Epilepsy from German bred sires - Page 5

Very sound advice, hope this helps you Lily. Best of luck

Thanks Videx, I will pass my info on to the breed council secretary anyway & would be happy to submit DNA if necessary, although i'm not sure if DNA info is being collated by the KC. I know that this is being done in Irish Setters & they have identified a line that has been passing on a particular genetic problem.

LilyDexter look at this web-page, it is for The Kennel Club (UK) DOG GENETIC HEALTH http://www.doggenetichealth.org/index.php

Hi Lily. My first GSD suffered from epilepsy, (I did no homework I am ashamed to say). I just bought her from the local paper. It was not long before she died of a massive grand mal seizure, and it was heartbreaking, big lesson learned. My next GSD I did homework, but even then you never know, and after all these years of being in the breed there is always things that are kept quiet! And can go wrong too! So there is no need to blame yourself. Perhaps the breeders knew and perhaps not, whose to know? But I would like to say all the best with your girl I hope her epilepsy becomes more under control, and she can lead a 'relative normal life' which by the sound of you she has a great mum to care and do the best for her! Regards Sting

Sting & Videx, Thanks for your replies, I will check out the website. We have had three really good days in a row with her which has made a nice change. The Phenobarbital seems to be working & she is now just having the odd bout of head nodding, mostly in the morning. She has also not been acting aggressively towards us lately & as it was this that worried me more than the actual fits, I am feeling a lot better& more hopeful about her future. It has been like living with a 'normal' dog again! Fingers & paws crossed that we will now have more good days than bad.

LilyDexter and Videx,

Back in the "old days" when the homegrown English lines started to experience epilepsy ( the dog mentioned above and I think one of the Delridge (sp) dogs) did not the GSDLeague purhase some of the dogs so Willis could study the mode of inheritance? It seems to me in the vet world we are often reinventing the wheel because there is no memory or research of what has come before.

Yes there are different kinds of epilepsy in different breeds. Historically in the GSD epilepsy was late onset (after 2-3 years of age) which is part of what made it difficult to remove from the genome since dogs had often been bred before it raised it's ugly head. If I remember right what Willis determined was that it had a threshold inheritance pattern.  For example 10 genes might be involved with a minimum of 4-5 before seizures would occur. Males appeared to have a lower threshold than females and started to fit at an early age and more severely. Since you guys are in England, you have the resource at your finger tips - email him.

Re the "ideal" situation of  a "picked clean" genome to produce the perfect dog - make haste slowly. Some interesting research has been done on Cystic Fibrosis and Tay Sachs diseases. The question posed was this - Since these are obviously fatal diseases why do they persist in the genome since truly fatal diseases breed themselves out of existence?  They went back and looked at the historical populations that that gave rise to these diseases and found in the case of  Tay Sachs those populations were subject to periodic epidemics of dysentry and similiar diseases. Tay sachs is an abnomality in how the body handles fluids and fats. What they found is a carrier with one copy of the gene actually would survive the dystentery epidemics because their bodies did not become dehydrated in the same way as someone w/o the gene. Re Cystic Fibrosis something very similar except the diease was TB. The CF gene increases mucus in the lungs. With one copy of the gene it actually is a protection vs TB. You think this might be handy to know now that we are facing an epidemic of drug resistant TB?  So yes make haste slowly - make sure you understand what the gene brings to the table and do not just off the hand label it bad gene.

Related to this and some other parts of the conversation above - jimho - I will take a long coat any day to some of the very serious health problems we have in our breed. Again imho - the coat disqualification (wh/ has no historical basis if you are a collector and student of the old standards) was a way of reviving a world market that had become saturated with German Dogs. Eliminate coats w/ about a 25% penetrance in the breed and bingo whamo that's 25% more dogs we can sell. Gad I've gotten old and cynical.