Elizabeth, up in Minnesota, has one of our Charm / Levi puppies.  Boomerang competes in Agility and is finally starting to mature into a great working dog.  Boomer suffers from inflammatory bowel syndrome and Addison’s Disease.  Because Elizabeth’s vet caught these issues early, Boomer has been able to live an active life.   Boomerang is registered with the Poodle Health Registry, an open database attempting to track disease prevalence in our breed.  Do you have a poodle with health issues?  I implore you to register that dog with The Poodle Health registry.  It is now a one page sheet of paper which you fill in and take to your vet.  Have the vet sign off on any health related problems they can verify.  It is vital for breeders to have a resource to track diseases within pedigree’s.  With enough participation, we will be able to clearly see patterns, pockets of really healthy dogs as well as which combinations should be avoided.  Boomer comes from a very low inbreeding and low Wycliffe combination, yet there he is with two autoimmune related health issues.  On paper, his pedigree combination looks ideal, yet we now know better because Elizabeth kept both me and Gloria informed.  We made changes to our breeding program to reflex that information.   A good breeder wants to know when something is wrong.  Every single litter is a roll of the dice.  You as the pet owner understand this aspect and while it is great not to blame the breeder for a health problem, we absolutely need to know what is happening with our puppies.  Register that dog on the database so other breeders also know what to watch for.  Tossing the baby out with the bathwater is not my agenda.  I’m not saying a breeder needs to remove every dog from a line that has produced a health issue.  If we do that, we would have to stop breeding dogs, because there isn’t a line of completely healthy dogs anywhere, just as there isn’t a line of completely healthy people!  We all have genetic baggage.  My sister has Lupus.  I have allergies and asthma.  Crap happens to both people and dogs.  BUT because we bring this dogs into this world by choice, we need to do it in an educated manner and with as much information as we can gather.  I don’t want to saddle anyone with a puppy who ends up being a money pit.  We do what we can and the only way to do that is with information.

Here is the update from Elizabeth.

Boomerang is doing GREAT!!  All his medical problems are well under control, in fact I forget for weeks at a time that there is anything to worry about :-).  He is one Wildcard leg away from his first Championship Agility title (in CPE – that’s the org we started in first), he is half way to his AKC MACH and we are working on a USDAA CH title as well.  In fact, we are headed to the USDAA National event (Cynosports) in Murfreesboro, TN in a couple weeks.  This will be his first national event, I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am!  We are also qualified for AKC Nationals next March and CPE Nationals which are here in MN next June.  He has become an awesome teammate – we have such a great time together.  One of his greatest rewards is to get to say HI to all his fans after a run!  He is a very social dog and loves people.  I have to work another three years before I can retire, but by then maybe we’ll be ready to do some therapy work too.  LOVE my boy!!!

Let me know if you cannot get this picture and I can try to send another way (I’m on a MAC).

Elizabeth

Boomerang’s YouTube page.  Subscribe to keep up with what this lovely boy is doing in the Agility world.  🙂