Latest affected dog (2011) Bay's Bushyfur Houma (isä: Kunturchawa x emä: Bay's Bushyfur Maidu)

EPILEPSY IN MY DOGS

On this page I want to tell about incidences of epilepsy in my own dogs and my perception about where is epilepsy herited from. I also tell how difficult it is to clear epilepsy off from a rare, and also fairly inbred, dog population.

A NEW START...

Everyone knows, that epilepsy occurs in every dog breed. Some breeds have it more, some less. This time, there have been far too many incidences of epilepsy in my own dogs. Until the end of year 2006, there were 81 pups born altogether, of which there are 6 epileptic dogs from 4 different litters.


For this reason, my intention is to remove all the lines affected by epilepsy from my breeding program, according to my possibilities. This is an extremely difficult decision for me, because by doing so, ten years of my breeding work will go to waste. Now, good breeding dogs won't be bred until about three years of age. In three years, I will re-evaluate what can be done- can these dogs be used for breeding or not. Only time will tell.

It is known, that almost every Peruvian Hairless dog of European lines are related to each other. In five generations, there are same dogs duplicated many times, so my task will be very difficult and will take many years from now. Luckily, I have some dogs which are not related to the lines where epilepsy has been noticed. My intention also is to purchase new dogs, which don't carry the line I'm trying to remove.

There is one European-American line which exists behind some of my old breeding dogs. I have decided to keep this line my breeding program. Some ancestors in this line also exist behind the dogs with epilepsy. These dogs remaining in my breeding program will only be bred to dogs free from the epilepsy line, so that there will not be any duplication of the epilepsy line ever anymore. By doing this, I believe there is a very slim chance of producing more dogs with epilepsy. Of course it is possible, but I believe and hope I'm doing the right thing. At least I hope I could prevent the increase of epilepsy. Also I hope I won't be in this kind of situation again in another ten years of time.

In my own dogs, epilepsy has started from the litter of Exotic Orchidee Charlie Brown* and Bulldobas Living Colour, with four born males, of which two has had epilepsy. I don't have data concerning the other males in this litter, because the other male was euthanized as young, so we will never know if he had epilepsy or not. I have used the other pup with epilepsy for breeding, and some offspring of this dog have epilepsy, so it's imminently clear that the epilepsy is inherited. Also I'm aware of another litter of Bulldobas Living Colour where there have been incidences of epilepsy. A female from this litter has epilepsy, as well as one of her male pups. In my opinion, it should also be noted that in both litters of Bulldobas Living Colour, the males bred to her were Exotic Orchidee dogs. I keep the mother of these dogs, Anabell von Lichtenberger, as a link which connects these two dogs together.

Here we come across with a difficult question -from which ancestors is the epilepsy herited from? Or is it herited from anyone? Or could it be herited from a combination of two specific male and a female? These are yet unresolved issues for me. If anyone is knowledgeable about incidences of epilepsy in the breeding lines mentioned, I would be very grateful to know about it. By knowing more, it would be easier to make conclusions following the pedigrees.

Pleace contact me if you know enything news of epilepsy
baysbushyfur.kennel@pp.inet.fi

I also want to mention my dogs which are fallen ill with epilepsy. I will present the litters as whole. The ones with epilepsy are marked with colour and*.