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Leg Length

FGF4_retrogene_CFA18

chr18:20,697,946-20,697,946 ·

chondrodysplasia insertion site; not annotated as gene

Atlas-wide
77%
dog-weighted average
Breeds with data
215
of 215
Dogs contributing
13,914
CanVAS Atlas
What the frequency means

The famous FGF4 retrogene insertion on chromosome 18 (Parker 2009).

High frequency means

breed is standard-legged - does NOT carry the chondrodystrophy retrogene insertion (the alt allele at this rep SNP marks the non-retrogene haplotype)

Low frequency means

breed carries the FGF4 chr18 retrogene insertion (Parker 2009) - causal for short legs in Dachshund/Corgi/Basset Hound. Spot-check confirms: Dachshund, Pembroke Corgi, Pekingese, Basset variants all read ~0 at this rep SNP.

Frequency landscape

Where the leg length variant sits across every breed with data, by and grouped by . Each tick is one breed; a variant fixed in one group and absent in another shows up as a gap. These come from one marker per trait, so read them as a : accurate for most breeds, with real exceptions.

0%50%100%
working21 breeds · mean 82%
sporting19 breeds · mean 81%
herding17 breeds · mean 70%
ancient_landrace57 breeds · mean 69%
other16 breeds · mean 67%
hound20 breeds · mean 65%
non_sporting22 breeds · mean 64%
terrier22 breeds · mean 63%
mixed_unknown3 breeds · mean 59%
toy18 breeds · mean 43%
n = 13,914 dogs · CanVAS Atlas (Brundage et al. 2026) · Sniff Atlas
Allele frequency across 215 breeds with data, grouped by AKC breed group. Each accent tick is one breed (fainter = fewer dogs sampled); the bone marker is the group mean. Frequencies are population-level.
Top 10 breeds, highest frequency
  1. Irish Wolfhound ancient_landrace
    100% n=286
  2. Border Terrier terrier
    100% n=59
  3. 100% n=48
  4. French Bulldog non_sporting
    100% n=41
  5. Pug toy
    100% n=31
  6. Great Dane working
    100% n=30
  7. 100% n=25
  8. Irish Setter sporting
    100% n=23
  9. Otterhound hound
    100% n=23
  10. Collie herding
    100% n=20
Bottom 10 breeds, lowest frequency
  1. 0% n=24
  2. Pekingese toy
    0% n=26
  3. Norfolk Terrier terrier
    0% n=32
  4. Tibetan Spaniel sporting
    0% n=42
  5. Dachshund hound
    1% n=97
  6. Shih Tzu toy
    1% n=38
  7. Maltese toy
    2% n=96
  8. Havanese toy
    2% n=54
  9. Basset Hound hound
    3% n=34
  10. Lhasa Apso non_sporting
    6% n=26

108 breeds with fewer than 20 genotyped dogs are not ranked here. At that sample size a single dog swings the frequency, so the figure is not yet stable enough to compare.

Methodology

Frequency is measured at the typed-backbone 18:20697946 on chr18, 20.7 Mb (inside the gene body). Alleles T/C. Coordinates from manual position (Ensembl symbol failed). Per-breed frequencies are computed across all CanVAS dogs labelled with that breed (missing genotypes excluded).

How to cite this page

The per-breed allele frequencies on this page are derived from the open Sniff Atlas v1.0.1 (Gehring 2026, doi:10.5281/zenodo.20566358, CC-BY 4.0). The underlying genotype substrate is CanVAS (Brundage 2026, doi:10.64898/2026.04.13.718238), and disease associations are grounded in OMIA. Full citation formats including BibTeX, RIS, and CITATION.cff at sniff.world/cite.

Last updated
Sources: Sniff Atlas v1.0.1 (doi:10.5281/zenodo.20566358) · CanVAS (Brundage 2026) · OMIA · Dog10K (Meadows 2023)