Dog Friendly Holiday House Sunshine Coast Queensland

Guide dogs eyes - cataracts possible

LABRADORS are synonymous with guide dogs, but golden retrievers are also highly suited to the job. Like labradors, golden retrievers are intelligent and willing workers, but they are also particularly soft natured, sensitive and sticklers for routine. This makes them ideal guides for the elderly.

In an unfortunate twist of fate, however, golden retrievers are also prone to star cataracts, a genetic condition that impairs their vision and renders them unsafe as guides.

No genetic test exists for star cataracts in golden retrievers; it becomes clear the dog has the defect only when it appears.

This is a particularly expensive problem with seeing-eye dogs. While the condition can occur when a puppy is only six months old, it may not appear until the animal is six or seven.

By that stage, about $30,000 will have been spent on its training and it may also have been used as a breeding animal, according to Seeing Eye Dogs Australia. If only one dog in a litter develops star cataracts, the entire litter must be withdrawn from breeding as they may still carry the gene.

Last year, star cataracts reduced the organisation's golden retriever breeding capacity to zero.

Ideally, about 40 per cent of the dogs bred would be golden retrievers, said their senior trainer, Harry Vanderjagt.

They are assisting a British Animal Health Trust research project which aims to develop a genetic test for star cataracts in golden retrievers. They are also slowly rebuilding breeding stock.

Two golden retrievers, a male and a female, have recently been approved, but they are siblings so they cannot mate, breeding supervisor Dee Moore said.

''We would be keen to hear from golden retriever breeders who would be willing to help us out, either with puppies, adult breeding dogs or the use of a stud dog for our [female] that will be ready to mate later this year.

''It is better if we breed our own dogs,'' Ms Moore said. ''Dogs from other breeders haven't been specifically bred to be guides … and we don't have quite such a high success rate with bought-in puppies.''

Demand for all types of seeing-eye dogs is likely to grow in the next decade. The number of people who are blind or have low vision will double to 600,000 by 2020, according to Vision Australia.