The sum of a dog’s genetic material can be thought of as a cook book which is split into chapters containing recipes. These recipes are the dog's genes and the letters that make up each recipe is its DNA. Just as a recipe can be used to make a dish of food, a gene can be used to make a protein, a building block of a dog's body. Read the following information to find out what DNA is, how a gene is made and how these translate into a dog’s body. This section will provide you with what happens when genes, or translation goes wrong and how this can impact on a dogs health.