Hip Dysplasia in a Dog (From the "Riley" Series)
Posted: Monday, August 15, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
When my Brittany gun dog, Riley, was about eleven months old he ate some cotton-like nylon stuffing out of pillow we kept on the sofa in his room. It caused a serious intestinal blockage. Thankfully, surgery wasn’t required. It finally worked its way out, but during the crisis the vet took x-rays. The position she had to put him in to get the pictures stretched out his hip joints. From what she saw, it was obvious that he had a potential problem.
Riley’s father was a National Field Champion and his mother had just achieved champion status herself. I was naturally considering breeding him. No respectable dog breeder would accept him as a sire without an Orthopedic Federation of Animals (OFA), hip evaluation. The vet said that for the OFA required x-rays, she would have to flex his hip joints even further and the problem would be more pronounced. A dog had to be two years old before the OFA would look at him, so we just had to wait.
I immediately began giving him daily doses of cosequin and condroiten to build up the cartilage in his joints. Riley was already guiding bird hunts at hunting preserves. Some days he had to work very hard. After every hunt I gave him a warm bath and a hip massage. He loved both. If he seemed a little stiff or sore, I gave him a child’s aspirin or two. I was concerned about the blood thinning effect because of his job. A single mis-aimed shot or an errant shotgun pellet and he could easily bleed to death from what was not necessarily a fatal wound.
After Riley’s second birthday I had the "official" x-rays done and sent them off to the OFA. Sure enough, when the report came back it was bad. The OFA has five ratings for hips: Excellent, Good, Fair, Moderate, and Dysplastic. Riley was moderately dysplastic--the next to the worst evaluation. I did some online research and could find no OFA information available on his father, Dark Smoke Di-Na-Mo, which was surprising. I had to assume that is where he inherited the problem.
It was the end of the season at the hunting preserves, so I decided to have Riley neutered. He’d have time to recover before the fall seasons began. Even though his temperament and skill were way above that of the average gun dog, I couldn’t, with a good conscience, allow him to pass on his bad hip genes. Besides, he’d never shown interest in girls. A female Brittany at the one preserve was in heat that winter. I took Riley by her pen to have a sniff. He wasn’t perked up or aroused a bit. He tugged on his leash to get to the hunting fields. So, it was off to the vet’s to donate the family jewels.
He recovered fine and we were anxious for the new season. He’d established a reputation and was booked early for pheasant hunts. His performances were always great, so I was very worried when he showed little enthusiasm and was actually an embarrassment on the first two hunts. On the second one I had to borrow the preserve’s dog to finish the hunt. Riley had no energy. I panicked. I figured that I’d ruined him, took away his ‘manly desire' by having him neutered.
I immediately took him to the vet for an examination. I was so depressed I didn’t know what to do. The vet reassured me that hunting was a learned behavior and the neutering should have no effect on it. A battery of tests was ordered. It may seem odd, but I was tremendously relieved when we found out he had Lyme disease. His lethargic behavior had a reason, a reason we could cure. He took sick time for about a month while the antibiotics did their work, but was soon back to work. Thanksgiving week he did seven hunts in nine days and was up to his usual standard on every one of them.
Riley continued to take medicine for his joints everyday for the rest of his life. He got regular warm baths and hip massages. He would often come up to me and turn around as a signal for me to rub his hips. He never lost his enthusiasm for the hunt. His career as the best bird hunting guide dog around went on for another ten years. As he got older he’d get stiff and sore more often, but seldom complained or showed symptoms. With the vet’s approval, I began giving him an adult aspirin if he seemed to be in pain. He never broke down, never suffered a disability because of his moderate dysplasia. Until his death, a few days short of his 13thbirthday, he was mobile, relatively agile and went for daily runs.
I wish I could have hunted with Riley’s son or daughter. Dysplasia is a crippling disorder that causes great suffering in many dogs. It’s a result of generations of in-breeding. All efforts should be made to reduce its occurrence. It is a shame that the genes that made Riley the special, once in a lifetime gun dog that he was were lost, but he had a potentially debilitating physical imperfection. It’s only by luck and proper care, and the fact that he died relatively young, that he never really suffered from it. You must take the bad with the good. The light that burns much more brightly often does not burn nearly as long.
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