Why Are Some Catteries Unscathed by PKD?
Based on all available information, not many Persian catteries of any size have zero positives, at least unless they’ve already tested and eliminated positives from their breeding program. So if “unscathed” means “no PKD positives”, the answer is that not many catteries are unscathed. And because we’ve never been able to identify PKD positives before, the only reason any cattery would be unscathed is pure, blind luck. Those catteries just lucked into not buying or acquiring any PKD positive breeding stock. On the other hand, if “unscathed” means “no deaths from PKD”, I expect that almost all catteries with more than a few cats that have been breeding for more than 5 years have had some deaths due to PKD, even if they don’t realize it. After all, as one of our on-line vets pointed out, the very fact that PKD is asymptomatic for most of a cat’s life, and then manifests itself as renal failure (indistinguishable from any other cause of renal failure without necropsy), obscures the very ex
