We save bloods as well. So we have a lot of storage capacity in our lab, because we do have people who want to come back and test their animals. We do have people who, unfortunately, their dog has died but they still have a semen sample. So we will test DNA on semen samples, but those are really precious samples. If you only have one straw left, what’s the point in using it for DNA testing, right? So, a lot of times we’ll go back to another sample that (hopefully) is still viable in the lab, so that they can save that semen sample and use it for AI. 

Judi Stella [39:36] I think you touched on why it’s important to select a laboratory that does its own testing, so is there anything else you wanted to add to that—rather than sending them out? 

Lisa Shaffer [39:48] Again, that’s sort of on the lab side, and it’s all about transparency to the consumer. I would just encourage breeders to know their labs. Just get to know your laboratory. Who are the directors? Who’s the medical director? What is their background? Do they employ geneticists on site, like we do? Do they have genetic counseling available? Do they run their own laboratory? If they don’t, who are they sending to and do they know about the quality standards of who they send to? Is all testing performed in-house? I can tell you every test that’s offered by Paw Print Genetics is performed in Spokane, Washington, in our laboratory. Those are the kinds of questions that you should be able to ask a lab, and they should answer you. It’s not a big secret, right? Asking, “May I speak to your medical director?” It’s not a big secret who the medical director is! And you should have access to that individual. 

One of the things that I did want to touch on that we haven’t talked about is genetic screening versus diagnostic testing. This is something we talk about in both the publications for the standards and guidelines and the checklist, and we discriminate between genetic screening and diagnostic testing, based on the human standards. So in human genetics, you have diagnostic testing, which means you need to have two pieces of evidence before you do something irreversible. So, a diagnostic test: You have a baby in the hospital. The baby is on life support. You need to have a diagnostic test where the laboratory has looked at two independent pieces of evidence before that baby is taken off life support, for example. So it’d be the same if you were going to euthanize a dog. Irrevocable decisions arethings like euthanasia, spay/neuter, and even breeding! You should be getting a diagnostic test if you’re going to breed that dog, because you might be producing puppies that are now at risk for some condition. As a breeder, you’re standing behind those puppies. Some of you give a guarantee for a year. Some of you give guarantees for two years or maybe even for the life of the dog. You need to really know and trust that genetic testing. So, diagnostic testing is meeting the desired standard, where the laboratory tests your DNA on your dog twice with two independent methods before reporting the results. A genetic screen is just like it sounds. It’s a quick test. It’s done with only one method, and it can provide you a lot of information. We actually offer a genetic screen. It’s called the Canine HealthCheck. The Canine HealthCheck is a product of Paw Print Genetics. The Canine HealthCheck is done here, in Spokane, Washington. But the Canine HealthCheck—and we are very transparent about this on our website—is a genetic screen with one method. If you feel like you need that diagnostic test, then you can get a confirmation at Paw Print Genetics. Let’s say our Canine HealthCheck customers do the genetic screen and they find that their dogs carry for something. If they want to confirm that, that can be done at Paw Print Genetics. We already have the DNA. And we can do it at a reduced price, to give them that diagnostic test before they decide to spay or neuter. We believe in the Canine HealthCheck. It’s a really good product. It has 99% accuracy, so a really high accuracy. You should be able to trust those results. It’s just that Paw Print goes the extra step, and Paw Print Genetics has 99.9% accuracy. If any laboratory has 100% accuracy, then they don’t understand how to calculate accuracy. Because in genetics, nothing is 100%. But Paw Print has the highest accuracy possible and only because we do these two independent tests. 

Judi Stella [44:15] That was actually going to be one of my questions: What was the difference between the Canine HealthCheck and Paw Prints? So, Paw Prints is the diagnostic—two independent tests, two different ways of looking for that mutation using two different methods. And they have to agree. And so it’s just much more accurate is what you’re saying. And the Canine HealthCheck is very accurate, but it’s only using one of the methods to look for that? 

Lisa Shaffer [44:42] Correct. 

Judi Stella [44:44] That is excellent. We did have one question that’s a little timely, due to Covid. Is there a delay right now in turnaround? This person said, “I sent a panel sample out yesterday and it seemed pretty quick before. Just wondering if there’s a delay now.” 

Lisa Shaffer [45:00] So we’re very proud of that. Everyone has really stepped up. We are practicing social distancing. We are cleaning more often in the laboratory for our workers. How we’re doing this is that anyone who can work from home is working from home. (So you can see I’m in my home! I don’t need to be in the lab.) Those people who must be in the laboratory—we have about 20 of those individuals—and they are now spread over three different shifts, seven days a week. So there’s no more than six or seven people together at a time, and those six or seven people are in a 3,000-square-foot laboratory, so they can spread out. They are practicing social distancing. They have all their personal protective equipment. And I’m really proud to say that so far, as long as the sample was working well, everyone’s been getting their results in 14 days or less—and most people are getting them around day 10, so I’m very proud of that.

Judi Stella [46:03] That’s pretty quick turnaround. We did have a couple of questions. We’ve had more than one question about PLE in dogs—the Protein Losing Enteropathy. My understanding is that it is more of a syndrome, and it’s a response of the body to multiple different types of diseases. That’s not something that it’s practical to have these types of markers for, but you know (obviously) much more than I do, so… 

Lisa Shaffer [46:33] We are developing that test because there are two markers that are risk factors. (The markers are associated with the disease, and if the dogs have those particular markers, they’re at an increased risk for getting the disease). Paw Print is starting to offer more of these kinds of risk factors. When we first started, you only can do as much as you can do, so we really tackled all of those diseases where there was a mutation that was known to actually cause the disease, which is different than a change in the DNA that’s associated with an increased risk of a disease. There’s a big difference there, between those two. And Paw Print is now starting to develop more of these risk factors. They require a lot better education on our website. They require knowledge from the people who provide our genetic counseling. Because they’re much more complex. But the Protein Losing Enteropathy is one of those that we are developing, but my understanding is it’s two different markers and it’s a combination of those markers, and it’s a risk factor. 

Judi Stella [47:59] So that would be one of those things that, if they’re clear, that doesn’t mean that they’ll never get this disease; but if they have the genetic marker, they’re at more risk for it, right? It wouldn’t be the same thing as a simple mutation. 

Lisa Shaffer [48:12] Correct! As you said, even a dog that doesn’t have the mutation (let’s say for PRA), that doesn’t mean they won’t get Progressive Retinal Atrophy, because they may get it due to some other cause—some other genetic cause or even environmental cause. Especially environmental when you think of cataracts, for example. There’s inherited types of cataracts, then there’s environmental types of cataracts. So what we’re doing is we’re providing whether or not a dog either does have a disease or is at risk for developing a disease, but if it’s clear, that doesn’t mean the dog will never get that disease. It just lessens its chance. 

Judi Stella [48:56] We did have a question earlier that was sent by email. Can you link the Paw Prints results to OFA? Is that an easy thing to do?

Lisa Shaffer [49:10] We can’t link them, but OFA accepts our results. So when you get a result from Paw Print Genetics, you get both a laboratory report (which is quite detailed) and then you get a summary called a Canine Genetic Health Certificate. That Genetic Health Certificate is a one-page that summarizes all of your diseases, and that’s what you print off and send to OFA. And then I saw that somebody asked about Paw Print Pedigrees. Paw Print Pedigrees is another website. It’s only available to Paw Print Genetics customers to post on. It’s open, it’s public, anybody can go there. But Paw Print Pedigrees allows you to display your genetic testing results from Paw Print Genetics. We get a lot of phone calls from people asking us, “I’m looking for a French Bulldog. I’m looking for a Labrador. Can you tell me who’s your best breeder?” Well, we don’t provide any private information to anybody. We only talk to the customer about their particular dogs. Privacy is very important to us, and to our customers. But we will tell people who are looking for puppies to go to Paw Print Pedigrees, because those people who have set up breeder profiles and have displayed their genetic testing results—that’s a great way to learn about breeders and to find a breeder that does genetic testing. We also get asked, “Can Canine HealthCheck customers link to Paw Print Pedigrees?” The answer is no. We are investigating perhaps a Canine HealthCheck Community, where you can do something similar. But Paw Print Pedigrees is restricted just to Paw Print Genetics users. They’re the only ones who can post their results. 

Judi Stella [51:00] We had a question that says: How do you decide which tests to include in your panels? Which I think you did touch on a little bit earlier—both the severity of the disease, as well as the prevalence. This is specifically in Irish Water Spaniels: “The Factor 7 test is in the panel; however, I’ve not heard of Factor 7 issues in IWS.” She’s had these breeds for 46 years. Does that have to do more with the severity? 

Lisa Shaffer [51:34] So, in a breed such as the Irish Water Spaniel and in many, many other breeds that have very few tests (so they might only have two or three tests), we just put all of them in the panel. How it got on the Irish Water Spaniel page to begin with was usually because of the original publication, and they found it in that breed. It’s probably very rare in that breed. When you go to your breed page on Paw Print Genetics, you don’t have to order the panel. There’s a one-click “order the panel” button, just to make it easy, but there’s little boxes next to each disease name, and you can just click the little box. So if you don’t want to order Factor 7, and if you’ve never had it in your breed, then definitely you should save your money; don’t order it! We’re all about helping you order just what you need. We don’t want you wasting your money. Just check the boxes next to the ones that you want, and then you can go ahead and associate it with the dogs that you want to order it on, and you can go ahead and check out. So you don’t have to order the panels. 

Judi Stella [52:41] And then we did have a question earlier as well: Is there a database similar to the Doberman Database from your lab that has the data in there, for each breed? Do you have anything publicly available that has all the tests that you’ve run and the prevalence of certain things in each breed?

Lisa Shaffer [53:01] That is an update that is hopefully scheduled for later this year. We want to display that data. We collect it all. If you want to know how many Papillons that we’ve tested have NAD, you can just email us and we’re happy to give you the statistics. The statistics are actually updated every hour, so as we report tests, I can actually go in right now and look up Labradors, and I can tell you how many Labradors we’ve tested and how many are at risk for EIC, for example. We’re happy to make any of that information available to you and to your breed clubs. It helps you make decisions. Do I want to order that or not? We do plan on making it public. Now that we have thousands of dogs from many breeds tested for these, the statistics are more robust. They are more meaningful. If we have a very rare breed and we’ve only tested 20 dogs, half of those could be from the same litter. So we won’t be displaying that information. But after we’ve tested a hundred or more dogs (I prefer 200, if you look at the power calculations), then we’re happy to show the statistics. We plan on making that public, and we hope it’s later this year. 

Judi Stella [54:17] I’m looking forward to that! That’s how we use whatever publicly available data there is, in order to make our decisions. Same idea. We’re trying to have breeders test for the things that are most common, that are going to be the biggest problems for them. If we don’t have the data, then I don’t know what to recommend. That’ll be very useful to us as well. Do we have anything else? Do we have any other questions? I think we touched on most of them. I think there’s a lot of specific questions about specific diseases in breeds. Would you prefer that they just contact your lab, and you can give them the best information? 

Lisa Shaffer [55:06] Yes. I can look up each one, but we only have two minutes left, so that would be hard to do. All they have to do is send their question to askus@pawprintgenetics.com. That’s our general email. When we get the email, it’ll get sent to one of our veterinarians or geneticists, and they will respond to you. 

Judi Stella [55:47] One final question! Is it better to send blood or a cheek swab? You have that information on Paw Prints, don’t you? Whether you prefer blood or a cheek swab?

Lisa Shaffer [56:02] Both work great. Blood is fantastic. We get tons of DNA from blood. But we know that blood is not that convenient. As far as our laboratory and accuracy, every test has been optimized on cheek swabs, because that’s what we get more of. We get less DNA from cheek swabs, but we’ve optimized all of our tests to work on very little DNA. If you’re in the United States, we will send you a cheek swab kit on your dogs when you order from us. If you’re in Canada, when you place your order, you can request those kits and they will be sent to you. We don’t send them to Canada automatically, but you can request them and we will send them to you. It’s all part of the checkout process. So you can send either! Either blood or the cheek swabs. Some people thought, in the past—before we came on the scene—that blood was more accurate. Again, in our laboratory, everything is developed and validated on cheek swabs, so they are very accurate in our lab. 

Judi Stella [57:19] I think that’s all the questions! I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much for enlightening us on how this whole system works and answering all these questions. I’m looking forward to the database being public. 

Cat Matloub [57:34] Thank you. Just echoing Judi’s thoughts: this was really fascinating, and I think really enlightening for a lot of folks. To everyone who had questions, we will pull all these questions out as well. Obviously feel free to reach out to Lisa directly, but we will try to pull them out and send them over there as well, so that we get those answered. And then we’ll follow up with an email sometime this week, in the next couple of days, with a recording of this webinar, as well as a couple of links to the quality standards and all that. Feel free to share with anyone and everyone. This was so, so interesting and really informative. Thank you so much, Lisa! Thank you all so, so much for joining. We really appreciate it. I hope you have a wonderful afternoon and enjoyed learning about canine genetics. I certainly did! 

Judi Stella [58:36] Do you want to give them a little teaser?

Cat Matloub [58:37] I had been thinking about it. We’ve got some exciting news that we’re working on. We’re hoping to have an extra benefit for our Good Breeders who are interested in doing genetic testing in the month of May. It’s a good time, while people are stuck at home, to do some genetic testing. We’ll keep all of you posted, but hopefully we’ll be able to offer you a little something extra—whatever testing you do, wherever you choose to do it. Thank you all!