Re: Hip Dysplasia and diet

["Deb & Boyd McFail" <bdmcfail@alaska.net>]

thank you for this and thank you again for being there tonight and for not
laughing at me about Boomer. I do appreciate it. Can't remember when I've
been so speechless and then swung into action so fast by lunging for the
phone! It's a wonder I didn't snap my bones off moving so fast, lol. Gawds,
was I ever stunned. That'll be one to tell on myself one day for sure.
Debs

----------
>From: Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>
>To: brierpups@fast.cs.utah.edu
>Subject: Hip Dysplasia and diet
>Date: Sun, Dec 10, 2000, 9:03 PM
>

> HI All,
>
> I am on a Book Reading Group and this month Dr. Billinghurst is the guest
> author.  So I am sharing this with you:
>
> Copyright Ian Billinghurst.
>
> Hip Dysplasia, Elbow Dysplasia, Osteochondritis. These diseases continue to
> mount their attacks on young dogs, particularly the larger breeds, despite
> mass radiography and culling. What are we doing wrong? Why do these problems
> appear and reappear in supposedly disease free lines? Our failure to
> eliminate Hip and Elbow Dysplasia compels us to ask . "Are our efforts
> entirely misdirected?" Should we be looking elsewhere for a solution?
> Are we barking up the wrong tree?
>
> The answer is yes, most definitely. Most dogs that develop Hip and Elbow
> Dysplasia, [or other juvenile skeletal diseases] are suffering from
> completely avoidable problems. Most of the blame for these problems should
> be laid at the door of incorrect nutrition and poor exercise regimes, rather
> than 'bad' genes. Let me explain.
>
> Unfortunately, what we vets DO NOT KNOW about Hip and Elbow Dysplasia,
> far outweighs what we do know! Fortunately, there ARE answers. They are
> found in the history of these diseases. Understanding that history allows
> the basic causes of Hip and Elbow Dysplasia to leap out at us, making
> solutions crystal clear. Ironically, those causes and those solutions have
> stared us in the face for decades.
>
> It is accepted "truth" that bad genes cause Hip and Elbow Dysplasia. We
> assume that schemes to remove those genes shall produce dogs that will not
> develop these diseases. Unfortunately, all attempts to remove these genes
> have proved impossible. Yet nobody has asked - "exactly which genes are we
> trying to eliminate?" Those genes have never been identified because nobody
> is looking for them. And if we don't know which genes we are looking for,
> what chance do we have of getting rid of them? And even if we could get rid
> of them, would their elimination remove traits we actually wanted to keep?
> DIET and EXERCISE play a vital role in bone development. In all the Hip
> and Elbow Dysplasia schemes, nobody is asking what and how much did each dog
> eat and how was each dog exercised while its bones were developing? Diet and
> exercise are ignored as we assume they play no role in bone health. As we
> assume that all radiographic abnormalities are caused only, by faulty
> genes. We ignore basic biology and genetics which tell us this cannot be.
> The role of diet and exercise in bone production is crucial. Diet and
> exercise interact with genes, producing either sound or unsound bones
> and joints. For any dog with skeletal disease, we must ask "what was the
> relative contribution of genes, poor diet and inappropriate exercise?" If
> diet and exercise were the major contributors, logic would dictate that
> these must be the first areas we should look to when seeking a solution.
> There is a more fundamental question. How long have these problems plagued
> our dogs? Tens, hundreds or thousands of years? Are these diseases a new
> phenomenon? The surprising answer is that these bone and joint abnormalities
> are a product of the twentieth century. The story begins with the sudden
> appearance of Hip Dysplasia in the 1930's when it was considered a rare
> disease, unknown before that time!
>
> By 1965, Hip and Elbow Dysplasia had been identified in 55 breeds of dogs
> worldwide. They were now common problems. In just thirty years, the dog
> world had experienced the sudden appearance and rapid spread of these and a
> multitude of other skeletal problems, including shoulder, elbow, hock and
> stifle dysplasia, all having gone from rare or non-existent, to exceedingly
> common.
>
> By 1950 it was standard "truth" that the causes of Hip and Elbow Dysplasia
> were genetic. That "truth" has never been questioned despite all Hip and
> Elbow Dysplasia elimination schemes [which rely on that "truth"], having
> failed utterly! Both these problems remain, as serious and as prevalent and
> as seemingly impossible to eliminate as ever.
>
> If these diseases did not exist before the 1930's, where did they come from?
> What caused them to appear and spread rapidly? Why are they now so common?
> Basic biology dictates that a mass of bone wrecking genes, can not
> suddenly appear in the dog population and spread like wild-fire - in two or
> three decades - through most breeds of dogs, specifically targeting the
> larger breeds. Those genes must always have been present, but not causing
> any problems until the 1930's, when some environmental change occurred which
> allowed these genes to express themselves.
> We vets are not willing to face this possibility because we have developed,
> [in conjunction with breeders], an enormous emotional and professional
> investment in believing that the bone and joint problems in our young dogs
> are caused by genes - alone - and can therefore ONLY be eliminated by
> breeding.
>
> We have produced a gargantuan juggernaut of an elimination scheme which
> depends on mass radiography, highly questionable interpretations of same,
> and wholesale culling to eliminate the genes which produce Hip and Elbow
> Dysplasia. Unfortunately, this machine is making very little headway after
> many decades of rolling roughshod over countless canine corpses which lie
> strewn in its wake.
>
> This begs the question. Does the failure of these schemes rule out genes as
> the basic cause of these bone and joint problems? Not at all. Our fifty
> years of futility clearly points to a major environmental change which
> occured in the 1930's. This change allowed the genes which cause these
> problems to express themselves. But what was that environmental change?
> Fortunately, we do not have to look very far to discover the answer.
> During the 1930's, the diet our dogs evolved to eat was drastically
> changed. Until that time, most people fed their dogs an evolutionary type
> diet of raw foods, whole foods and not a lot of grain. In the 1930's this
> was replaced with masses of cooked grain plus meat and bone meal and
> calcium supplements. The new diet lacked the raw whole animals - including
> bones and organ meat - fish, birds and plants, feces and soil, dogs had
> eaten for millions of years.
>
> This change occurred during the depression of the 1930's. Dog owners were
> looking for cheap alternatives to the fresh food they normally fed their
> dogs. Astute businessmen of the day realising the enormous money-making
> potential in the pet food market, obliged by changing the labels on
> commercially produced pig, calf and poultry feeds and throwing in some extra
> calcium.
>
> For the first time in millions of years of canine evolution, our dogs were
> deprived of fresh whole raw foods and forced to eat a diet based on masses
> of cooked grain, meat meal and bone meal together with artificial calcium
> rather than raw bones. That massive dietary change occurred in conjunction
> with a more aggressive approach to exercise.
> These changes, and most especially the dietary change, proved to be the
> ideal set of conditions to allow certain genes to express themselves in the
> form of skeletal disease.
>
> Modern commercial dog foods have changed very little. However, there is now
> an enormous body of evidence that this catastrophic change in food [and
> exercise] wreaked havoc on our dogs' bones and joints, particularly the
> larger and giant breeds, whose genetic makeup renders them particularly
> susceptible to these changes.
>
> The new starchy diet, [designed to support the rapid growth and fattening
> of livestock], produced accelerated growth rates and obesity in our pups.
> Their rapidly increasing weight outstripped the ability of their soft
> young bones to support them. High starch resulted in damaging hormonal
> changes which wreaked further havoc on bone growth. Nutritional excesses and
> deficiencies, together with a total loss of protective nutrients found only
> in fresh whole raw foods added further insult to bone growth. Excessive
> artificial calcium added further problems. Throw in excessive exercise to
> traumatise and re-shape these soft badly growing bones, and we have the
> perfect conditions for skeletal disease in young dogs.
>
> These problems were particularly noted in the larger, faster growing, more
> poorly muscled, more obese, and poorly engineered breeds.
> As you can see, the causes behind Hip and Elbow Dysplasia are much more than
> genetic! But what about the genes? If genes are the basis of the problem,
> why has the attempted removal of these genes failed to fix the problem? The
> answer is, simple. We have not fixed the problem because the genes have not
> been removed.
>
> Despite years of not breeding from dogs which demonstrated faulty skeletal
> structure [according to radiographic evidence], and only breeding from dogs
> with [relatively] sound bones and joints, [according to radiographic
> evidence], the genes which cause those problems still remain. Why? because
> nobody has asked- "which genes are we trying to eliminate?"
> The genes we must eliminate are very well known. They appear in most
> articles dealing with Hip and Elbow Dysplasia but nobody has recognised them
> as such.
>
> The genes which pre-dispose for skeletal problems in our young dogs are the
> genes which code for large size, fast growth rate, small muscles, great
> obesity, and finally genes that code for poor engineering.
> Could it be that simple? Yes it could. That simple and that dificult. The
> major difficulty is that these genes also happen to code for the very
> distinctive characteristics of each and every breed.
> The genes we want to eliminate to solve the bone and joint problems are
> the exact same genes we want to keep! To retain our breeds in their
> recognisable form, most of the genes which pre-dispose to skeletal disease
> are the genes we must not remove!
>
> This makes any attempt using a genetic solution, an exercise in futility.
> To solve the problem of bone and joint disease in our young dogs, We have to
> re-visist the basic underlying factors which caused these problems to
> appear in the 1930's. These are the factors we must eliminate.
> The key to eliminating skeletal disease in our dogs is found in diet and
> exercise which [happily] are the two factors over which each breeder and
> dog owner can have maximum control.
>
> We must return our dogs to their evolutionary diet and their evolutionary
> exercise regime. Of greatest importance is to find modern foods that are
> equivalent in nutritional terms to the evolutionary diet. This is simple.
> An evolutionary diet is based on 50 to 60 percent raw meaty bones, 20 to 30
> percent raw crushed vegetables and fruit, ten percent offal, no artificial
> calcium, together with simple additives such as kelp, flax meal, cod liver
> oil and yoghurt. This diet is not to be fed in enormous amounts. Pups are
> grown slowly, as nature intended. Enough is fed to ensure that the pups grow
> at about 60 to 70 percent of their maximum growth rate.
>
> Exercise along evolutionary lines is vital. Bones require normal stresses
> for normal growth. Neither too much nor too little.
> The only "bone healthy" exercise for juvenile dogs is PLAY. Plenty of play,
> not rough play, but play where the puppy stops as soon as it becomes tired.
> Until the bones are mature, that is the only exercise that should be
> allowed - as Nature/God/Evolution intended.
>
> Raised this way, no matter what genes they have inherited, the vast majority
> of pups will grow sound and healthy with little or no trace of Hip and Elbow
> Dysplasia. However, a few pups will still develop skeletal problems. These
> pups have directly acting genes. Genes that express themselves no matter
> what the diet or the exercise. Now is the time to kill or cull the animal
> that carries them.
>
> Should we still radiograph our dogs ? Yes! By combining a radiographic
> programme with sound management, we will maximise the chance of raising
> sound pups, and eliminate any genes directly responsible for causing
> skeletal problems, while keeping most of our predisposing genes, so as to
> maintain our breed characteristics.
>
> In a nutshell, pups, must be grown slowly, kept slim, without artificial
> calcium supplements, on an evolutionary type diet, high in raw meaty bones.
> Until the pup's bones are mature, the only exercise that should be allowed
> is play with age and size matched peers. This will produce normal stresses
> allowing normal growth.
>
> These are simple but powerful tools. They have kept dogs' skeletons sound
> for millions of years. Employing them will eliminate most Juvenile Bone
> Disease, no matter what "nasty" genes are present.
>
> Are you barking up the wrong tree when it comes to producing sound skeletons
> in young dogs? Think carefully before dismissing the ideas in this article.
> To not use those simple but profoundly effective tools, can make breeding
> and rearing dogs a difficult and painful exercise, and very costly from a
> monetary, an emotional and a genetic loss point of view.
>
> For more detailed information about feeding and exercising young dogs
> according to evolutionary principles, may I suggest you read my book "Grow
> Your Pups With Bones."
>
>
>
>
>