Epilepsy etc

[CorvusCorax]

Before I start can I just make a disclaimer - I am not pointing the finger or making sweeping statements or talking about anyone in particular!

I notice a lot of people on here have fitting dogs, there are also people with dysplastic dogs, all of different breeds but you do see larger numbers of certain breeds than others.

I won't bore you all to tears with how the GSD fraternity has helped deal with HD and ED and have programmes set up to improve hips and elbows and regulate haemophilia.

As I mentioned on another thread, two of the three GSDs who took the Crufts BIS title threw (hereditary) epilepsy and it used to be a huge problem - it took a handful of breeders in the 70s and 80s to have the balls to say 'It's MY stud who is doing this' and withdrawing their dogs from breeding.

Sadly there seems to have been a slight resurgence recently and I know personally of a dog with a hipscore of 27 who is throwing epilepsy and dwarfism - but hey, he is a CHAMPION and you can still pick up puppies by him, advertised on several free websites

If I had a dog with ANY of these problems (and I mean hereditary epilepsy as opposed to epilepsy caused by physical trauma) and I was aware of their anscestry I would be hammering people's doors down - owner of sire, owner of dam, grandparents, siblings, contacting breed authorities and trying to get something done.
Overall I would hope the source would be located and the problem animals withdrawn from breeding.
I would also hope any affected animals would be neutered.

I don't know enough about other breeds to know which have particular problems and if there are programmes in place to monitor and control the situation.

I do know that hereditary HD, ED and epilepsy will never be truly eradicated, but I know they can be monitored and controlled and measures put in place to minimise them.

So after that big ramble, my question is, do you see these conditions as just one of those things, you treat your dogs and go along with your business and make your dog as comfortable as possible, or do you see it as something to get angry about, something that you can do something about to prevent it happening in future, something you don't want other people and most importantly, their dogs, to go through?

Thoughts?

 

[reddie]

We have a dog with epilepsy and fortunately at the moment she only fits every a few months. She is spayed and if she wasn't I certainly wouldn't breed from her. i think you're quite right to get angry about t as it is distressing and can be very debiliatating. Its very irresponsble to breed from a dog known to have hereditary epilepsy.

 

[MurphysMinder]

I think what CC was also trying to ask was did you contact the breeders, breed clubs etc. when you found out about your bitch (glad to hear her fits aren't too bad). Fingers crossed I have had no problems with epilepsy in my line (but I am very carefuyl as I vividly remember the problems in the breed in the 70s). However I have produced a bitch with a high hip score, obviously she has not been bred from, and neither have any of her litter mates been, although of those 2 others were x rayed and had low scores. I notified the stud dog owner but would not have expected her to withdraw him from stud on one bad progeny score, as he had a single figure score. It was the last litter from her dam so that wasn't an issue, however I wouldn't have necessarily written off breeding from her again but chosen a dog very carefully, with help from Dr Willis (geneticist ).

 

[CAYLA]

I was thinking this exaect same thing in the other J.R.T fitting post

, I was going to answer, one way to stop it is to stop breeding from epileptic dogs...lol
I think it is strongly hereditary and I know a hell of alot of dog that have been bred from that are epileptic.
I do think if your dog has it, you should make every effort to contact the breeder and inform them, mind you not all will heed advice but u did your best.

 

[reddie]

Our dog was a rescue dog so no dea who the breeder was

 

[Vizslak]

Hereditory problems are a constant battle. There will always be breeders out there that just don't seem to care what dogs are passing on to their progeny

We have a breed specific health issue in vizslas that is becoming more and more prevelant, it's obvious which lines its from all dogs seem to carry very specific similar genes, interestingly my previous vizz (who some of you will remember had some horrific health issues from birth and never made it to a year old) has a pedigree to match those PM sufferers.
The breed clubs are doing their best to clamp down on the issue, it's not very well understood yet and alot of research is going into it. The next stage of course is to get all the breeders on board to give dna samples where dogs are known to be close relatives of sufferers, this I fear may not be a very easy task

It's important to get angry and try to make people listen IMO, if no one makes a stand then nothing will get done. If you have a dog suffering from a hereditory health issue it is your responsibilty to make it known to the breeder, breed clubs etc. They won't always listen I agree, but it's not fair to sit back and do nothing, other dogs will suffer if so.

 

[Vizslak]

Oh also, epilepsy is fairly common in the prt. If someone came back to me and told me my stud dog had produced an epileptic pup I would be making it my business to speak to every single owner of all his progeny to find out if any of them also had it. If another was found with him being the only common factor (ie. different dams) I would have his nuts off straight away. Same with my (currently only one) bitch.
All my pedigree dogs took part in the epilepsy study (via mouth swabs) last year. Vizslas were included in the study although it is very rare to find a vizsla with epilepsy, there is no history of hereditory epilepsy in the breed.

 

[Finlib]

I echo CC wholeheartedly.I had a dog with epilepsy he started for no apparent reason as a young dog .I contacted the breeders and they refused point blank to see that it could possibly be hereditary although I later found out others bred from this dog did have epilepsy.
He lived until11 years old and was on medcation all his life.
He did have a really good quality of life or I wouldn't have carried on .
During his life time he had 6 episodes of status epilepticus when he had to be admitted to vet hospital and his medication regulated these were horrible to witness and I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone .I would never never want to have an epileptic dog again and therefore did endless research before purchasing my dog of the same breed (which replaced him) .
If you have ever seen a dog in staus epilepticus you would never knowingly breed a dog with epilepsy

 

[prosefullstop]

Epilepsy is not a significant problem in the Boston terrier, thank goodness. Aside from my neighbour's BT, I haven't come across another afflicted dog nor read about the illness being an issue in the breed.

In the case of my neighbour's Boston, the dog was the product of a puppy mill, and in addition to dry eye, double luxating patellas and elbow dysplasia, had epilepsy, and died of a grand mal seizure at the end of three. Goodness only knows how many pups came from that same farm and bore pups themselves

 

[FinnishLapphund]

I've had no experience of epilepsy, I've had one bitch with HD grade I (old Swedish system), which is only slight HD, it was many years ago, but I'm quite sure I did tell the breeder about it and with the knowledge I have today about HD's polygene inheritance and sometimes being caused by environmental factors, I'm glad I was not angry about it.

Basically I don't see any reason to be angry if the breeder have done its best to breed healthy animals and something still turns up, however if your stud dog/brood bitch does leave several puppies affected by something from the same or different litters and they still continue to breed him/her then that is another matter.



To use your own example [ QUOTE ]
I know personally of a dog with a hip score of 27 who is throwing epilepsy and dwarfism - but hey, he is a CHAMPION and you can still pick up puppies by him, advertised on several free websites

[/ QUOTE ]

So as far as you know, he has not left any puppies with HD, as far as I know about dwarfism in GSD, it is mainly/most often caused by a hereditary deficiency of growth hormone and has recessive inheritance. Which means that he can only throw it with a brood bitch that also carries the recessive gene, which to me means, that it is not only him that should be taken out of breeding without both.
But I'm not sure of when you're able to tell that a puppy is affected or not by dwarfism, are we talking before 8 weeks of age or around 6 months? All that I've heard that the signs are that they at first stop growing and then they don't loose their woolly puppy-coat and once they do, there is no new coat coming out. If you can spot dwarfism within 8 weeks, though that I realise that the stud dog might have been used during that time to both one and two other brood bitches, it is hopefully less likely that he has been used, but if it takes 6 months then maybe it is more likely that he has been used, not knowing that he carries the recessive gene.

As far as I know about epilepsy in dogs, when it is inherited, it also has recessive inheritance which again means that both stud dog and brood bitch, at least if we are talking about a large breed like GSD, should be taken out of breeding according to me. But dogs/bitches that inherits epilepsy usually have their first seizure between 1 and 3 years of age, which could mean that at least a stud dog could be used to father a number of litters before it shows that he throws epilepsy, my point about both the dwarfism and the epilepsy, is that before you know that the stud dog or brood bitch carries the recessive gene for respective disease, he/she can have been used in good faith and what is there to be angry about then?


If a breeder deliberately uses stud dogs/brood bitches that are known carriers of some disease in breeding in such a way that the puppies can be affected by the disease, then that is wrong and then I think people have reason to become upset and/or angry but as an example, if a breed club for a smaller breed than GSD's manages a disease by gene testing and to not minimise their gene pool to much, chooses to only exclude those that is gene tested as affected and has an early breeding goal to only breed puppies that either are non-carriers or carriers, neither can develop the disease so it causes no risk for the ordinary puppy buyer to buy those puppies.




So about being upset and/or angry on the breeder if your dog develops a possibly inherited disease (e.g. epilepsy can be inherited but it does not have to be), for me it depends on if the breeder knew about the specific problem before breeding or not.
About also excluding siblings from breeding, I don't know. I think I've heard that two full siblings from the same litter might only inherit down to 25% of the exact same mix of genes from their parents, if they've inherited 50% the same mix of genes then it still means that 50% is not exactly the same etc, if so, there is a chance that the sibling have not inherited the same ''wrong'' gene/genes that their sibling and I don't know if it then always needs to mean that you necessarily needs to exclude their siblings from all future breeding, but I definitely think it should be taken in consideration when deciding to breed or not. Of course also depending on what sort of disease we are talking about, if it is dominant or recessive inherited, polygene or not etc.

P.s. I agree about that the CHAMPION stud dog should have his testicles chopped off by now, I was only using him as an example.

 

[CorvusCorax]

I understand your point Finny of course, a dog has to sire litters in the first place in order for these problems to become apparent - that is of course one of the pitfalls!
One of the most successful GSDs in the UK in recent years was not widely used at stud because while his own score was good, he did not throw great scores and he was not a popular stud, despite his prestige in the ring, which is to be commended on behalf of his breeders and bitch owners.

This dog is very closely inbred on one line which is why a lot of people are asking questions, bred with bitches with similar lines, that is where the problems occur.
In the 1980s one of my favourite dogs - as a dog, a double Sieger, was known to throw dwarves...he was very heavily used but again, he would have been mated to bitches from similar lines as himself in the third or fourth generation back in those days.

I would be affronted to offer a dog with a hip score like that at stud or keep him entire, but anyhoo....

Dwarves can be identified from one or two months old, I THINK

I do not necessarily mean anger at all breeders - anger at those who know and choose to do nothing about it, anger towards the conditions themselves, having a fire in one's belly to try and do something about it!

 

[MurphysMinder]

Yep dwarves can be identified pretty early on, I had one in a litter and had a fair idea by the time he was a month old, and was sure at 8 weeks. He was given to a pet home and lived until he was about 6 but had a lot of skin problems. With hindsight I should perhaps have had him pts, but at the time there was a dwarf GSD competing in midi agility and it was a great little dog, so think that swayed my decision with "Blott".
I agree with CC, imo a dog with a score of 27 should not be at stud, but then more fool the breeders who take bitches to him.

 

[Patches]

Jasper used to have the odd seizure, although they were termed "pre-epileptic siezures" as they weren't a full blown seizure and never intensified for the 12 years he occasionally had them.

He didn't have them very often at all and suffered no ill effects, required no treatment.

His father, mother and the one other litter mate that I knew of suffered no problems and other litters from both his sire and dam were also unaffected as far as I know.

I did mention it to the breeders, but I was also aware that that his initially occurred at just under 2 years old when he was coming around from an GA operation to sort out his "wagtail". It was widely accepted that he had a reaction to the anaesthetic which caused some minor brain trauma.

On another note, he lived to be 14 years old, dying from a sudden stroke. He never took a lame step in his entire life and a few hours before his first stroke you would never have said he was 14. He still jumped the garden wall like a spring chicken!

He was a very healthy dog, in all honesty, and the occasional seizures he suffered never affected his quality of life. The vet did say they weren't related to his stroke. When I look back now, I am pleased for Jasper that he went the way he did. He had a full, active 14 years of life and the end came very quickly for him.