Galgos et problèmes de santé / galgos and health problems

AnnaAnimal a écrit:

This is terrible ! It is very very sad. I am always worrying, because my Lilah has a heart failure, though she hasn't got any symptoms yet. I hope so much that he wasn't ill, at least not any hereditary, because he has puppies..

sorry to hear that, is it why you didn't make any litter with her yet?

at least you know and you can treat her, my first galgo died of heart failure because no vet detected anything and he never received any treatment

^I'm sorry! That's terrible. I always want to have the specialists check the sighthounds eyes and heart with doppler-ultrasound before I make any puppies. Lilah haven't had any symptoms and this condition can not be detected without a proper ultrasound and a skillfull specialist (sighthound heart is anyhow bigger than a "normal" dogs).
Yes, now it is possible for me to treat her when she will have symptoms, but still she won't live old :'(. Heart failure is definitely hereditary and it seems that galgo's has that (it is impossible to know how big percent of the population, because galgo's are usually not being examined at all. You can not see heart failure's early state from the dog in any way! So the dog is not neccessarily healthy, if you don't see the symptoms). So Lilah will - of course - never have puppies, as much as I wanted little Lilahs!

Lilah's uncle has also a severe hearth failure, two of the brothers have heart murmur, so it runs in the family. One of Lilah's brother was put down without any examination, so he might have had it also (he had problems with blood circulation and recovering from exercise).

Sorry about the OffTopic, maybe it would be good to open a new topic for this. Lets continue with the original one. It would be really nice to know why Jumbo deceased.

AnnaAnimal a écrit:

Lilah haven't had any symptoms and this condition can not be detected without a proper ultrasound and a skillfull specialist (sighthound heart is anyhow bigger than a "normal" dogs).
.

this is the reason why my usual vet didn't detect anything, for him Lince's heart was normal (only comparing to regular dogs) the only sign which would have alerted me was he needs time to recover after every single 'run' but he was my first sighthound, and he has an handicap at one leg, so I thought it was normal to rest that much after a run.

Marie a écrit:

AnnaAnimal a écrit:

Lilah haven't had any symptoms and this condition can not be detected without a proper ultrasound and a skillfull specialist (sighthound heart is anyhow bigger than a "normal" dogs).
.

this is the reason why my usual vet didn't detect anything, for him Lince's heart was normal (only comparing to regular dogs) the only sign which would have alerted me was he needs time to recover after every single 'run' but he was my first sighthound, and he has an handicap at one leg, so I thought it was normal to rest that much after a run.

I'm sorry you won't be able to have mini-Lilah, but this is for the best

Yes, I am very glad that I took her to the specialist. It would be terrible to think how many of the puppies will become sick..

There are different kind of heart failures, but this which is quite common in salukis (and starting to be even with whippets) seems to be also with galgos (DCM: Dilated Cardiomyopathy http://www.akcchf.org/canine-health/your-dogs-health/disease-information/dilated-cardiomyopathy.html). I mean the same type of disease.

It can be seen only with ultrasound where the specialist is measuring the tickness of the heart wall in diastole and systole (when pumping and when not) and the chambers size and the blood flow. Bad vet, who is not specialized, could be more likely to think that there is a desease if he is only looking at the size of the heart - wich is bigger anyhow in sighthounds. They also have different measurements of the walls of the heart chambers.

it is important to knowledge that there might be no murmur at all, though the dog still can have DCM. So the listerning of the heart doesn't tell you..well..anything. (Lilah was listened twice, with no murmur).

But otherwise, you can't say that because two brother have heart murmurs, they have the same disease. And the uncle, does he also have DCM? Or is it a different heart problem?

My Paula had a heart murmur, I went to THE German heart specialist (especially for sighthound and galgo hearts) and she checked her with the doppler ultrasonioc and found nothing and said: there is this noise, but I don't know where it comes from. Paula died more than 14 years old from a stroke and never had heart problems , only a murmur without explenation.

What I want to say is, that we have to be careful with saying generally , there is a heart problem in a special bloodline: heart problems can have different reason: through environment or inherited. And the different inherited diseases are depending on different genes.

Sometimes I think that I would be good, to have a database about diseases of the galgos and from what a dog died when it died young, but I also believe that will not be easy.
Maybe sometimes, we can see a pattern, in which line is this or that problem etc.
When I began with the breed, the biggest problem were kryptorchism and missing teeth.

antoher problem is the diagnostic and the origin of the disease.
different diseases can give the sames symptoms.

Could an administration make a new topic for this and move these? This is very interesting, but we are in a wrong topic!

Heart murmur doesn't really have directly anything to do with Cardiomyopathy. Of course when the desease advances and the heart is dilating, that can cause the valves to leak. But of course a dog can have a leak in his valves, without DCM or any other heart failure. And a dog can have heart failure without any murmur.

Lilah and his uncle have both got dilated cardiomyopathy. Lilah's uncle has medication, because the desease has gotten worse over the years. It is possible that heart failure can be caused for example some infection, which has gone to the heart, but unfortunately, both Lilah's and Ässäs hearts are getting worse - not the other way around (this would happen if it would be caused by an infection). Lilah got bitten by a venomous snake last summer, so of course I thought at first, that maybe it caused a massive infection, which could have caused DCM. But no, it is getting worse.

It is also important to notice, that no matter what heart failure we are talking about, it doesn't show on the regular x-rays on the early stages. 4 weeks ago vet x-rayed Lilahs lugns and her heart is perfectly shaped and sized. For now.

Sighthounds can have also "fysiological" murmur, which is caused by the blood flow. I don't know exactly the mehcanism, but in Finland we are examing a lot of eg. whippet and saluki hearts and this is seen sometimes. If the ultrasound doesn't show any "back flow" (don't know what this could be exactly in english) of the blood, so the valve isn't leaking like in the "real" murmur. With this back flow I mean: when the heart valve is open, there should be blood going to one direction only, depending on the valve. If there is, at the same time, blood going to the wrong direction, it causes a murmur. If the murmur is fysiological, there's not actually any wrong with the heart. But I am surprised that the specialist didin't know this when checking Paula.

It is alarming that if 4 dogs in the near family have been examined (and only 3 of them with ultrasound) 4 of them haven't got healthy hearts. 2 DCMs and 2 murmurs. The easiest way to prevent heart deseases from spreading, is to examine the parents before making any puppies and only use healthy ones! It is not possible at least in Spain, I know, but still I am hoping. The heart is the most important organ ant the most horrible thing the breeders could to is to ignore diseases and continue with the same bloodlines with no examinations.

For as long as a whippet breed has been existing, everyone told that "this is so healthy breed, no need for health exams" and now, when in Finland we have started to examine a lot of whippets in a few years (foreign bloodlines also of course), the results are disturbing. No responsible breeder nowadays in Finland is having puppies without the heart ultrasound. It is a pity that for example in Sweden, no one is doing the examinations. I just would like to preserve a healthy galgo breed in the future so that the breed wouldn't end up in the same situation as whippets or salukis. At least there is no harm in examining, but there could be harm if not!

subjets divided and merged

sujets divisés et fusionnés

only the breed kennel club can decide to make this examination obligatory.

currently ther is nothing for galgo, but I don't know if heart problems are such existing in the breed.

a recording of the disease as says gallo would be interesting to know if there is really a problem or not.

I went to this specialist with Paula, because another "specialist" diagnosed in a puppy from her first litter a HCM, he said the heart was too big etc (of course he was wrong and the puppies, who were said to live only a few months are getting 12 years now).
But I went to the specialist, who also checked the Cerunnos galgos and she already said to me that sighthound hearts are different, that there are sometimes sounds that can disturb a vet.
She heard the murmur and checked everything extra (after telling me that HCM is the typical wrong diagnosis for sighthound hearts), but didn't find something wrong. I can't remember whether she gave me an explanation or not, I was so nervous and she conformed me the whole time that Paula is OK. This was 10 years ago, so I can't remember any detail.
The story about this wrong diagnosis HCM is very long and too complicated to write all down.
But because of this story many galgos in Germany were heart checked, mine and others. None had DCM and of course no HCM.

the vet also said that my rescue galga had a heart murmur 3 years ago and that she needs treatement.
I refused the treatement and now she has many problems, but none heart problems.
sometimes I would prefer finding her dead in the sofa, because it is nearly the end, but her heart is too good for that...

It has been often said that cardiomyopathy are frequent problem for galgos, but I do not know or have seen any proof of study about it.

The cases in Lilah's family are the only I have heard from. I know that Cardiomyopathy is a big problem in IW and they have to be checked before breeding. The galgo breeder Cerunnos bred also IW and so they were very careful about the hearts of the galgos and let their galgos check and never found anything.

At first I thank Anna for opening this subject and also for her honesty

for several months many of us know that a major problem of epilespie is affecting many galgos of the same lineage and it is vital that all breeders must be cautious about it and check their breeding dogs

The intensive use of the same parents is dangerous because if the dog shows a health problem, the number of puppies that may be affected will be very important.

it is reassuring that some breeders are concerned about the situation and make advanced searches

Of course that breeders want to produce a beautiful galgo but I think the most important is to have a Galgo in good health and also with a healthy mind

we have the bad exemples of others races with many health problems.
peaple often believe it is better to have a crossed dog because they think they are healthier.

We found several dog with epilepsy in different blood-lines. They were bred in different countries. But epilepsy is only a symptom, so it is not easy to say, which dog has the inherited and which has epilepsy because of other health problems or influence of the environment (poison for example). We didn't search with much intensity, only asked some people.

I din't know anything about Cardiomyopathy until a year ago and it frankly spoken, freaks me out! Our C-litter are relatives to Lilah and the Kashayas. One of the offsprings will have a heart check soon, because a vet heard something, so she is going to a specialist for heart diseases for ultasound. I have notifid about hte disease to those who got Rabilargo C-offsprings, but I can not stop them from breeding. They have to take their own cautions. But, if I knew about this 2 years ago, I would not have done this combination and we will never breed from our Carmencita and Cazpian
it's very sad that we don't get any info from Spain. They seem to hide every problem or faults and don't write about it. And if they do, it's too late to stop a problem
As I see it now, there's no safe combinations...

I would like to refresh this old postings, because after more than 5 years, I see growing health problems in the galgos. The epilepsy is spreading around, first it was mostly found in dogs who had certain males/females (we all know the suspicious names) somewhere in the pedigree, but now also in another bloodline.

And the heart problems are also getting worse, for example DCM. I asked already in German club, but there is nolist with results of galgos made by official heart specialists. How is it in other countries ? Do you let your dogs check before breeding by a specialist? Frankely spoken, I don't trust anymore the diagnosis, which is made from a normal vet. Sighthound hearts are different and normal vets often don't have the correct machines.

to my knowledge I don't have heard about heart problems or DCM in spanish galgos en France, but they are very few in france and maybe we don't know everything.
and if an old dog is found dead in the morning, if he is not a too young dog to die, I suppose peaple don't make an autopsy to know why the dog is dead.

there is no heart exams before breeding (the french club doesn't ask for it - the french club doesn't care about spanish galgo anyway, only azawakh is interesting for it - ), and breeders don't do heart exams if they have a healthy dog.

personnaly I watch my galgos when they runs like crazy for a very long time, if they are easy to recover breath and slow heartbeat I don't worry. the vet listen to the heart at each visit. but I don't make echography is nothing ask for it.

That is a pity that the French club does not care for the galgos. I thought in the past that our breed is healthy. But it changed because most of our dogs have the same dogs somewhere in the pedigrees and dogs are used for breeding although brother and sisters (uncles or aunts) are known to have an inherited disease. Unfortunately, only a professional heart check can detect diseases. Some dogs don't show any sign and the vet doesn't hear any murmur, but with a doppler echographie, it is visible that there is something unnormal. DCM was a big problem in the Irish Wofhounds and before the heart check was obligatory, people said: my dog is running and playing, he can't have DCM and whne this dog was checked, the owner was very surprised.
I'm not breeding anymore, one reason are the health problems in the breed. The epilepsy problem is ignored by several breeders, but maybe it would help to fight against the heart problems, if parents of a futures litter are heart checked and that not when they are still very young. In Lilah's example you can see that it needs time to develop a clearly visible DCM. There were also other cases of heart problems, not only DCM, and the cases of dogs, which suddenly are falling down and are dead. And before, tehy looked healthy and happy, playing in the garden or doing sport.