Dave, I watched the documentary a long time ago and I totally agree it was very eye opening to see how people, for money and their own glory, deform dogs to create totally unnatural standards. It is sickening; no other words to describe this kind of breeding practice. I think, however, the Japanese are different in this way. I think their standards are very high; they probably kill all dogs that are not confirming the standard. The only focus now is to make sure he will be comfortable and totally healthy. Maybe I have to adjust his food, just don't know yet. But I already wrote a letter to Japan to inform about this problem. So far it looks like he might have had a small injury (we don't know what) but what made him lay or walk in an unnatural way. This will cause muscle pains in the rest of the body and will get worse after time. The same happens with people. Once the muscles are very tight it is difficult to relax. After taking his ibuprofen, he totally relaxed and so could lay down the natural way. That was probably all he needed. At least that's what we see know. If it were the growth pains we thought, it couldn't be gone in one day. Even not with a painkiller. But the vet will do a good inspection, we will see. It is too early to do other tests like patella or HD. But in a year or so I might do it to be totally sure he is top fit.
Jessica; I will take your advise and keep him short and quiet as good as possible. Again, in a few days I will have him researched by one of the most well knows vets in my country. He can decide if it makes sense to go through further research. He has very good connections with the veterinarian university in Utrecht. So I guess he might be able to find the right person to examine him if there is the smallest chance it would be worth the money and hassle for him.
Dave; yes I will continue to post messages on this topic if there are any changes or any other relevant news. Thanks for the support.
"I think, however, the Japanese are different in this way. I think their standards are very high; they probably kill all dogs that are not confirming the standard."
Perhaps we should have some of our Japanese members weigh in on this, but conformation standards are not setup to hold dogs to health standards. No organization, be it FCI, AKC, Nippo, etc. check the health of dogs in conformation shows other than a cursory examination of bone structure, musculature, and movement. So to say that the Japanese champions are any healthier than any other dogs is a bit of a stretch.
ANYWAY, I'm sorry I've hijacked this thread so much. Let's drop this for now and we can continue in another thread if you want. This is Shousei's get well thread, and I hope he continues to improve quickly!
I am open for discussion Dave. I have been to Japan several times in the period I was involved in Japanese Nishikigoi. I had the right contacts to see stuff outsiders would never see. This involved the culling procedures too. They checked their koi and threw out all they thought were not good enough. We are talking about fish costing many thousands of dollars each, in the future. Many of those fish could have been sold to Europe or the US but they just made it bird food (alive). So they were very strickt in separating the good from the bad. We would probably keep them alive, they just didn't. It appeared to be very cruel to me. Do I have the same experience with Japanese dogs? No, I don't. Maybe some people do and can tell us about it. But looking after their mentality it wouldn't wonder me it were true for pure bred dogs too. Most breeder don't lack dogs, they have plenty. Space is very expensive in Japan. So I think to keep enough space for the best and healthy, they will apply the culling to on their dogs. But again, I "Think" they do. Is there any information about Shikoku having health issues at all? Do we see any genetic problems like HD or PL with this specific breed?
Here is a thread on the breeding / selling / owning / keeping of dogs in Japan, a topic that has been discussed a lot on this forum. Here is another one.
IMHO, it is silly to think (and even more silly to state as fact) that the quality of breeding dogs is better in Japan vs. another country. Any country that breeds to a standard, and holds competition based on the standard, will fall into the same pitfalls as any other country. In most countries the competition is even more intense than in America as there is a very large cash prize for the winner, so, IMHO, the participants will go to further (and less honest) lengths to win often completely ignoring important things like health checks and temperament in order to have a dog that looks exactly the way they need to look to win.
Brad, how do you experience PL? What problems does it cause Ahi? What type of PL does he has? (1, 2 or 3 as it is classified here). Do you think it is genetic? In other words, do any of Ahi's litter mates suffer from the same problem?
I walked Shousei tonight, with Reno and Rico, he is as crazy and wild as always. Unbelievable, compared to yesterday. So I kept him short and tried to slow him down, after Jessica's adivse.
We keep a close eye on Miko's knees to. She periodically donkey kicks, and that can be a symptom. We take annual screening of her knees to just to make sure we have baseline films.
Nico - Ahi showed signs at around 8 months of age. She showed some random pain in her rear legs (she had LP in both, so it switched legs), sometimes she wouldn't want to use her leg, other times she would be very sensitive to us handling her legs, and then other times she would just do that "donkey kick" move (where she would kick out one leg quickly). Ahi was diagnosed with grade 2 LP in both knees, if left unfixed it would have progressed to grade 3.
LP is a hereditary disease, the OFA says this on the subject: "Although the luxation may not be present at birth, the anatomical deformities that cause these luxations are present at that time and are responsible for subsequent recurrent patellar luxation. Patellar luxation should be considered an inherited disease. " source: http://www.offa.org/patluxgeninfo.html
I dunno about LP and Ahi's litter mates, I have only kept up with 2 of them and neither have LP. It wouldn't need to be in her litter mates for it to be hereditary, if you look at the statistics it is unlikely that more than one dog in a litter would have LP (especially if you consider how small Shikoku litters are)... but repeat breedings of that dam and sire would probably produce other LP dogs.
As Jess pointed out, Miko is from Yana too, and Miko has had a shoulder issue. Ahi too has had a shoulder issue, makes me wonder if that is a genetic thing as well - from Yana.
"I'm not sure what you mean by "Horse Kicks", but if he is kicking his leg out quickly that is often a sign of LP - he is kicking to move the knee cap back in place. If that is the case, you should have the vet check his knees to see if they will luxate under pressure."
Just wanted to note these quotations, because the "horse kick" immediately made me think of what my Shiba does. Started when he was about 5 mos. old, and the first time he did it,he cried and cried and wouldn't walk (but he was a little drama queen as a pup, not stoic at all!). Since it went away, I ignored it. Finally, when he was being examined for a totally unrelated injury, he was diagnosed with LP, and then I knew what the kick was about. At that time, it was bad enough my vet was fairly serious about surgery, but I still owed them so much money I just ignored it. Now it seems not be slipping so much (I think it was aggravated by the fact he one leg bandaged in an odd position for a month when he was getting over injuries from a fight), and the last time the vet checked she could barely detect it.
I don't mean it healed...of course it didn't....but at his stage, which is probably stage one (vet didn't say), it is not getting worse. We're lucky...he doesn't have to have surgery. He walks fine, very rarely kicks (maybe once a year) and is clearly not in pain.
"And even the best breeders in the world can still produce a dog with LP. Better to know in the early stages, before he is in extreme pain, and definitely before he gets bred."
yes. Toby is from very very good lines--Japanese import father and a San Jo dam who is produced a lot of champions. Which actually, is worrisome, because that means there could be other dogs from the same line that are being bred that have this. (I see that Brad has noted it might not appear in littermates, so perhaps not, but Toby's dam and sire have been bred so much, I suspect it has showed up in others).
anyway, I hope this is not the case with your Shousei, but it was something I thought of right away, too.....
I wanted to point out about Mikos shoulder, that I asked the vet if there was a chance this issue was hereditary, since she and Ahi are from the same Dam. The vet said that while he couldn't completely rule that out, it was more likely a result of similar temperament and play style (I had pointed out that both she and Ahi can be quite hectic) that they developed similar injuries. And temperament is hereditary.
I was not able to read through all the dialogue but based on the minimal info in your initial description I would take the dog in to the vet. Don't know what part of the country or what country you live in , but the symptoms also can be indicative of Lyme disease or other tick borne illness. Who knows even kidney stones. With Lyme its better to get the snap test for exposure and quick treatment than wait. Unfortunately most brands of flea/tick medicine do not cover deer ticks and even when used there are varying degrees of effectiveness when the critters will die/drop off.
The residual effects of Lyme are complicated and often tricky to deal with.....so better to be safe than sorry.
Although Shousei seems to be totally fit again, this lead is still very educational. We still will do some research with him. But for many of those he is still way to young. At this moment he is having a bit of a diet, eating lower proteins than before, but probably not really needed. Again, I will ask the vet for advise on this topic. With the liver I will stop for a while. What I picked up meanwhile is that shikoku's seems to have a problem with finding the limit. They go as far as it gets and only with serious signals they will (maybe) slow down. I guess it's a good thing Reno and Rico are very quiet in the house so he doesn't get to wild. He's trying to add them to the play, but they just look and seems to think: Please grow up and shut up. Don't bather us to much. Well, that way the house stays in one piece and Shousei doesn't get to crazy. I think for Ticks it is a bit to early in the season. Deer ticks we don't have in our country. I also haven't seen any so far, Reno/Rico have them all the time when it is season for ticks.
To clarify Crystal, based on information provided by my vet, most brands of topical pesticides do not cover deer ticks, or minimally at best if they label as such. Frontline was a product that we were using as well. However, it made several dogs sick with reactions and the other dog, well, don’t know what went wrong with that.
It was mentioned Advantix is the better bet since the other brand often requires much higher doses to get the proper effect.
My dog recently acquired Lyme and Frontline probably did not do it’s job …. What was explained is that although the pesticide product is meant to kill on contact, not all ticks stop feeding and die right away, transmission depends on how long the little beasts hold on. My personal theory is that possibly the dastardly critters are getting more resistant to chemicals….can’t prove it though. Maybe one region of ticks are more susceptible than others. Maybe the medicine was too weak….leaves one scratching their heads…
My other dogs were vaccinated in the past and have not had a problem even though they have had multiple critters hooked on them after romping from wood to stream, so I dare say vaccination probably helped more than the chemical treatments.
Also, it recently has been found that deer ticks carry two different types of bacteria, unbeknownst to us until two months ago. As of June 2009 there is a new vaccine out that covers both. Sorry to say the new vacc. was not administered and so I have an issue on my hand I did not expect with our youngest dog.
Keeping a dog on antibiotics for long durations as treatment is not fun and does a hell of a number on the G.I. tract etc etc.
Snf
Here is some info on Lyme in Japan, it does occur there – How much proactive means are taken to prevent it in dogs of Japan I don’t know. It appears it can be transmitted through birds that migrate not just deer ticks on deer.
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/66/3/982
My sister lives in Pennsylvania and word around her dog club last year or the year before was that dogs in that area were still getting latched on, alive ticks despite frontline. I believe she switched to advantix as a result. Here in mass, our ticks appear to not be resistant (yet) as I find dead ones. We comb frequently anyway, and always after hikes. At 4 Sage continues to test negative for lyme. Reilly is positive, was treated w/ antibiotics and continues to show positive- I am told she always will on the red spot test. Maybe the vaccine is doing its job for Sage.
I often wonder how much is effective tick prevention, b/c I hate putting the chemicals on/in my dogs, but ticks & lyme are a dangerous reality here.
Off the original topic, but my vet makes me give Koda Advantix because of where we hike. He says that Frontline is ineffective on ticks, and we have Lyme disease here. It does require that he not go near the cat for at least 24 hours. It can be fatal to felines.
To join in on the thread jack concerning breeders in Japan...
The vast majority of NK breeders are not professionals, they are individuals who enjoy showing and owning NK. Most don't like being called breeders as it's just a hobby. As such you have extreme differences in the level of knowledge, skill, and attitude toward breeding (culling as well) in these breeders. Also a lot of the information that breeders have is what they have had passed down to them from other breeders (including hearsay), and assumptions they have made from their experiences. Some of the things I have learned in this manner has been very interesting and helpful, while some of it is just plain ludicrous. I have learned I can't back up generalizations about breeders here, the only ones I can say anything about are the ones I actually have long term relations with.
People often mistake show titles to mean that a breeder has healthy excellent animals, but that is definitely not the case. I have a friend who went to school with the founder of a very famous Shikoku kennel. My friend has had four pups sent up to him from this kennel. The first had to undergo corrective surgery for ingrown eyelids (not sure what the technical name for that is, but I've seen it around in NK), and now has an apparent nervous system problem to where it can't walk properly/has an extremely curved backbone. The second pup is healthy, but is extremely undersized and has extremely light coloration. The third dog only has one testicle. The fourth is healthy and is being shown. I just want to say that many kennels I know are breeding entirely for show, so while they will cull dogs from their breeding programs for having too many faults, their end goal is to create a dog that will win titles. I know many kennels that IMO inbreed excessively to try to maintain certain traits for the ring.
Another thing that has been brought up on this forum in the past is the lack of testing on the NK for genetic disorders. I personally don't know any/haven't heard of any breeders here in Japan that test their breeding stock. They may be out there, but are definitely not the norm. That being said, I don't personally believe testing is everything. But because the current solution to genetic disorders that crop up is to just cull the pup, the dogs that sired the pup will in most cases be bred again, passing on that same disorder. Until there is some testing done/more research gathered, there is no way to correctly state just what type of health/genetic issues NK may be prone to, and all we will continue to go on is anecdotal evidence.
Back to the thread's original topic, I'm glad to hear Shousei is doing better, and hope the problem doesn't crop up again.
Oh I read only now about the problem with Shousei, I'm sorry to hear that. Really happy he is feeling good now and hope it was just a temporary thing. Reading all the issues about the knees and LP problem makes me want to go and test Kekko's knees just in case. He has not shown any problems....but still would be nice to know. About the food, I have grown my last 2 pups on adult dog food, including Kekko and I'm avoiding all kinds of food additives, I only give them some raw bones with meat time to time. I believe puppies will get everything from the food if they are given high quality food and slow growth is a benefit. Some people think that if their puppy is not getting very high protein food and all kinds of additives, it will become smaller or not develop as good (specially some people owning big breeds). Well actually the adult size is in the genes already and food will make minor difference in here, unless the puppy is in real hunger or something. Overfeeding will only make the pup grow too fast and not allowing the bones and joints to develop in their natural tempo. Shikoku being a medium size breed has no real need for high protein food. Instead I switch the protein source - I mean not using only chicken, but also fish, turkey, lamb and pork based foods. The story was not about you Nico ), just my thoughts when reading the food topics above. About all the knee and joint problems, seems there is quite high % of that in Shikoku. I wonder if this a breed specific or just the nature. I have seen the jumps Kekko can make...well these are really scary sometimes, I'm lucky he has not injured himself yet. Or is it the specific way Japanese breeds are built, I mean they do have the legs kind of "strait" if you understand what I mean. Ok, keep us informed what the vet said about Shousei and hope all is ok.
Actually, I do think that most Shikoku are healthy and do have good joints. They do play hard though.
At least in the US/Canada, we have OFA and there have been a fair amount of Shikoku that have been tested (considering the low number in the US/Canada to begin with). Most have good results for OFA.
Kris, how did the test results came out? Tini, I will put a bit more variety in the food, but it is kind of amazing to see how Shousei moves around. Like never anything happened. So it must have been a minor accident where he got a muscle pain and so couldn't relax enough. Well, he seems totally fit now, I guess it was a bit of a panic alarm from us. But still very educational to learn about other peoples experiences. We just know more now, and can adjust better. At least I'm glad it wasn't the food, or the liver. He's on adult food now. Maybe a start to mix his own food with the adult to have him grow at a normal and slow way. The huskies never over ate, what about yours, Tina? Well, after all, I guess in a few days we will know if we can change the topic in: Do growth pains exist with young shikoku ken? :-)
Okay, it worked for me too now. I wonder, if anyone has a shikoku with poor hips (after photo test), did the shikoku suffer from real hip problems? Is there anyone with a shikoku of higher age? I know the Egmato kennel has a few over 10 years, non of them has any trouble in hips or patella. They did testings in the beginning, all were negative. So there wasn't any reason to expect trouble for the future, which eventually became all true. So I will do the testing with Shousei to make sure he cannot add any trouble into their bloodlines.
Hi again Nico! I would not make a panic out of this now, it might be really just a minor injury Shousei got while playing. I know, it makes me always worried like crazy when somethings wrong with my dogs, but you shouldn't really expect the worst. If he is feeling all ok now, the problem is hopefully gone. Actually my huskies have never had free choice of food, I mean I always give them as much as suggested on the food pack. They would definitely eat too much if I would let them. Same goes for Kekko, he also gets according to the suggestions on the pack. In wintertime I give them a little more food, as its cold and probably more energy is needed to keep warm. I don't know why, but all my dogs are very good eaters, they eat always everything I give them at once. And I'm sure I don't give them too little, cause all of them are in good fit - not too skinny, but definitely not fat. But I don't really think that whatever Shousei had was related to the food.
Hello Tini, Well, in the beginning you just look for all options what could have gone wrong. But meanwhile it's clear it wasn't the food. When shousei got here he was eating very fast. He was afraid the big guys would steal his food, I guess. But now he knows they will not really eat his food, he can even eat theirs. So there is no more rush in eating, he takes his time. Rico and Reno rarely eat at the same time. Sometimes I only fill one bowl, Rico eats as much as he wants, and some hours later Reno might his part. Whatever is left might be taken by shousei, if still hungry. So we have to watch him for overeating.
Wow, I wish feeding my dogs was as easy ) I give them their bowls at the same time and they all eat everything. Fortunately no-one goes to other dogs bowl while the other is eating, so no problem there. Of course if something is left behind, it will be eaten by the others, but that rarely happens and its usually a sign, that a dog is not feeling himself too good. Or that the weather is too hot. When do you have the vet appointment?
Comments
Nico that is great news!!! keep us posted!
Jessica; I will take your advise and keep him short and quiet as good as possible. Again, in a few days I will have him researched by one of the most well knows vets in my country. He can decide if it makes sense to go through further research. He has very good connections with the veterinarian university in Utrecht. So I guess he might be able to find the right person to examine him if there is the smallest chance it would be worth the money and hassle for him.
Dave; yes I will continue to post messages on this topic if there are any changes or any other relevant news. Thanks for the support.
Perhaps we should have some of our Japanese members weigh in on this, but conformation standards are not setup to hold dogs to health standards. No organization, be it FCI, AKC, Nippo, etc. check the health of dogs in conformation shows other than a cursory examination of bone structure, musculature, and movement. So to say that the Japanese champions are any healthier than any other dogs is a bit of a stretch.
ANYWAY, I'm sorry I've hijacked this thread so much. Let's drop this for now and we can continue in another thread if you want. This is Shousei's get well thread, and I hope he continues to improve quickly!
Brad's Ahi had / has LP. I think another one of Ahi's littermates also had a genetic problem. [ don't quote me on this ]
---
Glad to hear Shosei's doing better. Hopefully, his vet will confirm that's he's doing well
IMHO, it is silly to think (and even more silly to state as fact) that the quality of breeding dogs is better in Japan vs. another country. Any country that breeds to a standard, and holds competition based on the standard, will fall into the same pitfalls as any other country. In most countries the competition is even more intense than in America as there is a very large cash prize for the winner, so, IMHO, the participants will go to further (and less honest) lengths to win often completely ignoring important things like health checks and temperament in order to have a dog that looks exactly the way they need to look to win.
----
I walked Shousei tonight, with Reno and Rico, he is as crazy and wild as always. Unbelievable, compared to yesterday. So I kept him short and tried to slow him down, after Jessica's adivse.
She and Ahi are from the same Dam too (Yana).
LP is a hereditary disease, the OFA says this on the subject:
"Although the luxation may not be present at birth, the anatomical deformities that cause these luxations are present at that time and are responsible for subsequent recurrent patellar luxation. Patellar luxation should be considered an inherited disease. "
source: http://www.offa.org/patluxgeninfo.html
More info on LP: http://www.offa.org/patluxinfo.html
Here is a thread about Ahi at the time we found out about her issues (2 years ago) and she had surgery: http://www.nihonken.org/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=893
I dunno about LP and Ahi's litter mates, I have only kept up with 2 of them and neither have LP. It wouldn't need to be in her litter mates for it to be hereditary, if you look at the statistics it is unlikely that more than one dog in a litter would have LP (especially if you consider how small Shikoku litters are)... but repeat breedings of that dam and sire would probably produce other LP dogs.
As Jess pointed out, Miko is from Yana too, and Miko has had a shoulder issue. Ahi too has had a shoulder issue, makes me wonder if that is a genetic thing as well - from Yana.
----
Just wanted to note these quotations, because the "horse kick" immediately made me think of what my Shiba does. Started when he was about 5 mos. old, and the first time he did it,he cried and cried and wouldn't walk (but he was a little drama queen as a pup, not stoic at all!). Since it went away, I ignored it. Finally, when he was being examined for a totally unrelated injury, he was diagnosed with LP, and then I knew what the kick was about. At that time, it was bad enough my vet was fairly serious about surgery, but I still owed them so much money I just ignored it. Now it seems not be slipping so much (I think it was aggravated by the fact he one leg bandaged in an odd position for a month when he was getting over injuries from a fight), and the last time the vet checked she could barely detect it.
I don't mean it healed...of course it didn't....but at his stage, which is probably stage one (vet didn't say), it is not getting worse. We're lucky...he doesn't have to have surgery. He walks fine, very rarely kicks (maybe once a year) and is clearly not in pain.
"And even the best breeders in the world can still produce a dog with LP. Better to know in the early stages, before he is in extreme pain, and definitely before he gets bred."
yes. Toby is from very very good lines--Japanese import father and a San Jo dam who is produced a lot of champions. Which actually, is worrisome, because that means there could be other dogs from the same line that are being bred that have this. (I see that Brad has noted it might not appear in littermates, so perhaps not, but Toby's dam and sire have been bred so much, I suspect it has showed up in others).
anyway, I hope this is not the case with your Shousei, but it was something I thought of right away, too.....
The vet said that while he couldn't completely rule that out, it was more likely a result of similar temperament and play style (I had pointed out that both she and Ahi can be quite hectic) that they developed similar injuries. And temperament is hereditary.
The residual effects of Lyme are complicated and often tricky to deal with.....so better to be safe than sorry.
http://www.dogsandticks.com/US-map-lyme-disease-dogs/index.html
Snf
Please clarify. Frontline kills any deer ticks I miss with the flea comb. Unless something else is killing them.
I think for Ticks it is a bit to early in the season. Deer ticks we don't have in our country. I also haven't seen any so far, Reno/Rico have them all the time when it is season for ticks.
It was mentioned Advantix is the better bet since the other brand often requires much higher doses to get the proper effect.
My dog recently acquired Lyme and Frontline probably did not do it’s job …. What was explained is that although the pesticide product is meant to kill on contact, not all ticks stop feeding and die right away, transmission depends on how long the little beasts hold on. My personal theory is that possibly the dastardly critters are getting more resistant to chemicals….can’t prove it though. Maybe one region of ticks are more susceptible than others. Maybe the medicine was too weak….leaves one scratching their heads…
My other dogs were vaccinated in the past and have not had a problem even though they have had multiple critters hooked on them after romping from wood to stream, so I dare say vaccination probably helped more than the chemical treatments.
Also, it recently has been found that deer ticks carry two different types of bacteria, unbeknownst to us until two months ago. As of June 2009 there is a new vaccine out that covers both. Sorry to say the new vacc. was not administered and so I have an issue on my hand I did not expect with our youngest dog.
Keeping a dog on antibiotics for long durations as treatment is not fun and does a hell of a number on the G.I. tract etc etc.
Snf
Here is some info on Lyme in Japan, it does occur there – How much proactive means are taken to prevent it in dogs of Japan I don’t know. It appears it can be transmitted through birds that migrate not just deer ticks on deer.
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/66/3/982
My sister lives in Pennsylvania and word around her dog club last year or the year before was that dogs in that area were still getting latched on, alive ticks despite frontline. I believe she switched to advantix as a result. Here in mass, our ticks appear to not be resistant (yet) as I find dead ones. We comb frequently anyway, and always after hikes. At 4 Sage continues to test negative for lyme. Reilly is positive, was treated w/ antibiotics and continues to show positive- I am told she always will on the red spot test. Maybe the vaccine is doing its job for Sage.
I often wonder how much is effective tick prevention, b/c I hate putting the chemicals on/in my dogs, but ticks & lyme are a dangerous reality here.
The vast majority of NK breeders are not professionals, they are individuals who enjoy showing and owning NK. Most don't like being called breeders as it's just a hobby. As such you have extreme differences in the level of knowledge, skill, and attitude toward breeding (culling as well) in these breeders. Also a lot of the information that breeders have is what they have had passed down to them from other breeders (including hearsay), and assumptions they have made from their experiences. Some of the things I have learned in this manner has been very interesting and helpful, while some of it is just plain ludicrous. I have learned I can't back up generalizations about breeders here, the only ones I can say anything about are the ones I actually have long term relations with.
People often mistake show titles to mean that a breeder has healthy excellent animals, but that is definitely not the case. I have a friend who went to school with the founder of a very famous Shikoku kennel. My friend has had four pups sent up to him from this kennel. The first had to undergo corrective surgery for ingrown eyelids (not sure what the technical name for that is, but I've seen it around in NK), and now has an apparent nervous system problem to where it can't walk properly/has an extremely curved backbone. The second pup is healthy, but is extremely undersized and has extremely light coloration. The third dog only has one testicle. The fourth is healthy and is being shown. I just want to say that many kennels I know are breeding entirely for show, so while they will cull dogs from their breeding programs for having too many faults, their end goal is to create a dog that will win titles. I know many kennels that IMO inbreed excessively to try to maintain certain traits for the ring.
Another thing that has been brought up on this forum in the past is the lack of testing on the NK for genetic disorders. I personally don't know any/haven't heard of any breeders here in Japan that test their breeding stock. They may be out there, but are definitely not the norm. That being said, I don't personally believe testing is everything. But because the current solution to genetic disorders that crop up is to just cull the pup, the dogs that sired the pup will in most cases be bred again, passing on that same disorder. Until there is some testing done/more research gathered, there is no way to correctly state just what type of health/genetic issues NK may be prone to, and all we will continue to go on is anecdotal evidence.
Back to the thread's original topic, I'm glad to hear Shousei is doing better, and hope the problem doesn't crop up again.
About the food, I have grown my last 2 pups on adult dog food, including Kekko and I'm avoiding all kinds of food additives, I only give them some raw bones with meat time to time. I believe puppies will get everything from the food if they are given high quality food and slow growth is a benefit. Some people think that if their puppy is not getting very high protein food and all kinds of additives, it will become smaller or not develop as good (specially some people owning big breeds). Well actually the adult size is in the genes already and food will make minor difference in here, unless the puppy is in real hunger or something. Overfeeding will only make the pup grow too fast and not allowing the bones and joints to develop in their natural tempo.
Shikoku being a medium size breed has no real need for high protein food. Instead I switch the protein source - I mean not using only chicken, but also fish, turkey, lamb and pork based foods.
The story was not about you Nico
About all the knee and joint problems, seems there is quite high % of that in Shikoku. I wonder if this a breed specific or just the nature. I have seen the jumps Kekko can make...well these are really scary sometimes, I'm lucky he has not injured himself yet. Or is it the specific way Japanese breeds are built, I mean they do have the legs kind of "strait" if you understand what I mean.
Ok, keep us informed what the vet said about Shousei and hope all is ok.
At least in the US/Canada, we have OFA and there have been a fair amount of Shikoku that have been tested (considering the low number in the US/Canada to begin with). Most have good results for OFA.
http://www.offa.org/results.html?num=&submit=Begin+Search&registrar=&namecontains=N&part=&breed[]=SHK&breedlist=ALL&variety[]=&sex=&birthday_start_month=&birthday_start_year=&birthday_end_month=&birthday_end_year=&birthday=&regand=N&rptdte_start_month=&rptdte_start_year=&rptdte_end_month=&rptdte_end_year=&rptdte=
FWIW, I did hips, knees and elbow on my male Shikoku.
Tini, I will put a bit more variety in the food, but it is kind of amazing to see how Shousei moves around. Like never anything happened. So it must have been a minor accident where he got a muscle pain and so couldn't relax enough. Well, he seems totally fit now, I guess it was a bit of a panic alarm from us. But still very educational to learn about other peoples experiences. We just know more now, and can adjust better.
At least I'm glad it wasn't the food, or the liver. He's on adult food now. Maybe a start to mix his own food with the adult to have him grow at a normal and slow way. The huskies never over ate, what about yours, Tina?
Well, after all, I guess in a few days we will know if we can change the topic in: Do growth pains exist with young shikoku ken? :-)
Actually my huskies have never had free choice of food, I mean I always give them as much as suggested on the food pack. They would definitely eat too much if I would let them. Same goes for Kekko, he also gets according to the suggestions on the pack. In wintertime I give them a little more food, as its cold and probably more energy is needed to keep warm.
I don't know why, but all my dogs are very good eaters, they eat always everything I give them at once. And I'm sure I don't give them too little, cause all of them are in good fit - not too skinny, but definitely not fat.
But I don't really think that whatever Shousei had was related to the food.
Well, in the beginning you just look for all options what could have gone wrong. But meanwhile it's clear it wasn't the food. When shousei got here he was eating very fast. He was afraid the big guys would steal his food, I guess. But now he knows they will not really eat his food, he can even eat theirs. So there is no more rush in eating, he takes his time. Rico and Reno rarely eat at the same time. Sometimes I only fill one bowl, Rico eats as much as he wants, and some hours later Reno might his part. Whatever is left might be taken by shousei, if still hungry. So we have to watch him for overeating.
I give them their bowls at the same time and they all eat everything. Fortunately no-one goes to other dogs bowl while the other is eating, so no problem there. Of course if something is left behind, it will be eaten by the others, but that rarely happens and its usually a sign, that a dog is not feeling himself too good. Or that the weather is too hot.
When do you have the vet appointment?