By Cynthia Byington

In August of 2002, our "Honesty "Ch Sirae The Simple Truth' whelped a litter of seven healthy puppies sired by our own Ch Myriah's Spirit Of Alsirat JC "Treekla, all puppies were born healthy, in good weight, and grew normally, 4 puppies were placed into show homes, we kept 3. "Cassie" Sirae Sweet Addition, Gary's boy-"Shades" Sirae` Men in Black, and "Keanu" Sirae` Chain Reaction.

At approximately 3 months of age is when the dreaded "Panosteitis" hit Cassie, (Shifting Lameness or Growing Pains) as some people refer to this as. Cassie was effected by this until she was almost 18 months old. She would get hit by an episode that would last for 2 to 3 weeks shifting from one leg to another, then just as she was getting well enough to be able to play again without threat of re-injury, she would get hit again, and again, and again. This was a horrible experience for us, she was in absolutely terrible pain, she would scream if she even tried to get up. ( I would end up carrying her everywhere for the first days) Our Veterinarian prescribed Rimidyl during each episode. I would give her a dose twice a day for the first couple days (the first day or two were always the worst) then just wait it out. (Now after the fact we know that Rimidyl is not a drug you would give to a vWD affected dog)

Next at 5 months old, only 2 weeks after giving Heartguard, Cassie contracted hook worms. I gave Nemix2 at first sign of tarry stools, by day 3 after treatment her stools were finally starting to look more normal, yet her red blood cell count was down to 28, she was extremely lethargic, and would eat very little. I fed her calves liver and Nutrical several times daily. Our vet told me when I brought her in to be checked that he felt she was on the mend, recovery was slow, he did prescribe a liquid vitamin supplement that promoted rebuilding red blood cells.

Then at almost 6 months old Cassie was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, which took 3 rounds of antibiotics to clear up, all went pretty smoothly after that (aside from the reoccurring Pano) until Cassie was about 20 moths old and was out running in the yard early in the a.m. (about 5:30 ) and started screaming. I ran out to see what was up, looked like she pulled a muscle at first. I carried her inside and watched her for an hour or so, she seemed OK after she came inside. Around 7 a.m. I was checking her over again and found her whole chest area was swollen (not just a little bit) this was a great amount of swelling. I was so scared, I called my vet at 7:30 and rushed her in at 8:30 (that is when he gets in) after x-rays and a thorough check up, nothing broken, lungs clear, no torsion, he said aside from being hit by a car, he never seen this kind of trauma from just running around, even if she had ran into something. At this point all these episodes could be diagnosed as "something else"

It was not until April of 2004 when I took several dogs down to Houston to a Veterinarian down there who is reported to be the best in the area (debark). Cassie was the 3rd to be debarked, the bleeding was not letting up, so the Dr, went in to try to stop the bleeding by cauterization, nothing was working, so I left my other dogs there and rushed Cassie to the Gulf Coast Animal Hospital, where she stayed in the ICU for 3 days. She recieved 2 blood transfusions while there, multiple tests were performed (not vWD) all including platelets came back in the normal range. This was the first real indication that Cassie was a bleeder. Now finally $3000.00 later, all the other episodes of various things with Cassie growing up were taking on a whole new light. ALL of the others were bleeding episodes as well, just not as obvious and could be diagnosed a something else entirely.

Cassie still has to be pampered. She can go out with only a select few of our other dogs, as even a hard bump from another dog leads to massive swelling (bruising/bleeding) and lameness, which puts her on total crate rest for no less than 2 weeks. She has so much heart, she has shown me over and over again how much she loves life, she is so strong in spite of her delicate fragile body. She is a little spit fire who loves to get rough and tumble, and doesn't realize we cannot allow it, for her own sake.

Onto Shades....he is the other affected dog in the same litter, although his was more obvious from the beginning. Bleeding that took days to stop while teething, a scratch on the ear again took days, a small cut on the corner of his eyelid, again, days...by the way he also suffered from severe Panosteitis as a puppy and young dog, not letting up until he was over 2 years old. No other puppies in the litter were affected.

What prompted me to test for vWD was when I was planning a breeding between a dog on the East coast and Honesty. The dog had been tested for vWD and came back borderline, so I felt it was in my best interest to test Honesty, to make sure she was clear. It was quite a blow, yet quite enlightening, when the vWD results came back scoring her at a 24% making her a carrier of vWD, which after researching vWD meant her mother had to be a carrier as well since her father was vWD clear. So at this point I took Treekla (Cassie and Shades father, also Honesty's dam's litter brother) in to be tested since he would also have to be a carrier, since the litter produced 2 affected puppies. He scored a 30% (A carrier) which confirmed the affected status of my two "Bleeder's."

Having affected dogs is devastating, a constant worry, yet it isn't the end of the world either. Understanding how vWD is passed on from carrier parent to prodigy, and having access to the vWDf test and utilizing it, you can easily filter out the carriers and breed clear dogs. I for one will never again neglect something as important as this blood test is. At this point all my dogs are being tested, those that live here as well as those in homes in various parts of the country. Honesty's litter sister now has a litter on the ground, the puppies were tested at 7 weeks old for vWD and I am thrilled to report ALL puppies scored in the clear range. Cassie and Shades are here to stay, we will keep them safe, and love them, they are very special to us. Shades has been shown a couple time now and has a 4 pt major. Cassie was only shown twice at Specialties, where she placed first in her class in Sweepstakes at both Specialties. She is growing her coat back after her stay in the ICU, and may be shown at a later date. Neither will ever be bred.

Some collected vWd Info:
70% to 180% range is considered "Clear"( 50 to 69% is borderline, and 0 to 49% is "Carrier Range." For example a 92% is considered clear with both genes being normal, a carrier has a normal gene and an abnormal gene (which each puppy produced by a carrier has a 50% chance of having the abnormal gene passed to them which in turn would make them a carrier as well. It is safe to breed a carrier as long as you breed to a "clear dog". Breeding a carrier to a carrier is when things can go wrong, as both parents would have an abnormal gene. So if both parents were to pass on the abnormal gene to a puppy in the litter that puppy is an affected dog (a Bleeder). The ratio for carrier to carrier breeding is 25% clear puppies 50% Carrier and 25% affected. You definitely want to avoid that! And breeding an affected dog to an affected dog will produce ALL affected offspring, if they survive gestation or the birth itself, the dogs would be lifetime bleeders. So you can see this is very easily maintained as long as you breed to a clear dog, even a carrier to clear, as long as future screening is maintained, and eventually the carriers filtered out through diligent testing.
 
There is no DNA test as of yet for vWD, Vetgen has to date over 10 breeds they have the vWD DNA test available for, not the Afghan Hound however, to establish the DNA test will take 25 families with "affected" dogs and 1 to 2 million research dollars...
 
There are no elevated enzyme levels with panosteitis or any consistent blood work 
abnormalities (03, 07). However, some dogs have been found to have one or the 
other of two blood disorders concurrently with panosteitis. Both Hemophilia A 
and von Willebrand's Disease (vWD) have been linked to panosteitis (10).
 


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