Dog Disease - Cone Degeneration / Achromatopsia

Achromatosis relates to the shortcoming of pigmentation and lack of smearing power in a cell or tissue and to separate the domestic dog population into isolated breeds which are driven by the unnatural selection for the elucidated phenotypic and behavioural tests, it has been spot out by the emergence of inherited canine diseases that mostly are matched with those found in human beings. There is a condition in humans, which is referred to as Achromatopsia, day blindness, rodmonochromacy and total color blindness.

The light-sensitive structures in the vertebrate eye are known as cones which can be seen throughout retina and are linked with the color discrimination and visual sharpness. There are three kinds of cone cells, which is having a dissimilar idopsin and each of them is producing a maximum output when stimulated by the green, red and blue color. Color blindness may take place, if pigment is damaged in one or more kinds of the cone cells.

Dog Breeds Affected by Achromatopsia:
Cone degeneration is referred to as autosomal recessive canine disease and can be naturally seen in the Alaskan malamute, German shorthaired pointer and Miniature Poodle. It was first discovered in an inbred strain of Alaskan malamute dogs, as an inherited autosomal recessive trait, in the year 1960 and may be exist in other dogs’ breed.

Signs of Cone degeneration:
The signs of this disease may occur at the age when retinal development is completed in the dogs and are day-blindness and photo phobia between 8-12 weeks postnatal. They can see very normally in the dim light, as the symptoms are just present when there is a bright light, but the victim dogs spent a normal life, even after being affected by this disease. A heterogeneous autosomal recessive disorder, known as Achromatopsia which is found in humans resembles a lot with Cone degeneration, as both are characterized by absence of retinal cone function in adults and day-blindness. You can now quickly spot out, your dog is suffering from this disease, if he is observed colliding with obstacles in daytime.