In a previous post I basically uploaded some information that I had provided to our vets at Auburn before we went down. This document included a brief pedigree analysis with respect to Gata's pedigree and the health issues in Belgian Shepherds. I made a statement in that analysis about a specific dog that should not have been made public. And, I find myself in the position of having to explain.
First off, I should explain that I am a bit of an information jockey and will spend hours finding answers to obscure questions and developing studies to address those questions. I get paid for this. But that characteristic carries over into many of my hobbies as well.
I personally know Gata's sire, dam, and her dam. All are wonderfully vibrant, healthy dogs that I absolutely adore. I consider them to be the epitome of what I want in a Belgian - beautiful, active, athletic, intense, handler-focused. And I decided that I wanted a puppy from that lineage.
As my journey in Belgians continued, I became interested in pedigree analysis. First, there was very little information about Gata's ancestors since both her granddam and her sire were imported. Secondly, I just find it interesting. And, of course, while researching pedigrees you may also find health information along the way.
While pursuing that hobby, I began accruing information on Gata's direct ancestors and dogs descended from or related to them. Since there is not an abundance of information available, I simply gathered what I could when I found it. It was not something that I was particularly concerned with at the time. Gata is, and always has been, the very picture of a healthy dog. Though she had collapsed twice the summer after she turned 1, I was able to avoid further collapses by modifying our work sessions. I just considered her to be a dog with limited endurance due to the intensity of her work. After all, some of us are sprinters and some of us are endurance runners, why should it be different in dogs??
Following our move to Maryland, that all changed. I simply could not avoid the collapses or symptoms leading up to them given the very different environmental conditions out here. At that time I became quite serious about figuring out what was going on with Gata. As you can tell from reading this blog, I have spent a great deal of time, effort and money on this.
While preparing for the trip to Auburn, I wrote a document to provide a relatively thorough review of Gata's history, not as the final word on that topic, but as a starting off point. Included within that document was a very short segment on her pedigree. I called a particular dog a "red flag dog" because in my analysis I had found descendants of that dog or it's full siblings that were documented as having many of the health issues of concern in Belgian Shepherds.
For my purposes, all I was interested in was whether I needed to draw attention to any of those health concerns, particularly Epilepsy since it is being considered by the folks at U of MN as a potential cause of a collapse syndrome similar to what Gata shows. I do not know, nor can I, if that dog has a higher incidence of these concerns in its descendants than other Belgian Shepherds since, for the most part, that information is hidden away. However, the breeders involved in this particular line of dogs have elected not to hide that information, for which I commend them.
However, that does not mean that I should have published the name of any dogs, other than my own, on my blog and I will not do so in the future. I have humbly offered my sincere apologies to those involved and am writing this post as a means of explaining to anyone that may have read the original post and been in any way alarmed or offended at my mention of that particular dog.
No comments:
Post a Comment