History Sent to Auburn

I am trying to consolidate as much of the information about Gata's collapses in one place so that when I decide to publicize what is going on people can get as much information as possible from a single location. Plus, it may be useful for me in the future. This is a modified version of the history document that I sent to Dr. Gillette and Dr. Barrett at Auburn before going down. I modified it to reflect a couple of details that they inquired about. However, I did not update it to include all the other topics of conversation that we had regarding her family members, metabolic pathways, discussions on diet, etc.

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GATA BASICS: Gata is a 5 y.o. spayed female Belgian Tervuren. She has competed successfully in a number of sports (RA, CD, SchH3) and is not a dog that would be happy to retire. Her history is mostly unremarkable aside from a few things. I'm listing everything I can think of here, in case it might help.

She has lived most of her life in the San Francisco bay area until 1 year ago when we moved to Maryland. During the time we lived in California she came almost everywhere with me and stayed in her crate in the car. The weather is very moderate out there and she seemed to tolerate it well. Her vaccinations and preventative care has followed the norms for this part of the country - vaccinations every 3 years following the booster at 1 year, heart worm preventative over the summer. Her puppy vaccines consisted of the 2 in 1 vaccine (distemper and parvo) at approximately 7 and 11 weeks; and the 4 in 1 vaccine after that. Her first rabies vaccine was given at approximately 4 months and the next about a year later. She has not had any reactions to vaccines.

She does, however, show a classic allergic reaction to various different bee/spider/bug stings. I don’t know exactly what stung her each time, but she has had 3 clear incidents. All responded well to a couple of doses of anti-histamine, but the last incident was quite noticeably worse than the previous two. I don’t know if that was because of what stung her or if her allergy is getting worse.

DIET: Gata is on a raw diet - predominantly prey model. However, since moving to MD I have found that it is easier to buy a commercial product than making it myself. So she now gets some veggies in her food. In addition, she gets the following daily supplements:

    Salmon oil

    Genesis - by 10-Squared Racing

    Green Kelp - by 10-Squared Racing

    Revive - 10-Squared Racing (not daily, but as a recovery drink following intense exercise away from home)

TICK EXPOSURE: At approximately 9 months of age I picked her up from an approximately 3 week boarding situation and found an engorged tick behind one ear.

HEAT EXPOSURE: At approximately 1 year of age, I had left the car only slightly vented due to rain. The rain stopped and the sun came out. I came at about 11:00 to take her for some exercise and found that she was quite hot in the car. I got her out and cooled her off. I don't know if this could be the start/cause of her "heat-related collapses" for lack of a better term. Another dog in the car at the time, a young female Cavalier King Charles, was unaffected. She was about 2 months older than Gata.

FIRST 2 COLLAPSES: At approximately 15 months of age she had her only 2 full collapses in California. Both took place during the summer, within a few weeks of each other, during our lunch break exercise/training session. Both instances followed very similar patterns.

    *  Sunny and warm; temp ≤ 85-degrees F

    *  Exercise consisted of 10-20 minutes of obedience training with ball reward, thrown using a Chuck It.

     * Collapse occurred while walking her out after exercise

     * Collapses were a multi-stage process with a pattern like – collapse, get up try to walk, collapse again, repeat

     * Recovery also became a familiar pattern – shade, wet her down as much as possible given the location, complete within 25 minutes.

     * After the 2nd incident, I changed several things. I became far more watchful and instituted a rule of thumb that once she trotted back to me with the ball, she was done. That served us well in California as I never had another full collapse out there.

     * Discussed it with her breeder. She suggested that it might be Exercise-Induced Collapse or something like that.

INJURY: At approximately 2 years of age she had a significant injury during Schutzhund training. It occurred on one of her first real long bites. She is a very fast dog and was unable to hold her grip on the sleeve. She slipped off the sleeve and landed in a position that looked very much like a frog about to jump - her back was hyper-extended and both back legs were tightly flexed.

   * As I took her from the field both back legs seemed affected, and her tail was down

   * Vets exam revealed that she had strained both iliopsoas (right worse than left) and potentially injured her back

   * Identified the TL junction as an area of potential injury

   * She was given time off and restricted activity but not forced crate rest

   * Tail remained down for about 2 weeks

   * Returned to training in about 6 months with intermittent time off after that as symptoms warranted.

SPAY: At approximately 3 years of age I had her spayed.

               * She cycled at about 4.5 month intervals

               * Seemed to go into a false pregnancy with every cycle

Since my goal is simply to have a great pet and a dog to compete with, the breeding potential was not as important to me. And the impact of the false pregnancies on her energy level and training was quite significant. I was also concerned that the false pregnancies put her at an increased risk for pyometra.

SEIZURE: At approximately 3.5 years of age, she had something that looked very much like a seizure. I believe that she was exposed to something through her pads when I had her out tracking earlier that day. We had stopped at one of our favorite tracking locations and I had her out with me while I was walking around to check it out. I smelled something heavy in the air so decided not to track there. To me it had the smell of something like Round Up but there were no signs or anything posted.

   * It was a very muddy day

   * I remember essentially breaking off "mud boots" from all 4 feet and washing them when we got home.

  *  Approximately 4 hours later, while she was sleeping, she appeared to have a seizure. It involved her whole body but seemed to start with her back end. She woke herself up with the movement and the seizure stopped shortly after she woke.

To be totally honest, I was not entirely sure whether it was a VERY active dream or a seizure at the time. I believed it was a seizure but could not be absolutely sure.

Though Belgians are known for epilepsy, there are no animals that I can identify in her pedigree that are known epileptic dogs. However, I should also note that Belgians are also known for false pedigrees. I believe that the pedigree of Gata's dam is correct. I also believe that the pedigree of her sire is incorrect. So, any pedigree analysis should be taken with a grain of salt.

Potentially related to the topic of seizures/epilepsy: Gata has incidents of very active “dreams”. I’ve seen about 8-10 of these “dreams”. This is a relatively recent phenomenon – something that I have only seen since we moved to Maryland. I put dreams in quotes because she isn’t always asleep, though she is always resting. It seems like they occur on the same day or within a couple of days of a particularly demanding training/conditioning session. These pretty much always look the same – She’s curled up resting after work and may be asleep. Her back legs become quite active and may remain active for a very short period of time even after she wakes up. I have seen her wake up and turn to look at her legs, as if wondering what was going on. I have even seen one which happened while she was clearly not asleep. The best way I can characterize them is to say that they look like a female dog having an orgasm.

OTHER HEALTH PROBLEMS IN BELGIANS: Belgians are generally a healthy breed. But there are a few health issues that are more common in the breed. Since Gata is a mix of Malinois, Tervueren, and Groenendael bloodlines I will not try to give specific prevalence numbers for these conditions, but will bracket them as Higher Prevalence/Concern and Lower Prevalence/Concern.

Higher Prevalence/Concern Health Issues:
          Epilepsy
          Stomach Cancer
          Hypothyroid
          Autoimmune Thyroiditis

Lower Prevalence/Concern Health Issues
         Hip/Elbow Dysplasia
         PRA and/or Cataracts
         Autoimmune Disorders

MOVE: We arrived in Maryland mid-July of 2011. The area was in the midst of a significant heat wave with heat indexes in excess of 100-degrees F for the next 6 weeks. Gata had very little exercise during that period, walks, with limited training activities inside.

RETURN OF COLLAPSES: Late August we moved into a house in Poolesville. I started trying to exercise her in the early mornings before work, during the coolest part of the day.

  *  The collapses were nearly unavoidable;

   * Stopping when she trotted back to me was not soon enough - she would progress to full collapse.

   * I started to recognize other symptoms that I now consider to be part of the collapse process - mainly the "drunken sailor walk". I realize now that although I was able to avoid additional full collapses in California, that I had seen the "drunken sailor walk" on numerous occasions following exercise  out there.

   * It seemed that every incident of collapse, whether it progressed to full collapse or was terminated in the "drunken sailor walk" stage, made another incident more likely.

   * I have a hard time describing what I am seeing/feeling but I am now able to detect a change in her movement as she returns to me so that I can stop her even earlier. This has improved my ability to prevent full collapses but she still progresses to the "drunken sailor" stage far too often

   * I have identified an earlier stage a couple of times. It is unique in that she will lag behind me after exercise, sometimes severely. She may exhibit intermittent “drunken sailor walking” but it is not consistent. Gata is not a dog that lags behind me, ever. I believe that this is the earliest stage that I have been able to interrupt her collapses.

DETAILS OF COLLAPSES:

    Total number of full collapses probably 6-8, including the one in the video

    Total number of drunken sailor walking: too many to remember them all, at least 20, probably ess than 100

    Lowest temperature: last fall, time approximately 6:00 am, temperature 54-degrees F

    Body temperature during work rises to at least 106.5, but does not appear to be correlated with collapse

    Collapses have occurred following ball play, obedience, and bite work - all high intensity activities for Gata

    Collapses have never occurred following walks, trotting beside the bike (though limited evidence here - newer activity), tracking, or hiking

    Collapses appear to be environmental temperature related, though it does not have to be very hot. If it has been hot they can occur at relatively cooler temperatures. If it has been cool they can occur at relatively lower temperatures that are higher than what it has been (as in the video).

    Full sun seems to make them more likely, but they can occur at dusk or dawn as well.

    Collapses do not occur when it is raining, though they can occur after it has rained

    Recovery occurs relatively rapidly, within 25 minutes, significantly less if I can get her into water

    Recovery appears to be full - though I do not work her at all for several days following a full collapse or an appearance of drunken sailor walking. And, I suspect, that the more often it happens the more often it will happen, which suggests something other than a "full recovery".

THINGS WE HAVE TESTED: (See accompanying lab work)

    Tick-borne diseases - initially had a false positive for Ehrlichia canis on a SNAP test, but we performed the ELISA and determined that it was a FALSE positive.

    Glucose levels

    Electrolyte levels

    Full CBC and chemistry panel

    Thyroid - Full panel

    Cortisol

    Heart - before and after exercise, but she has not worn a Holter monitor during a collapse

    BP

    EIC - By U of MN - Negative

    Full set of spinal x-rays (also attached)

    Phenobarbital levels - We put Gata on Phenobarbital to see if it might help prevent collapses, as reported for some dogs with EIC, and as a precaution given the possible seizure I observed and prevalence of epilepsy in Belgians. The collapse that was videotaped was while she was on Phenobarbital. We have since taken her off of Phenobarbital, partly in case you wanted to do an EEG.

THINGS WE HAVE DISCUSSED TESTING: (In order of our priority/resource availability)

    Muscle biopsy before and after collapse, additional other time points (??)

    Creatine and creatine phosphokinase before and after a collapse, additional other time points (??)

    Holter monitor during exercise leading to collapse

    EEG to rule out seizures/epilepsy due to one of the current hypotheses being tested in the U of MN Border Collie Collapse project

    MRI - to ensure that there are no spinal issues not visible by x-ray

But none of these are tests that are easily (or reliably) performed by the typical, small animal, vet practice