Health Concerns Hip Dysplasia: The term dysplasia means "improper growth". Thus, Canine Hip Dysplasia simply means improper growth or development of the canine hip joint. This improper growth is usually characterized by lax or loose hips, which allows excessive movement in the hip joint which in turn leads to arthritis and lameness. Hip dysplasia is common in many of the large breeds of dogs. CHD is not an "all-or-nothing" disease, but is a syndrome that can present in a variety of clinical forms that range from clinically undetectable to a severe crippling disease. Dogs that are afflicted with CHD can have problems with going up or down stairs, difficulty in rising, a bunny-hopping gait when walking or running, early morning stiffness, personality changes from the pain, a wobbly gait, or lameness after exercise. Dogs often will carry more of their weight on their front legs as a result of the pain in the hips, resulting in the front end of these dogs being better developed than the rear. Dysplastic dogs are at a greater risk of incurring injury by normal activity such as jumping or rough housing. Thus, CHD can present as a spectrum of clinical diseases. It is possible for a dog to have CHD yet have no signs of the disease or for the disease to become so severe that the dog can not use it rear legs. The only way to correctly diagnose CHD is to have a radiographic (X-ray) examination performed by your veterinarian. The classic way of determining if a dog has CHD is to have the animal radiographed with the hips extended outward. In other words, the dog lying on its back with its legs extended straight back. This position is required for the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) to correctly evaluate the dog's hips. This is often an uncomfortable position for the dog and sometimes an anesthetic or tranquilizer is required for the animal to remain in this position long enough for the radiograph to be taken. Some veterinarians believe that placing the dog under anesthesia gives a better evaluation of the hip, as the muscles around the hip joint are relaxed, while other veterinarians do not believe that the anesthetic enhances the evaluation process. OFA will evaluate hips regardless of whether an anesthetic was used or not. OFA is a non-profit organization that consists of several veterinarians specially trained to evaluate the canine hip for CHD. The OFA is the oldest and best known registry in the United States. It grades hips, as severe, moderate, fair, good, and excellent. The OFA certifies dogs as acceptable for breeding if they over two years old and receive a passing grade (fair, good, or excellent). PennHip is a new organization for evaluating dogs for CHD. Their technique requires that the dog be radiographically examined with the hips flexed (frog like position). They also require that the animal must be anesthetized during the procedure. One of the advantages of PennHip evaluation over OFA is that animals as young as 16 weeks can be evaluated. Currently, there is no prevailing evidence as to which system is better. There are only a few veterinarians that advocate the PennHip system, but it does appear to be gaining in popularity. As with people, dogs appear to differ in their ability to adapt to a disease. Some dogs may have severe radiographic evidence of the disease and show little in the way of clinical signs, while others may only have mild radiographic changes yet show severe clinical disease. This may be due to differences in the ability of individual dogs to adapt to the presence of chronic pain. If a dog develops CHD it is not necessarily a death sentence as most cases, with the exception of the severest forms, symptoms can be relieved by the use of pain medication. However, even in its mildest forms this disease may limit the canine athlete from attaining his full potential. Both heredity and environmental factors are important in the development of CHD. CHD has an estimated inheritability that ranges from 0.2 to 0.6, with 0.0 being non-inherited condition and 1.0 meaning that a condition is completely under genetic control. Thus, demonstrating that CHD is a condition where both the environment and the genetics of the dog play a role in the development of this disease. The interaction between the dog's genetic makeup and environment determine whether an individual dog will develop CHD. The genetics of the dog, to a large part, determine if a given dog has the potential to allow the environmental factors to act in such a way that CHD is produced. However, even dogs that are not genetically predisposed to develop CHD can contract the disease if they are pushed too hard when young by hyper-nutrition and excessive exercise.
Elbow Dysplasia: Elbow dysplasia is a general term used to identify an inherited polygenic disease in the elbow of dogs. Three specific etiologies make up this disease and they can occur independently or in conjunction with one another. 1. Pathology involving the medial coronoid of the ulna (FCP) Clinical signs involve lameness which may remain subtle for long periods of time. No one can predict at what age lameness will occur in a dog due to a large number of genetic and environmental factors such as degree of severity of changes, rate of weight gain, amount of exercise, etc. Subtle changes in gait may be characterized by excessive inward deviation of the paw which raises the outside of the paw so that it receives less weight and distributes more mechanical weight on the outside (lateral) aspect of the elbow joint away from the lesions located on the inside of the joint. Range of motion in the elbow is also decreased. Like hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia is a hereditary disease. It is a malformation of the elbow joint(s). OFA certifies elbows on a pass/fail basis. As with hip dysplasia, your breeder should be able to show you reports from the OFA defining the conformation of both parent's elbows.
Paneosteitis: Sometimes referred to as "growing pains" or "pano", panosteitis occurs as a rotating lameness, usually in puppies about four months of age. There are tests for pano which should be done to rule out more serious problems. Sometimes crate rest is all a puppy needs for complete recovery.
Heart Problems: (SAS and Cardiomyopathy) Cardiac diseases like subaortic stenosis and cardiomyopathies are difficult to monitor since there is no clear cut distinction between normal and abnormal. The OFA will modify the congenital cardiac database when a proven diagnostic modality and normal parameters by breed are established.
Eye Disorders: Entropian:
Ectropian: Ectropian(Eyelids rolling outward) is the opposite condition to entropion. It is not unknown for a dog to have one eyelid with entropion, and one with ectropion -- on the same eye! Both are inherited conditions which require surgical correction. Both of these conditions disqualify a dog from being shown in AKC conformation competition. Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA), Progressive retinal atrophy, or PRA as it is frequently termed, is a long recognized, hereditary, blinding disorder. It is inherited as a simple autosomal recessive in most breeds.Dogs examined by a Board-certified Veterinary Ophthalmologist and found to be free of hereditary eye disease may be registered annually with the Canine Eye Registry Foundation (CERF).
Thyroid: Autoimmune thyroiditis is the most common cause of primary hypothyroidism in dogs. The disease has variable onset, but tends to clinically manifest itself at 2 to 5 years of age. Dogs may be clinically normal for years, only to become hypothyroid at a later date. The marker for autoimmune thyroiditis, thyroglobulin autoantibody formation, usually occurs prior to the occurrence of clinical signs. Therefore, periodic retesting is recommended. The majority of dogs that develop autoantibodies have them by 3 to 4 years of age. Development of autoantibodies to any time in the dog s life is an indication that the dog, most likely, has the genetic form of the disease. Using today's technology only a small fraction of false positive tests occur. Hypothyroid is generally considered to be an inherited trait.
Cancer: Lymphoma (cancer of the lymph glands) Lymphoma accounts for approximately 20% of all canine tumors, and more than 80% of cancers originating from blood cells. Most of the time, lymphoma appears as "swollen glands" (lymph Nodes) that can be seen or felt under the neck, in front of the shoulders, or behind the knee. Occasionally, lymphoma can affect lymph nodes that are not visible or palpable from outside the body, such as those inside the chest or in the abdomen. In these cases, dogs may accumulate fluid in the chest that makes breathing difficult, or they may have digestive problems (diarrhea, vomiting, or painful abdomen). If left untreated, dogs with lymphoma will generally succumb to the disease within 3 to 4 weeks. Treatment with prednisone (a corticosteroid) alone generally can induce rapid, but short-lived remissions (usually less than 6 to 8 weeks), and frequently renders the disease resistant to further treatment. Durable remissions are achievable in lymphoma, so the disease is generally considered to be 'treatable.' Multi-agent chemotherapy, which is the standard of care for this disease, will induce remissions of 12 to 18 months in many cases. However, there are various subtypes of lymphoma that exhibit different behaviors, and some of the more aggressive types are unresponsive to any available treatment. For example, the median survival for dogs with lymphoma originating from B cells treated with multi-agent chemotherapy is approximately 14 months, whereas the median survival for dogs with lymphoma originating from T cells treated with multi-agent chemotherapy is approximately 6 months. However, there remains a lot of variability in the responses seen even when tumors are classified into these subtypes.
Osteosarcoma (bone cancer) Osteosarcoma accounts for 85% of skeletal cancers. Large and giant breed dogs are at highest risk for developing osteosarcoma, possibly due to the fact that bone cells at the growth plates must divide many times to create the very long bones that are characteristic in these breeds. However, there probably are additional risk factors, which have yet to be defined. Osteosarcomas generally occur in the limbs, however, these tumors can arise anywhere in the long bones, as well as in flat bones (ribs, skull, and spine). Osteosarcoma is always a life-threatening disease because it is highly metastatic, making treatment of this type of cancer especially difficult. The standard of care for osteosarcoma of the limbs includes amputation or limb-sparing surgery, followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. The median survival for dogs with osteosarcoma treated with surgery alone is approximately 100 days. The addition of chemotherapy (usually doxorubicin or a "platinum" drug) to the treatment regimen increases the median survival to 300 days. Various factors can be used to predict response to therapy, including the anatomic location and size of the tumor and serum alkaline phosphatase concentrations. However, there are no truly robust predictors of response, and the survival of dogs with osteosarcoma treated with standard of care can range from weeks to years. |