Shikoku Health: Leg Pain
A hunting buddy of mine has a 1 and a half year old male Shikoku. He's a very nice healthy dog, but just before the Chiba regional last month he pulled up lame in one of his rear legs. After talking with the owner apparently it's happened 3 times so far. The vet has never been able to figure out what's wrong, so prescribed anti-inflammatory medication and a light pain killer. Seeing as it's happened 3 times now the vet took an x-ray, but couldn't find anything wrong with his joints.
The medication has helped every time, but I couldn't help but wonder what was causing it. My first guess was Luxating Patella, but all the vet could diagnose was a general form of 'leg nerve pain'. This piqued my curiosity so I've been on a rampage ever since to find out more about this. The more breeders I've talked to, the more I realize this is not an isolated case. It seems to be rather common in Shikoku, and does seem to be hereditary as it carries in lines. Since the 'diagnosis' up till now seems to usually be 'nerve pain' of some sort many people don't take it seriously, and the dogs exhibiting this are still shown/bred.
Yesterday a Nippo member's mag arrived and as I was looking through it lo and behold there's an article about this mysterious 'nerve pain'. Basically it went through everything I had already found out, and came to the same conclusion that in most cases it's probably LP. I'm thinking that here in Japan there just isn't that much awareness about the condition, especially in the Japanese breeds. Hopefully now that Nippo has put it out there it will spur people to figure out if this is actually what is affecting their dogs, and not just some vague leg pain.
I'm going to see if I can find any LP specialists here in Japan, and possibly use my friend's Shikoku as a test subject. The good news is that Nippo gave a strong warning that dogs that exhibit these symptoms not be shown or bred. Talking to a member of the Nippo board 2 weeks ago he told me that most of the breeders in this area of Japan already realized that whatever this was it was hereditary, so they don't breed dogs/lines that show these symptoms.
Anyway, just wanted to put this out there for future reference. This is not to say that LP is breed issue, there hasn't been much testing/diagnosis on this yet, but it is a possibility.
The medication has helped every time, but I couldn't help but wonder what was causing it. My first guess was Luxating Patella, but all the vet could diagnose was a general form of 'leg nerve pain'. This piqued my curiosity so I've been on a rampage ever since to find out more about this. The more breeders I've talked to, the more I realize this is not an isolated case. It seems to be rather common in Shikoku, and does seem to be hereditary as it carries in lines. Since the 'diagnosis' up till now seems to usually be 'nerve pain' of some sort many people don't take it seriously, and the dogs exhibiting this are still shown/bred.
Yesterday a Nippo member's mag arrived and as I was looking through it lo and behold there's an article about this mysterious 'nerve pain'. Basically it went through everything I had already found out, and came to the same conclusion that in most cases it's probably LP. I'm thinking that here in Japan there just isn't that much awareness about the condition, especially in the Japanese breeds. Hopefully now that Nippo has put it out there it will spur people to figure out if this is actually what is affecting their dogs, and not just some vague leg pain.
I'm going to see if I can find any LP specialists here in Japan, and possibly use my friend's Shikoku as a test subject. The good news is that Nippo gave a strong warning that dogs that exhibit these symptoms not be shown or bred. Talking to a member of the Nippo board 2 weeks ago he told me that most of the breeders in this area of Japan already realized that whatever this was it was hereditary, so they don't breed dogs/lines that show these symptoms.
Anyway, just wanted to put this out there for future reference. This is not to say that LP is breed issue, there hasn't been much testing/diagnosis on this yet, but it is a possibility.
Comments
It's nice to hear what's going on with the breed on the other side of the pond.
As you all know, Ahi has suffered with LP, and I found out recently her (male) litter mate was diagnosed with HD. It seems the hips in the breed may be in jeopardy as well, I think the average OFA score is "good" with some "poor" and at least one known case of HD.
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Jesse
Same with elbows.
http://offa.org/results.html?page=1#results
And from the OFA website
The phenotypic evaluation of hips done by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals falls into seven different categories. Those categories are normal (Excellent, Good, Fair), Borderline, and dysplastic (Mild, Moderate, Severe). Once each of the radiologists classifies the hip into one of the 7 phenotypes above, the final hip grade is decided by a consensus of the 3 independent outside evaluations. Examples would be:
1.
Two radiologists reported excellent, one good—the final grade would be excellent
2.
One radiologist reported excellent, one good, one fair—the final grade would be good
3. One radiologist reported fair, two radiologists reported mild—the final grade would be mild
The hip grades of excellent, good and fair are within normal limits and are given OFA numbers. This information is accepted by AKC on dogs with permanent identification (tattoo, microchip) and is in the public domain. Radiographs of borderline, mild, moderate and severely dysplastic hip grades are reviewed by the OFA radiologist and a radiographic report is generated documenting the abnormal radiographic findings. Unless the owner has chosen the open database, dysplastic hip grades are not in the public domain.
And FWIW, at least the dogs listed on OFA, all of them have LP listed as "normal"
Having said that, the online OFA DB is not up to date, I know several dogs that have scored "fair" on their hip OFA that are not list in the online DB. Also, you mentioned all the LP listings are "normal", but we submitted Ahi's results, which are not "normal" (she has LP in both knees) yet for whatever reason her results have not made it to the online DB yet either.
The OFA is a nice idea, but it has a huge point of failure IMHO. The point of failure is that it only catalogs the people who take the time to test and submit results, so Ahi's brother with HD will not, and is not, in the DB... yet knowing a Shikoku who has HD, and is closely related to many of the other Shikoku in the US, is a rather important thing to know. The OFA ends up being a record of all the breeding dogs breeder's know will pass OFA, but not any of the failures and the failures are WAY more important to know than the successes.
Add to that how we submitted Ahi's failed LP results and they never even made it into the OFA DB! I mean we paid money for that and got confirmation from them! Also, add to it that its near impossible to find a vet (at least for us) who are willing to do the paperwork and submit the data to the OFA! It's a shit system, if you ask me. It's a joke.
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I guess a dB is only so good as the data in it and calling them to correct information is important. Edited to ad that we have the same issues with some of my horse breeding databases FWIW.
Yes they should be 2 years old. I would call and ask you vet how much experience that he/she has in taking exrays of the hips and elbows and evaluating LP. The exrays will be sent to OFA for actual grading (but it helps to have good ones sent to them) and the LP is done by the actual practioner and not OFA directly.
See in my post above how OFA "certifies" the exrays sent by your vet.
You would do Koshi after she passes her 2nd birthday. Usually under anesthesia is best. I think all total the vet charged me $450 for the exrays and LP exam + $50 for OFA. They sent in the paperwork and the check to OFA (from me).
At this point, IMHO, the OFA has become no more than a marketing tool for breeders.
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There are also multiple muscle strains the occur with really active dogs. As a thought, muscle differentiation in such as the iliopsoas can be genetic as well and affect range of motion or produce repetitive problems.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9170092
As far as OFA really you have to start somewhere with promotion of the "do the right thing" among breeders. Maybe I misunderstand....I ask how can you force someone to get tested or report results ? It's not like it requires a drivers license to own a pure breed dog. Maybe through the registration process one could require HD testing, but again how would one police people on that. Should vets be responsible for disclosure if a dog is x-ray'ed. That is a whole other ethical realm that I am sure they do not want to step into.
I could see that it would be helpful if it was required that certain health tests be presented before champion status was placed on a dog. Policing registration is another sticky wicket since dogs require papers before showing or trials which often occur when dog is too young to be official. Policing breeding may be an option however, who will do that and how.
BTW there is also late onset of HD. Dogs with low scores should be reviewed over time through multiple tests and I would like to see all reports be public. (Probably it is a good idea for retests to be reviewed over time to get a bigger picture of changes if any.) At this point I think there is an option not to make data available to public, so in this regard I would like to see all, not just the good ones. (When I state late on set, I am referring to a dog that most likely had only a fair or low score and later the hips degraded further.)
Snf
Alternatively, offer two levels of documentation. One that is just a 2 generation certificate of lineage with limited registration that can be given away with the pup and the other a complete 3, 5, or 7 generation certificate of lineage + full registration granted after OFA/PennHip results are posted when the dog is an adult.
Oh ayk I do like you line of thinking.....
I believe it is the breed clubs that determine this, not sure, but it would be a great start to looking at more consistent generational data.
As far as vets certified or willing to do ofa....orthopedic branches of vet med are just taking off and services are limited to some specific regions. Old practices and equipment will have to be brought up to date so it becomes part the standard office procedure. This does not occur unless multiple requests are made to a clinic that finds it important to stay on top of the latest developments. Most general practices do not have up to date equipment for xrays let alone ultrasounds or even laser treatment. Technology costs have to be balanced with demand and practice changes.
Snf
With that kind of compensation, a radiologist is not going spend time agonizing whether a dog is a fair vs a good.
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