652 – Breeding Dogs Around Diseases that Don’t Have a “Test”
Breeding Dogs Around Diseases that Don’t Have a “Test”
Host Laura Reeves is joined for part two of her impactful conversation with Aimée Llewellyn-Zaidi, Project Director, IPFD Harmonization of Genetic Testing for Dogs at International Partnership for Dogs.
Today’s conversation covers some of the biggest hot button diseases impacting all dogs – seizure disorders, cancer, bloat and other life-threatening issues.
Llewellyn-Zaidi offers insight, information and details about new tests coming online and the ways we can minimize risk while working with small gene pools.
“(S)ome cancers are just kind of part of dogs, just being a dog. Or sometimes they’re part of being a type of a dog, like some types of dogs are more likely to be at risk than others, whether it’s size -related or maybe they’re a herding breed, and it’s just at some point in ancient times, (when we) started dividing out into generalized proto-breeds, when we started having our wolfie looking ones and spitzy -looking ones, and we started having our molosser looking ones, and we started having our retrieving looking ones. Before they were such distinctive breeds, there would have already been selection causing inbreeding and increasing some genetic duplication to get those desirable traits.
“And you may bring some things along with that. So some of these cancers are not specific, necessarily, to your breed and they’re just specific to that type of dog.
“With cancers there are two cancer tests that are available to all dog breeds or all dog types. There is something called a C -kit somatic mutation for mast cell tumors. All of this is on www.dogwellnet.com so you can check it out. And there’s also the BRAF mutation, so invasive transitional cell carcinoma. That’s for all dogs as well. And for my dear beloved Bernese people, there’s histiocytic malignancy that’s available as a genetic test as well.
“So for some of these specific cancers and specific epilepsies, there are genetic tests available that you can use to help you maybe make some decisions or at least to eliminate what might else be going on, right? So you know if you’re not quite sure what kind of a cancer it is, the genetic test might help give you some information on that.
“All of this really comes down to how risky do you feel? We can rebuild any breed from scratch if we needed to. It would just take a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of consideration. So in some ways, being very radical, and I’m setting health and welfare aside for just a second, being very radical, it’s kind of up to a breed to make a choice. Do you want to keep breeding to your breed standard until you reach a point of too much poor health and inbreeding depression and then you start again?
“Or do you want to try to conserve and maintain kind of where you are now? Or do you want to try to improve or expand your genetic diversity from where you are now?
“And all three of those kind of philosophies are acceptable, assuming you’re keeping at least welfare in mind. And all three of those philosophies probably will fit all the different kinds of breeds in their unique situations.
“Followed very closely by conserving that breed type or those breed qualities that are important to you, right? That’s the point. That’s the point and the pleasure and the art side, right?
“So if you’re keeping in the back of your mind those chess moves, whether it’s ‘I’m gonna use this type for a couple of times because I really like that or I want to introduce that and then I’m gonna have a couple of litters where I go out and just kind of rebuild that diversity and then maybe go back to that type I happened to like,’ that’s how you kind of weave through the genetic variation that you have within your breed population.
“You probably can’t do that forever unless you’re very, very lucky as a breed, like you can’t do that forever, but you can probably do that for quite a long time.”
502 – Seizures in Dogs: Causes, Treatments and Considerations
Seizures in Dogs: Causes, Treatments and Considerations
Dr. Marty Greer joins host Laura Reeves for this month’s Veterinary Voice talking about seizures in dogs. Type of seizure, age of onset, causes and treatments are all up for discussion today.
“Seizures can be actually epilepsy, which has probably got a genetic component to it,” Greer said. “Where the dog has an epileptic tendency. Typically those are going to be seen in certain breeds of dogs and they typically happen between two and four years of age for the first seizure. If we’re seeing seizures or seizure type activity or episodes in really young dogs or dogs that are elderly, it’s probably not primarily an epileptic situation.
“If it’s a very young puppy, the first thing we look at is blood glucose. If their glucose drops because they’re not eating adequately, they don’t have enough glycogen stores in their liver, and so they’re weak or they’re sick, they’ll have a seizure type of activity. So, the first thing we do in anything that’s really young or really old, is reach for some kind of glucose. You can reach your Karo syrup, you can reach for honey. If you have caramels and the dog is capable of chewing them, that’s great. You can give sweetened condensed milk. Glucose can be absorbed right through the gums, so the dog doesn’t actually have to swallow to get the effect of bringing up their glucose.
“If you have an older dog (with seizure activity) the first thing to do is get some initial blood work. That’s easy to do. You can check calcium, you can check glucose. It’s easiest and most effective to check it very close to the time of the event. Glucose can go down for multiple reasons. I’ve seen it go down during severe pregnancy toxicosis. I’ve seen it go down because dogs have eaten xylitol, sugarless gum and candy. And I’ve seen it go down because dogs have insulinomas, which is a tumor in the pancreas. Those are functional tumors that create so much insulin that the dog’s blood glucose drops precipitously. Anytime your glucose is too low you can have a seizure. I’ve also seen it go down in Addison’s disease.
“You want to be sure that you’re comprehensive and complete on what’s going on with the dog before you jump to any conclusions. There’s always the toxins. So, xylitol we’ve talked about as a possible toxin, but there are some rat poisons and some other neurotoxins that we can see not the vitamin K type of rat poison. There’s a lot of other kind of nasty toxins that are out there that dogs can sometimes get into. Sometimes our pharmaceutical medications can cause that as well, so appetite suppressants can cause it, there are a number of different drugs on the market that can cause seizure type of activities. It’s really important that we get a good history on these drugs what they might have gotten into.
“The other thing to know is that the new class of oral flea and tick medications can cause neurologic disease tremors. That can also include seizures in seizure prone dogs. If your dog recently had a dose of that, typically within 24 hours, you need to include that too. So you need to go through the list of anything that’s possible, anything that’s the dog was given deliberately or not deliberately so that we are not missing any information that could potentially be a problem.
“Of course, in the older dog, there are structural abnormalities like brain tumors. That’s diagnosed with either CT scan or an MRI … there’s a lot of things that make dogs look like seizures, but it’s not always epilepsy. Epilepsy is a diagnosis of exclusion. Typically, we diagnose it after everything else has been ruled out.”
Listen in to the podcast for Dr. Greer’s suggestions on treatment plans and more.
And go back to Liz Hansen‘s conversation on the research in this area.
320 – You ARE What You Eat and So is Your Dog
You ARE What You Eat and So is Your Dog
Dr. Diane Brown, CEO of the AKC Canine Health Foundation, joins us again to talk about fascinating new research on the “gut-brain axis.” In other words, the microscopic bugs inside the dog’s body are being proven to interact with what’s going on in its brain.
From the CHF Newsletter: “The adage “you are what you eat” may be more profound than we ever realized. A growing body of evidence shows a complex system of two-way communication between the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and neurologic system in humans and dogs. The link between GI health and diseases such as multiple sclerosis, autism, and epilepsy has been studied in humans. In fact, patients with celiac disease or inflammatory bowel disease have an increased risk of developing epilepsy. Since the community of microorganisms that live in the digestive tract – known as the gut microbiome – plays an important role in GI health, what impact does it have on neurologic disease? AKC Canine Health Foundation (CHF) funded researchers are exploring the role of this microbiomegut-brain axis in canine epilepsy.”
http://www.akcchf.org/educational-resources/library/articles/AKC-CHF-Discoveries-Summer-2019.pdf
Gut microbiome
“The bacteria that live in the gut have been shown to have importance to both health and disease,” Brown said.
CHF research is determining what type of bugs normally live in the gut (literally any part of the digestive system from top to bottom). Which ones of those bugs are pathogens and which ones prevent disease is an enormous topic.
Many of us understand, for example, that antibiotics completely change the gut microbiome. But this new research is documenting associations with other disorders, including the impact of bacterial content in the gut and how it is influencing epilepsy and anxiety.
Using proprietary probiotics to manage post-antibiotic diarrhea is one thing. But Probiotics used over the course of six weeks are showing an impact on anxiety behaviors in dogs, providing a non-drug-based treatment for this frequent issue in all dogs.
Poop is cool!
Researchers speaking at a recent CHF conference even discussed using fecal transplants, delivered as an enema, to transplant healthy flora fecal material thereby improving the health of the dog.
236 – CHF Research Examines Neurological Diseases
Epilepsy is the number one neurological problem in dogs
Dr. Diane Brown and the Canine Health Foundation are doing battle with neurological disease, specifically epilepsy, in an effort to improve the lives all dogs, and their people.
Dr. Diane Brown, CEO, AKC Canine Health Foundation.
“Epilepsy is a complex disease,” Brown said. “It presents in different ways. It is present in all dogs, mixed breed and purebred, and in people.”
Epilepsy is a catch all term applying to different breeds, different ages, different causes of seizures. “Idiopathic epilepsy” in layman’s terms means, “we don’t know why your dog is having seizures, but we’re calling it epilepsy.”
Brown notes that seizures can be caused by clearly genetic cases, toxicity, structural defects, inflammatory diseases, brain tumors and other underlying issues. Even more terrifying, up to one-third of epilepsy cases are noted to be resistant to current medication
“We really wanted to make a concerted, multi-year effort trying to address epilepsy in dogs,” Brown said. She added that the research effort is focused on two broad areas: genetics and developing new therapies for the disease.
Break throughs and new studies
A CHF funded grant has already identified a new dosing option for dogs with seizures causing an emergency situation.
“It’s been 20 years since a new drug was identified that can be used in an emergency situation,” Brown said.
Alternatives to standard therapies are also being studied. Brown highlighted a study into the effects of treatment with CBD oil in a large clinical trial with rigorous scientific standards. The research is the first of its kind in the country, and CHF was the first to invest in this exciting effort.
As other studies investigate gene identification, the most recent breakthrough was identifying a form of epilepsy in juvenile Rhodesian Ridgebacks that is directly related to pediatric epilepsy in humans.
While the goal is to develop a DNA test for epilepsy, Brown notes that genetics are complicated and it’s rarely as simple as identifying one gene to breed out of a population.
An even more fascinating study is examining the role of the intestinal tract, the so-called gut-brain axis, that may have influence on neurological health
“We are for the health of ALL dogs. It can create a false impression that purebred dogs are less healthy, but the reality is, they are the ones who contributed to the funding to solve the problem,” Brown said.
CHF Epilepsy Research Initiative, includes grants, research publications, webinars, other resources
Epilepsy white paper:
http://www.akcchf.org/canine-health/top-health-concerns/epilepsy/understanding-canine-epilepsy.html
CHF-funded research study on CBD for drug-resistant epilepsy in dogs
http://www.akcchf.org/research/research-portfolio/2323.html
Webinar with veterinary neurologist, Dr. Karen Munana:
https://www.vetvine.com/article/376/akcchf-update-on-canine-epilepsy
CHF press release
http://www.akcchf.org/news-events/news/clinical-trial-to-study.html
AKC article
https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/alternative-medicine/cbd-oil-for-dog-seizures/
Pure Dog Talk‘s interview with Liz Hansen on epilepsy research.