I haven’t posted for awhile. A few weeks ago, I had two breeders narrowed down and we were in this horrible position where I really liked the breeder in one set, but I had some questions about one of the dogs’ health history. And the other, where I really liked the dogs but it seemed painfully obvious that the breeder had more important things to do than talk to me.

During this period, I was asking a LOT of questions about idiopathic epilepsy, otherwise known as genetic epilepsy. Idiopathic epilepsy occurs anywhere from 0.5 to 5.7% in all dog breeds, but in Swissies it occurs at a higher rate of 6 to 14%. This is not the most prevalent of the health problems that befall Swissies, but it the one that has everyone sweating and touchy. The reason for this is simple: the swissy population has a small gene pool. Epi usually doesn’t present itself until the dogs are older (3 or 5 years seems to be standard when it does occur) and is well past the time breeders start breeding their dogs. Because of the small gene pool, it is suspected that no lines in America are free from Epi and I’ve been told that Swissies in Europe have even more of an occurrence of the disease. Currently there is a great research project headed up by the University of Missouri, College of Veterinary Medicine, that is attempting to map the genes responsibly for the disease. But they seem to be years out from identifying a marker or even discovering what the mode of inheritance is.

Its a difficult subject to bring up with a swissy breeder. Almost all of them tout that people who want to get a Swissy should ask questions about it and if they don’t like the practices of the breeder, they should walk away. But they certainly don’t make it easy for us PPB’s to research it. There is no public data base mapping the lines for us to research. While almost all will talk about it in general terms, no one wants to talk about which dogs, when, and how often. The whole subject seems to be scarred with scandal, rumor and laced with pointing fingers and public witch hunts. More than once, I felt like I had entered a mine field when talking about this subject, but there was no other way around it.

Ah yes. What would we do without our drama. I understand there is pride and ego wrapped up in this, not to mention standing and history. Every breeder I talked to was practically bursting out of their sides with love and pride for their dogs. Every single one believes they are doing right by their breeding program. But there does seem to be a “not in my backyard” attitude with this issue and a fair bit of competition between them. I can’t help feeling that by NOT working together in a collaborative fashion they are just hurting the breed. It seems logical to me to try and map which lines should refrain from breeding, and if that means you stop breeding your prize line, so be it. But the argument is.. if they did that, they wouldn’t have anyone to breed to and since there is no genetic marker, its just elaborate guess work what is causing it.

So what does this mean for yours truly and any potential Swissy buyers? It means, that if you take on a swissy.. you need to go in with eyes wide open to the idea that YOUR dog might seize some day. Know the symptoms so you know what to do and what you are in for.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 16th, 2011 at 6:10 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.