On many occasions in the past, posters have written "my vet says that my bitch should have a litter" - or "my bitch has been checked over by my vet & he says that she would make a fine mother"

Have any of us actually asked our vets if they know what breeds are susceptible to what diseases, and what tests should be undertaken before breeding?

If not, do you think that we, as responsible guardians of our respective breeds, have a duty to educate our vets?

And if so, how the Mary Ellen do we go about it?????

Margot

I think I would be like to actually be present at these consultations before passing judgement on the actual advise given.  Sometimes people hear what they were wanting to hear ;)

I think the likely scenario is that the client asks if the dog is fit and healthy and then assumes that is this is healthy enough for breeding.  I too tend to find that my puppy owners are being pushed into neutering asap when waiting for maturity would actually be better for the dogs development in most instances.  Not to mention that it may mean a sad loss to the breeds gene pool should the owner later become more interested in the breed.

A friend of mine had a beautiful bitch pup back to re home and would have loved to have kept her for a future brood, but sadly she had been spayed as a baby.  She is doing well at shows, but can't pass her good traits on.  Sadly the litter sister the breeder kept developed Pyometra before she had a chance to have a litter, and the breeder has had to pick up the threads of her line elsewhere, and thankfully was able to find one of her breeding unspayed..

Vets are more likely to advise very early spaying and de-nutting in Staffordshire. It drives me mad.

My vet was trying his very best to get my bitch into be spay the other day, shes having her first season now but is not yet fully grown so i explained to him that it was something i would consider in the future but i wasn't in a hury as i was also told they are more likely to put on weight and loose condition in there coat, is that true? but he kept trying to push, i found it quite insulting.

This is an interesting point of view with scientific articles to back it:
http://www.caninesports.com/EarlySpayConsiderations.pdf

Good article brainless. It's a shame that vets don't offer this kind of information too. I have found personally that the vets are offering the spay and de-nutting options to owners who can't cope with normal puppy behaivour, or whose dogs just need a damm good walk!
Weims, Dobes, Spaniels and Labs seem to be in the line of fire far to frequently.

Im very wary of vets.I usually listen then go away to make my own informed decision, by speaking to those in my specialised breed.

I took a poorly  puppy of 5wks old to the vet, and he offered euthanasia and diagnosed Liver Shunt. I declined and phoned my mentor who dashed over.To cut a long story short, she is alive and well and didnt have liver shunt. When I took her to be innoculated the vet asked me how we had 'saved' the pup. If I had gone along with his advice just because he was the vet, then the outcome would have been very different.

Intresting, I think i'll give a copy to my vet

I'm going to print a copy off too.... I'm educating my vet by stealth ;)

Margot

Very interesting reading. Will have to run off a few copies myself.

It must be difficult as a vet to have all knowledge on all breeds. But yes, I feel we should try and enlighten the vets on specific problems that we now about in our own breeds. Because my breed is a toy breed, then the symptoms that were presented were almost a text-book diagnosis 'liver shunt'.
If from that experience, the vet might think twice before giving that diagnosis again, and someone else may have a happy outcome.
Communication is the key, none of us ever stop learning do we!

This is my point.   As a parent, I considered myself to be the "expert" on knowing MY children.   I knew what was "normal" for them, and what was not - and at that point I would call in the medical experts.

Personally, I feel we should be doing the same with our dogs - we are (or should become) the local "expert" on our breed of choice.  If we can then educate our own personal veterinary surgeon as to what is "normal" and what is not, then that vet too can become an expert!

Margot

I agree. Will will start our mission as of tomorrow!

For example in my breed and other Northern breeds a low normal thyroid reading may actually be an under active thyroid and coupled with symptoms like poor coat weight gain lethargy may actually require medication.

My current vet (best described as an 'acquired taste'! ;)) and I are both learning about bladder stones at the moment, finding each other articles, with the proviso that we both ignore anecdotal sites. :)

If the symptoms were text book liver shunt it was surely a reasonable thought :)  I'm sure vets always think twice, probably thrice and more, on all the possible causes of symptoms :)  If you have a particular knowledge of a breed by all means pass information on to the vet but I don't think we should get carried away by the quirks of probabilities that meant, in this instance, the vet's line of "common things are common" happened to be wrong.

Yes it was a 'reasonable thought'. But I was new to my breed at the time and just felt that I ought to check with my mentor.
.
This case seemed 'text-book'. as in Toy breed+collapses after eating=liver shunt.
He was mortified that he could have got it so wrong, and wanted to know as much as he could about the pups road to recovery etc. He said he had diagnosed another puppy the week before with the same illness.
He learnt, I learnt.Like I say you never stop learning.
My point is that it is worth educating yourself and using breed specific colleagues as reference.
Yes this incident has left its mark on me, hence why I come on here to try and learn more!

My point is if the most likely cause was liver shunt, presented again it would still most likely be liver shunt.  Learning about less probable causes is interesting but does not alter the probabilities, he should not be mortified :)

I don't know how the vet thought a pup so young had a Liver Shunt??

My Mum's dachsie Penny had a liver shunt diagnosed at 8months old and we were told they normally show up at about 6 months onwards as the body needs that long to get toxic due to lack of the blood being processed by the liver. As a nurse and knowing the importance of the liver I was very surprised to hear it took so long to show it's self. Luckily Penny had surgery at the local animal hospital and has had the best outcome possible, it is over 2.5 yrs since her op and all we have to be careful of is not giving her too high protein foods,I have got into the habit of reading the packs of everything so when she is here I know which treats she can have.

With the internet it should be so much easier for vets to check on the different breeds.

I was horrified to read a breeder[in the States] of my breed saying she has her pups neutered before they go to their new homes, a vet must have agreed to do it which was worse. I have many times posted the article mentioned here about early spay/neuter but it makes very little difference, only once has it stopped someone doing it till the dog was much older.

Rhona

I believe it is common practice in the States. I would say the article had been written very much from the American perspective and is merely a discussion document.  Whilst a vet in the UK might find it interesting I would imagine there is little information or research in it that they would not already be aware of.  As a health professional I am sure you know that it is rather unusual for any health professional not to continue to regularly update themselves via professional journals, seminars and, nowadays, professional internet groups and I would imagine, as such a common procedure, it would be a subject regularly discussed.  As the perspective in the UK is rather different, ie they do tend to neuter rather older and the life styles of UK dogs makes vasectomy inappropriate for tackling the reasons that people have their dogs neutered in the first place, I would imagine many vets will have a different view of the discussion as laid out in this article.  I think, therefore, anybody taking this article to their vet should do so in the interest of discovering their view of the subject rather than the more patronising intent of "educating" them :)

I'm not a vet and perhaps toy breeds are different but according to this liver shunt can present at an early age.

I had a newborn pup put to sleep at two weeks old.  It was the l;largest pup in the litter but was overtaken by it's siblings and hardly put any weight on and had spasms after feeding and brought milk up.  that was diagnosed as liver shunt.

There are important processes that occur just before and after birth and rewiring of the bloodlfow in the heart and liver are two of these and occasionally it doesn't happen at all or incompletely.

In my pups case it hadn't happened at all.  I suspect those pups who survive and are diagnosed later have a less severe form of this problem, as of course the liver is needed to do it's job from day one.

My vets are actually excellent in this respect as they will ASK me and want to learn! I have a rare breed of dog of course and they have only ever seen mine, but even about the cats (common breeds) they do ask and are always happy to learn something new.

Interesting article....

I reckon we should all go ask our vets if they would be willing to perform a vasectomy rather than a castration and see what responses we get....

Em

My vet is fantastic, I spoke to her a few years ago about SM and she said she would have to read up on it and also asked me to send her some links via email. 
If she is unsure about anything, she will always call her partner in to ask her opinion too, but most of all she listens to me which I think goes a long way in building up a good relationship - I love my vet

I'm sure a vet would perform a vasectomy or refer to a vet that has performed the op but I think they would be surprised to find a pet owner that would want it :)

I recently had vasectomies performed on two of my cocker males and really struggled to find a vet willing to carry out the surgery. I eventually managed to persuade one of the vets where I work to do the ops but the other surgeries I contacted said it was something they wouldn't do without even asking my reasons

Perhaps they did not feel competent doing such unfamiliar surgery which would not really be improved by knowing your reasons :) 

I have a lot of faith in my vets. If something goes wrong with the horses they have been 100% right, even though I have been a doubting thomas at times. They also discuss treatment with me, are flexible and approachable and I only get one of 2 on call outs so you do build a rapport. However, these are senior vets with years of experience - I'm not always so comfortable with small practise ones in surgeries and I certainly wouldn't ask anything more of them than a general check up :)

I'm glad to say that I have no rapport with my dogs' vet whatsoever :)
Fortunately we just don't see that much of each other :p

>>I'm glad to say that I have no rapport with my dogs' vet whatsoever :-)Fortunately we just don't see that much of each other :-p<<

I think that is such a shame :-( I have a very good relationship with the vets and nurses in my practice. When my rescue, Ben, started having seizures we had blood tests and x-rays done with no signs of any problems and then he was referred to the AHT. They did an MRI and diagnosed epilepsy. He only had seizures during exercise and nowhere could either my vet or I find a dog that had the same problem, still the AHT insisted it was epilepsy. I found some info online that suggested that when a dog suffers a seizure it can cause the blood sugar to drop and therefore trigger more seizures and the original blood test had shown that ben's sugar was slightly lower than normal although they believed it was the seizure that had caused it. I spoke to my vet and started carrying squirty honey with me on walks just in case. One day he started to wobble so I gave him some thinking it might reduce the chance of him "clustering". He recovered very quickly didn't have a seizure and although he was quieter he was ok. The result of this was the vet arranged an ultrasound scan of his pancreas and the lady that did it found nothing there but scanned his abdomen and found a tumour on his colon. She had heard of such tumours affecting the blood sugar level although it is apparently quite rare. The AHT still insisted that this was wrong and that he was epileptic :rolleyes: Unfortunately the tumour had already spread to his liver and I was told on christmas eve that it would be about three months, he was pts on March 15th 2004 when I felt that his quality of life had reduced to a point that I thought it was not fair to continue. If my vet had not listened to me when I told them that I didn't believe the original diagnosis we might never have known what was wrong with him, although I lost him I was told that there were in fact american vets that were interested in the diagnosis and treatment because although the tumour itself is not rare the effect it had IS. The specialists were so wrong and just wouldn't accept it, my vet e-mailed them about it and told them but they never replied......... Knowing about something like this even if it is rare could make all the difference to someone else and their pet. Ben's tumour could have been removed but as it had already spread I did not want to put him through any more. He was badly beaten and neglected before I had him and had put up with 3 months of tests and poking and prodding with only one growl, quite an achievment I thought. I knew I was going to lose him, putting him through more of it for a little extra time for MY benefit seemed just plain wrong. I talked it through with my vet and she agreed with me for all the same reasons and she has definitely learned from it, until the ultrasound she never knew such a thing could happen.

My dogs drag me into the vets and howl every time someone goes into her room before them. That I think says a lot about how good they are and how relaxed I am when I am there, when so many dogs are desperate to get out, I have the waiting room in stitches laughing because mine are desperate to get IN! I have never felt pressurised to have my dog neutered, it is entirely my decision and they have NEVER encouraged me to breed, again that is for me to decide.  They don't do eye testing but they were very interested to know about the blood test that is available from optigen as obviously they may be asked at some point to do that for someone.

I see so many posts on here about vets and I agree that sometimes people hear what they want to hear but I also know how lucky I am to have such a good vet and such a good relationship with them. I have been using this practice for 7 years and so far no complaints, I keep getting people telling me they are expensive but how many of you can say that your vet treats your dog like it is their own? Not many from the posts I have seen....... I had to fight the nurses to get Ben back on the couple of occasions I left him there, they "stop by" and fuss the others when they are in for any reason and when Kelly was X-rayed recently to check how his hips were getting on I don't hink he wanted to come home!  I trust my vets with my dogs 100%. I know that if I had to leave one of them there they would get looked after as well as I could do it, you can't put a price on that IMO

I think you've missed my point, colliemad :)
The reason I barely know my vet is because I hardly ever have to visit him !  You can't really build up much of a rapport based on the occasional tummy upset or blocked anal gland :)

Yes that's how I read your post tyby. :) I'd be the same if it wasn't for my cats! (The sheer number of them ensures there is always something going on.) We're at the vets at least once or twice a week, if we don't go one week the vets and receptionists wonder if we've died or something LOL. But the DOGS, they hardly know the dogs as they normally only go for vaccinations and the occasional hip x-ray or pregnancy scan -it's only Rufus the cavalier with a bad heart that gets seen regularly and even that is only every 6 months. In fact  most of the dogs (the young ones with no health problems at all) we take to a different, cheaper, vet to vaccinate, so I have 3 dogs that aren't bred from (so no need for scans or anything) that my vet haven't seen for between 3 and 4 years -since they were pups.

Hi Goldmali
I was going to add that my trips to the vets were rare because my dogs are unvaccinated (and therefore, in my view more healthy :)).  However after reading your post perhaps it's safer to say that mine have fewer visits despite being unvaccinated and yours have fewer visits despite being vaccinated :-D :p

<---sharp exit stage left before the whole debate is re-opened :-D

I know a young girl , who has got her first Boxer pup, of she trots to her vet for pups injections, her vet promptly informs her, that  pup is going to need major surgery  to correct his undershot jaw      poor girl was frantic,  I saw her a couple of days later, and she told me this story, I armed her with a copy of the breed profile.    so of she trots back to the vet with it, and gave it to said vet, and sugested said vet read up on all breed standards, before frightening the life out of owners.

One very red faced vet, less one client!

My vet is very reluctant to advise pet owners to breed from their bitches! Thus I tend to agree with the comment that people hear what they want to hear and there's a world of difference between "she's a lovely fit and healthy dog" and "why not try your inexperienced hand at breeding from her?".

In fact, at my practice, you are far more likely to have to guard your dog's breeding bits with some ferocity lest they end up on his cutting room floor long before the poor dog has celebrated its first birthday!

Same here, my promising Bedlington bitch was said to be in danger of mammary tumours and pyo - she was 12 weeks old!!   Happily tho the vet had knowledge of copper toxicosis and its many problems, in addition to testing procedures, as she had worked at a kennels where they were doing research into that very condition :)

Glad to say we had a litter from the bitch (who we made up :) ) and her daughter's doing very well indeed :) :)

I too, believe that owners tend to hear what they want to hear when at the vets re health and breeding ;) - and weight!! ;) ;)

I do find it a bit sad that vets are expected to know everything about all manner of creatures - particularly young vets :( Although I am sure that there is the full spectrum from totally (?) knowledgeable through to knowing not a lot, I am sure that mosts vets do their best. Along with doctors, people expect vets to be 100% correct and knowledgeable on everything that could possibly come within their sphere. I'm afraid that, in my job, I do make mistakes sometimes, I do suffer from pre-menopausal symptoms and can be a bit vague and forgetful and I DON'T know everything. However, there may be some people who don't suffer from these afflictions :D

Daisy

I don't not trust MY vet , he's brilliant if he doesn't know what something is or what is wrong with an animal he is honest & says so & researches & asks experts & specialists. He doesn't push neutering for all & is open minded re holistic care, when he started to see lots(& I mean lots)of Cavaliers with the various SM symptoms he when back to a neurologist he had when a student & that was Geoff Syrett & John , my vet, organised for Geoff to run a seminaron SM in Cavaliers for ALL the vets in the area. The two other big practices declined to attend(too busy-on a saturday !!) The result is Cavaliers who go to the smaller practices & the one I go to get correct & speedy diagnosis & referral & the others still misdiagnose & wrongly treat for months & even years !!

The very young vets are the ones pushing for castration(my Rjj was going to get cancer because at 15 weeks his b*lls were like yoyos especially when stressed at the vets)they almost convinced a member of our club to have their 16 week old GSD male done there & then to prevent him roaming & becoming aggressive (he's now 9 months & still entire & a real sloppy daft GSD)why ? because of the ideas coming from the States were they neuter under 12 weeks as a normal !

I wouldn't trust the latest vet to come into the area-he told my friend whose Dobe died with VW that Dobermanns didn't "catch"VW:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: only GSDs , the PM my vets did revealed he did in fact have VW

I am not suggesting for one moment that vets should know all about every dog breed:  what I am suggesting is that we try to educate each of our own vets about our particular breed - tell them what the breed standard is, what tests are breed specific, etc etc etc.

Margot

Im in total agreeance with you Margot. I dont expect my vet to know everything, which is why I double check with my friend, who has been in my breed for almost 20yrs. I would think most breeds have there own individual health issues. Dog breeds are so diverse these days.

I don't actually expect my vet (or any vet) to know everything about every animal ;)  but I do expect them to know that they don't know everything and admit it ;)  This kind of vet will never stop learning and will usually have a good rapport with clients.  It's the vet who thinks he(or she) has no more to learn that worries me ;)

It's would be unusual for anyone who has been through higher education to ever think that :) particularly in a science subject when their course would have emphasised the need for and taught how to evaluate the constant stream of new data produced by research.

Strangely enough I've met vets like this and consultant doctors :rolleyes:  - nurses have a joke for it ;)