Miniature Poodle
The tested variant with the highest allele frequency is Chondrodystrophy and Intervertebral Disc Disease Risk, at 63% among the 3,544 Miniature Poodles tested (Donner 2023; gene copies, not dogs), then Progressive Rod-Cone Degeneration (8.2%) and Degenerative Myelopathy (4.9%). Only 11 dogs stand behind the atlas figures here, so little is known yet.
Which disease variants turn up in Miniature Poodles?
From a panel of 250 Mendelian-disease variants screened in 1,054,293 dogs (Donner et al. 2023), 19 turn up in Miniature Poodles 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.
FGF4what this gene does
FGF4 influences leg length by affecting bone growth, leading to shorter legs in certain breeds.
For your dog: If your dog is from a breed known to carry this gene, it's worth discussing spinal health with your vet, but being a carrier doesn’t guarantee problems.
PRCDwhat this gene does
PRCD is a gene involved in the health of a dog's retina, the part of the eye that detects light and helps with vision.
For your dog: If your dog belongs to a breed known to carry PRCD changes, it's worth discussing eye health and potential genetic testing with your vet.
SOD1what this gene does
SOD1 is a gene that helps protect cells from damage caused by harmful molecules called free radicals.
For your dog: If your dog is a carrier of SOD1 variants, it's worth discussing with your vet, but remember carrier status doesn't mean your dog will get the disease.
PDK4what this gene does
PDK4 helps regulate how cells use energy, especially in the heart muscle.
For your dog: If your dog is one of the breeds known to carry this gene, it’s worth discussing heart health with your vet, but being a carrier doesn’t mean your dog will develop disease.
RPGRIP1what this gene does
RPGRIP1 is a gene involved in the function of photoreceptor cells in the eye, which help dogs see in different light conditions.
For your dog: If your dog belongs to a breed known to carry RPGRIP1 mutations, it’s worth discussing with your vet to understand the risks and monitor eye health.
SLC13A1what this gene does
SLC13A1 is a gene that helps transport important molecules involved in bone and cartilage health. It plays a role in maintaining the structure and function of these tissues.
For your dog: If your dog is one of the breeds known to carry this gene variant, it’s worth discussing with your vet to understand what it means for their bone health and care.
PNPLA1what this gene does
PNPLA1 is a gene involved in maintaining the skin's barrier by helping produce essential fats that keep the skin healthy and hydrated.
For your dog: If your dog is from a breed known to carry PNPLA1 variants and shows persistent dry, flaky skin, it's worth discussing with your vet to understand if genetics might be playing a role.
SLC7A9what this gene does
SLC7A9 is a gene that helps transport certain amino acids in the kidneys. It plays a role in how the body handles cystine, an amino acid that can form crystals.
For your dog: If your dog is a carrier, it’s worth discussing with your vet to monitor urinary health and catch any issues early.
P2RY12what this gene does
P2RY12 is a gene that helps control how platelets stick together to form blood clots, which is essential for stopping bleeding.
For your dog: If your dog is from one of these breeds, it’s worth asking your vet about P2RY12 to understand any potential bleeding risks, especially before surgery or injury.
ABCB1what this gene does
ABCB1 is a gene that helps control how certain drugs are processed and cleared from a dog's body.
For your dog: If your dog is from a breed that carries this gene variant, ask your vet about medication sensitivities before giving any new drugs.
BEST1what this gene does
BEST1 is a gene that helps maintain the health of the retina, the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye. It plays a role in keeping the cells in the retina functioning properly.
For your dog: If your dog is from a breed known to carry BEST1 variants, it’s worth discussing retinal health with your vet, especially if you notice any vision changes.
DNM1what this gene does
DNM1 is a gene that helps nerve cells communicate properly by managing how they send signals during muscle activity.
For your dog: If your dog belongs to one of the breeds known to carry this gene variant, it's worth discussing EIC with your vet, especially if your dog is very active or shows signs of weakness during exercise.
NHEJ1what this gene does
NHEJ1 is a gene involved in repairing breaks in DNA, helping maintain the integrity of genetic information in cells.
For your dog: If your dog belongs to one of the breeds known to carry this gene variant, it's worth discussing testing with your vet to understand any potential eye health risks.
COL11A2what this gene does
COL11A2 is a gene that helps produce a type of collagen important for healthy bones and cartilage.
For your dog: If your dog is from a breed known to carry COL11A2 variants, it's worth discussing genetic testing with your vet to understand any risks.
F7what this gene does
The F7 gene helps produce a protein important for blood clotting, which stops bleeding when dogs get injured.
For your dog: If your dog is from a breed known to carry F7 variants, it's worth mentioning to your vet before any surgery or if you notice unusual bleeding.
TUBB1what this gene does
TUBB1 is a gene that helps make the building blocks of platelets, which are tiny blood cells important for clotting. It plays a key role in keeping platelet size and number normal.
For your dog: If your dog is from one of the breeds known to carry TUBB1 variants, it’s worth mentioning to your vet, especially before surgeries or if you notice unusual bleeding.
What these results mean for a Miniature Poodle
About 63 in every 100 copies of this gene in the 3,544 Miniature Poodles tested carry this change (Donner 2023).
- Extra copies of a growth gene called FGF4 shape a dog's legs and back. The copy on chromosome 12 is the one linked to disc disease. The copy on chromosome 18 makes legs shorter.
OMIA 000157-9615
“Two FGF4 retrogenes (FGF4L1 on chromosome 18 and FGF4L2 on chromosome 12) have been identified to cause dwarfism across many dog breeds.” OMIA 000157-9615
“Brown et al. (2017) reported that an FGF4 retrogene insertion in chromosome CFA12” OMIA 000157-9615
- Carrying it raises the risk, but it can't tell you which dog will have a disc problem. In Dachshunds, researchers found the test on its own isn't a reliable guide.
OMIA 000157-9615
“the FGF4 retrogene insertion on CFA12 is not a valid risk indicator on its own” OMIA 000157-9615
What to do
Ask your vet what the result means for your dog. The sources here don't say what lowers the risk for a dog that carries it.
Not tested, or a mix
Without a test, no one can tell. Short legs don't tell you either: the disc copy and the short-leg copy are different.
About 5 in every 100 copies of this gene in the 3,555 Miniature Poodles tested carry this change (Donner 2023).
- DM slowly damages the spinal cord in adult dogs, until the back legs stop working. Nothing yet can stop it.
OMIA 000263-9615
“This is an adult onset degeneration of the spinal cord that progresses to paraplegia and tetraparesis. There is no successful treatment. A genetic test is available.” OMIA 000263-9615
- Two copies of the SOD1 gene change mean a dog is at risk, not that it will get sick. Some dogs with two copies never do.
OMIA 000263-9615
“some homozygous mutant dogs had no signs of degenerative myelopathy, which suggests incomplete penetrance or other causative loci” OMIA 000263-9615
- One copy makes a dog a carrier. In the study that found this change, every dog with DM that was tested had two copies.
OMIA 000263-9615
“All affected dogs tested were homozygous mutant.” OMIA 000263-9615
What to do
A DNA result isn't a diagnosis. If the way your dog walks changes, take that and the result to your vet.
Not tested, or a mix
Without a test, no one can tell how many copies your dog has. How common it is in a breed says nothing about one dog.
A heart (DCM) test that doesn't hold up
Not a reliable testAbout 3 in every 100 copies of this gene in the 3,555 Miniature Poodles tested carry this change (Donner 2023).
- This gene change was linked to a heart disease called DCM in Dobermans, but it hasn't been shown to cause it. The curated record says a test for it isn't a good guide to heart risk, even in Dobermans.
OMIA 000162-9615
“it is evident that any DNA test based on this marker will not be a good indicator of liability to this disorder in Dobermans” OMIA 000162-9615
What to do
A result for this one isn't, by itself, a reason for heart tests. Whether to check your dog's heart is a conversation to have with your vet.
Not tested, or a mix
Outside the Doberman, no one has shown what this change means.
Identified as Miniature Poodle (VBO:0201051) in the Vertebrate Breed Ontology (Mullen et al. 2025, CC-BY 4.0) · registry IDs iDog 268 · VeNom 14593.
For researchers Population genetics, disease models and every recorded condition Open the research detail for the Miniature Poodle
In the atlas, the Miniature Poodle clusters consistently as Miniature Poodle (100% of the 11 dogs here). Genetic diversity is high (mean heterozygosity 0.3954), reflecting either a mixed-breed cluster or breeds with broad genetic backgrounds.
Mean heterozygosity is 0.395, notably high, which indicates a broad genetic background. Only 11 dogs of this breed in the atlas, modestly sampled.
What the atlas genotypes say about Miniature Poodle
Computed from the 14,478 CanVAS dogs in the Atlas, on an imputed genotype backbone: 77,215 directly typed sites per dog, imputed to 9.67 million variants.
The confidence below counts dogs, not reads: it is the size of the sample, and it is separate from how the genotypes were measured.
Not enough dogs in the atlas yet (n=11) for a reliable diversity figure. It fills in as more are added.
What does genetic diversity mean?
How varied a breed's gene pool is — the share of gene spots where a typical dog of the breed carries two different versions rather than two identical ones.
How to read it: Higher = more diverse. Among well-sampled breeds it ranges roughly 0.22 (least diverse) to 0.33 (most diverse).
Diversity is a strength, not a verdict on any individual dog. Lower diversity means it's worth paying attention to recessive-risk testing — not that a dog is doomed.
Not enough dogs in the atlas yet (n=11) to resolve cluster structure. It fills in as more are added.
What does within-breed variation mean?
How much individual dogs within the breed differ from each other genetically.
How to read it: Higher = more internal variety among individuals of the breed.
Sensitive to how many dogs of the breed we've sampled.
Miniature Poodles are a natural model for human disease
Because the same genes cause the same conditions across species, the inherited conditions documented in Miniature Poodles help researchers understand, and work toward treating, the human diseases they model. This is the dog advancing human medicine. The breed models the human disease; it does not have it, and this is not a prediction for your dog.
- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis type 1, modeled by the breed's Degenerative myelopathy via SOD1, the same underlying biology.
- acatalasia, modeled by the breed's Hypocatalasia via CAT, the same underlying biology.
- X-linked hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, modeled by the breed's Hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, X-linked, EDA-related via EDA, the same underlying biology.
- Krabbe disease, modeled by the breed's Krabbe disease via GALC, the same underlying biology.
- narcolepsy 1, modeled by the breed's Narcolepsy via HCRTR2, the same underlying biology.
- von Willebrand disease 1, modeled by the breed's Von Willebrand disease I via VWF, the same underlying biology.
Every condition recorded in the Miniature Poodle
Beyond the testable carriers above, OMIA's literature catalogue records 19 genetic conditions in the Miniature Poodle, 17 of which have a known human equivalent. This is the documented landscape across all Miniature Poodles ever studied, not a prediction for any one dog.
- Degenerative myelopathy Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis type 1
- Hypocatalasia Autosomal (OMIA); Autosomal recessive (Donner 2023)Human equivalent: acatalasia
- Hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia, X-linked, EDA-related X-linked recessiveHuman equivalent: X-linked hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia
- Krabbe disease Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: Krabbe disease
- Narcolepsy Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: narcolepsy 1
- Von Willebrand disease I Autosomal (OMIA); Autosomal recessive (Donner 2023)Human equivalent: von Willebrand disease 1
- Alexander disease Autosomal dominant (OMIA); Autosomal recessive (Donner 2023)Human equivalent: Alexander disease
- Chondrodysplasia, SLC13A1-related Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: OMIM:606193
- Ichthyosis, DSP-related DominantHuman equivalent: OMIM:615821
- Methaemoglobinaemia, CYB5R3-related Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: methemoglobinemia due to deficiency of methemoglobin reductase
- Mucopolysaccharidosis VI Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: mucopolysaccharidosis type 6
- Myoclonus epilepsy of Lafora Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: OMIM:254780
- Myxomatous valvular degeneration MultifactorialHuman equivalent: OMIM:157700
- Human equivalent: OMIM:165550
- Progressive rod-cone degeneration, PRCD-related Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: retinitis pigmentosa 36
- Pyruvate kinase deficiency of erythrocyte Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: pyruvate kinase deficiency of red cells
- Retinal atrophy - Rod-cone dysplasia 4 Autosomal recessiveHuman equivalent: retinitis pigmentosa 54
- Intervertebral disc disease Autosomal dominant
Plus 1 more conditions recorded in the Miniature Poodle in OMIA.
Where every number on this page came from.
This page draws on three primary data sources. Allele frequencies for the Mendelian section come from Donner et al. 2023 (CC-BY-4.0). We grade these data at evidence Limited because the cohort is a direct-to-consumer ascertainment, which biases toward owners who chose to test their dogs. The panel also uses tag-SNP proxies for some variants rather than direct causal-variant assays. Limited is a study-design grade, not a quality grade: the Donner cohort is the largest open canine-genotype dataset in existence and we are grateful for it. We rate the confounding MEDIUM.
Population-genetic dimensions (heterozygosity, intra-breed PCA distance, nearest neighbors, trait-locus frequencies) come from CanVAS (Brundage 2026), harmonized through the Sniff Atlas. The exact release date and verification commit are pinned at the bottom of the page so a researcher can trace a number back to a specific snapshot. The disease-gene-variant graph comes from OMIA (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals; Nicholas, Tammen, and the Sydney Informatics Hub at the Sydney School of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney; retrieved April 2026, DOI 10.25910/2AMR-PV70).
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. The computed dimensions on this page are derived from the open Sniff Atlas v1.0.2 (Gehring 2026, doi:10.5281/zenodo.20566358, CC-BY 4.0). Full citation formats including BibTeX, RIS, and CITATION.cff at sniff.world/cite.
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- 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).