Dutch Shepherd Dog
The tested variant with the highest allele frequency is Bald Thigh Syndrome, at 6.6% among the 61 Dutch Shepherd Dogs tested (Donner 2023; gene copies, not dogs), then Von Willebrand's Disease, Type 1 (3.9%).
Which disease variants turn up in Dutch Shepherd Dogs?
From a panel of 250 Mendelian-disease variants screened in 1,054,293 dogs (Donner et al. 2023), 3 turn up in Dutch Shepherd Dogs at observable frequency. The figure beside each is its allele frequency. Of the gene copies tested in this breed, the share that carry the variant. Every dog carries two copies, so this is not the share of dogs. It is not clinical risk. Most recessive variants require two copies for disease expression; many dominant variants show incomplete penetrance. Read this as a population fingerprint of what's in the gene pool, not a per-dog prediction.
IGFBP5what this gene does
IGFBP5 is a gene that helps regulate growth factors involved in tissue development and repair.
For your dog: If you have a sighthound, it’s worth mentioning IGFBP5-related risks to your vet, but being a carrier doesn’t mean your dog will develop the syndrome.
For researchers Population genetics, disease models and every recorded condition Open the research detail for the Dutch Shepherd Dog
Where every number on this page came from.
This page draws on one primary data source. Allele frequencies and sample sizes come from Donner et al. 2023 (CC-BY-4.0), a direct-to-consumer screening cohort, graded Limited as a study design because the dogs were tested at their owners' choice. No genotyped research dogs of this breed are in the three open releases the atlas reads, so the population-genetic sections other breed pages carry are absent here for that reason, not hidden. Conditions recorded for the breed come from OMIA.
What this page does not yet have. Inheritance modes and per-disease penetrance evidence from Donner 2023 are in the structured data for every variant the panel covers. Mondo, OMIM, Ensembl, and HGNC cross-references live on the gene and disease pages this page links to, rather than being repeated here. What is still absent from this breed page is anything not in the cited panel, and each such gap carries its cause where it appears.
How to cite this page. Cite Donner et al. 2023 (doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1010651) for every frequency on this page, and OMIA for each condition, with the sample size shown beside the figure.
Some things about living with a dutch shepherd dog never make it into a database. Add what you know as a Keeper, in your words →
Lived experience, kept beside the science.No dutch shepherd dogs are in the atlas yet. Yours would be the first star for the breed.
Every dutch shepherd dog added sharpens the breed's genetic neighborhood. Enrollment is free. The data stays open. The star is permanent.
- Donner J, Freyer J, Davison S, Anderson H, Blades M, Honkanen L, et al. (2023). Genetic prevalence and clinical relevance of canine Mendelian disease variants in over one million dogs. PLOS Genetics 19(2):e1010651. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1010651
- Brundage DM (2026). CanVAS: A Harmonized and Imputed Canine Variant Atlas. bioRxiv. doi:10.64898/2026.04.13.718238
- Nicholas, F.W., Tammen, I., & Sydney Informatics Hub. (2026). Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals (OMIA) [dataset]. The University of Sydney. https://omia.org. doi:10.25910/2AMR-PV70 (retrieved April 2026).