IIene's post-reply GH

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

At 05:52 PM 6/5/01 -0700, you wrote:
>I agree. Gina is doing a great thing. I have been quiet up until now, as
>this is a very depressing time for me as a breeder. I have to place one
>of my precious girls. She has low thyroid and can't be bred. This is a
>genetic condition. Now, her hips, elbows, heart, and eyes are all clear.
>This is so heartbreaking for me. Who can give her a better home and more
>love than me? There is someone, I am sure, but still, my heart aches. I
>love this girl, and looked forward to the puppies she would have
>produced. What this means is, some breeder before me, ignored the
>thyroid problem and bred her dog. If she cared to keep track of all the
>thyroid problems that said dog produced through the generations, she
>would probably hide her head in shame. She doesn't want to know though,
>cause how would she sleep at night. Bravo Gina, for wanting to know!! It
>seems there is few of us left that can say "The buck stops here".
>
>                                     Ilene

Hi IIene,

As you know I am very sorry to hear that Dawn will not be bred.  She is a 
lovely dog and I know first hand how disappointing it is when we as 
breeders are faced with not being able to breed a dog with as much to offer 
the breed as Dawn has.  I applaud you for looking into this and for making 
what you feel is the right decision for both your breeding program and 
Dawn. You have my unconditional support and respect here...

  I can also back IIene up here with new information that has just become 
available to both of us that a well known breeder who does have a part in 
Dawn's pedigree who shall remain nameless but is not involved in our 
pedigrees, has/does put dogs on thyroid supplement and breeds them, some of 
these dogs may not even have low thyroids.  Never the less if they do or 
don't they are also not tested...  Some breeders belive it or not, put dogs 
on thyroid med's just to grow coat and add pigment.  This is WRONG!  The 
information comes from someone who works for this breeder on occasion who 
passes out the pills on the instruction of the breeder.  This is not here 
say it is truth and this information was given to IIene to aid her in 
making decisions for her future breeding program.  The person who provided 
this information is a hero in my eyes, a hero to the breed, but she and 
IIene, must be very careful about what they discloses and to who.  That is 
SAD!

Everyone,

Hypothyroid disease is yes heritable and it's true that some breeder may 
have ignored this and gone on and bred a dog who was low thyroid behind 
Dawn and many others down the line.  But again we can not ever say where 
something has come from with an absolute when it comes to how the genes 
line up, an example of this is:  Our Kaycee who is related to most of your 
dogs has been tested for thyroid and is "clear" her last test was at age 10 
when I did a matter of course complete geriatric blood panel base 
line.  but Kaycee has produced hypo-t in 3 of her 28 prodigy.  Two pup's in 
one litter and one in the litter Sprite came from, a third from the litter 
with two noted is now being tested at age 5 as she is obese and exhibiting 
other signs of hypo-t.  Efforts on the owners part to improve fitness 
through diet and exercise have proven to not work for Ginger, she also 
appears to have allergies.  I should hear from Sherri in a few day's on 
Gingers blood work up and I will share what I find out.  On this, the 
person who owns the male we bred Kaycee to, to produce the now presumably 3 
h-t dogs did not tell me that her male was on thyroid replacement until 
after the breeding was done.  I did ask and I was lied to.  I won't go into 
this part of that any further...  But I do want to say this:

The dog who is a litter mate to Sprite, is not out of the same sire, and in 
this case both parents were clear of h-t.  So this as with everything can 
also be obscure and we can never be 100% sure.  I do screen my dogs for h-t 
but I have always subscribed to the medical procedure of waiting until the 
dogs are mature to test.  It's a known fact that most vet's will verify 
that true h-t is not detectable till around age 3 in most cases.  Well this 
use to be so...  There is now a new DNA test that has been developed that 
may be able to give us an absolute answer to if a dog is h-t or will ever 
become h-t.  It's called a TTRG [ I think that is the right? initials]   I 
have yet to run this test on any of my dogs, I am still looking for 
information there and I am watching others.  I do test though all of the dogs.

To date we have yet to have a dog fail that we are breeding or have bred 
and I must say that I do feel as though we don't have a problem here with 
our dogs.  Of course you can all test but as IIene will agree, h-t dogs 
exhibit symptoms of this disease.  They often have poor hair coats, run ear 
infections with regularity, chew on their feet, get hot spots, and are 
generally very easy keepers, ie they get fat easily. On testing for h-t 
again this is something that needs to be done by a vet who understands and 
the blood needs to be sent to only the BEST lab.  That lab is MSU as MSU is 
where the study is being done on the DNA factor.  Any lab can run a simple 
T-4 but not all lab's readings are what MSU's are.  A lot of vet's beleive 
it or not do not know this.  My own normal vet did not until I told them!

Anyway, Thanks guys for listening...  We really need to look at some of 
these issues, but for now I think I need a break from the key board!

G :-)