Health problems not addressed? - Page 5

well said.

I think that we see all problems as an being inheritable when it comes to our dogs. With that said, I often wonder how many of the less-frequent disorders are merely birth (development) defects? With humans, for example. We know that bleeding disorders, baldness, colourblindness (word?) can be inherited to some level of predictability. But how about a heart murmur or an enlarged heart? How about mental retardation? How about the propensity to develop a type of cancer later in life? Where do we separate what we perceive to be the true inheritable disorders from birth (development) defects? Maybe that is the subject of another thread. Bob-O

Once again Bob-O, well said...And with some sorts of disorders, we are told "Well we aren't 100% if it's gentic or not" and at those words, some people go run with it. Not saying they shouldn't be concerned, but if a Doctor or a Vet doesn't know, should we be the ones to run to everybody else saying "Damn you, look at your dog, it has a GENTIC health problem!" I heared of a case a few years ago of a dog a man sold to a friend of mine having a problem (sorry, don't remember what it was) and the opinion of FOUR different vets said, "We don't know 100% its genetic" my friend ended up going to the breeder, yelling at him until she was blue in the face, and what did it solve? Both were so upset, and second guessing, their dogs, and their bloodlines. In the end, whatever it was turned out to not be Gentic, but simply a Birth Defect, and the woman went around spreading such awful things about him, that even after it was proven to be nothing more than a Birthdefect, his business was almost annihilated. The point? When we jump too soon to conclusions, we or the people around us, offten suffer for it.

I personally believe that the vast majority of ailments ( as in humans) are caused by poor nutrition. I try, gently so as not to offend people who mean well and do as they are told, to spread the word about conventional dog kibble. However it is hard to get people to change their ways.

Hi all, just managed to read all of this thread today and it is very informative and interesting. I can say that I have a 4 year old bitch diagnosed with Pancreatic Insufficiency at 14 months - her test was so low that she had ony 1% of her cells in her pancreas working and she was critically ill at that time. She is now 4 years old and on normal food (complete chicken/rice kibble) and 1 teaspoon of dried pig's pancreas powder per day and is well, good weight (slightly plump), glossy coat, full of life and otherwise well. We have to watch she does not get any food with high fat content as she relapses quickly to soft yellow stools again. Our Vet said this disease is genetic and can take from early puppyhood to 3 years to show itself depending on the severity, but after 3 would not expect genetic PI to show. PI after that age would probably be aquired via poisoning or tumour of the pancreas etc. As I believe her disease to e genetic I spayed her and her mother to prevent any further spread on of this disease. We were lucky she is insured and her medications are paid for us (bar the excess), but many pet owners cannot cope with the costs of this and would have them put to sleep, and some breeders also. As for heart disease, yes it is genetic, know a few unfortunate breeders whose puppies and adults have dropped dead in front of them, this is a devastating problem. Some of these dogs like humans have a heart murmur or hole in the heart that goes undetected and some may last longer as they are not worked hard or play hard, and like humans there is the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy syndrome which kills many young people and in dogs also. It is a minefield out there and only with research and testing can we overcome all these problems. Detection depends on many factors - on how good your vet is at detecting a problem early on, when a disease actually shows itself, but the vet is not there to research the lines, that is down to our geneticists out there. Massive amount of work to be done to find the genes for these diseases, but it is progressing slowly - as in humans also. Most of us will do our best to use the tests available to us and research causes and effect, but there are always the moneygrabbers who don't give a damn one way or the other - these are the ones who are the biggest problem in this and any other breed. Great thread - keep the info coming. All the best to all

I agree with Toots, we are discussing two different sorts of genetic problems, some of which may be far more effected by environment then others. If genetic testing were available, many of these could be better controlled. Cardiac hypthrophy in people is treated with beta blockers (my dad eventually died of it, and it runs in my family). Many of the other conditions might be better controlled if we knew from puppyhood that they existed. I am not sure what could be done for the immune problems, except for not breeding the dogs. Now that there is a dog genetic sequence, over the next few years it may be possible to map and identify varients that control these conditions.