Elizabeth contacted me over a month ago and let me know that Boomer (from the Charm and Levi litter Gloria and I had back in early 2008) has been diagnosed with Addisons. I asked her to please register him with the Poodle Health Registry and send me a write up to post on here about how he was acting and what lead to his diagnosis.
Addisons is an autoimmune issue that requires an environmental trigger. That is about all we truly know at this point. We do not know what triggers the dogs body to turn on itself, but research feels that with the number of dogs of ALL breeds / mixes coming down with this serious issue, the way Americans live is a big factor. Addison’s and other autoimmune disease are rarely seen in under developed nations. Elizabeth herself feels the chemicals they spray on the golf course near her home might be trigger. She told me 4 other dogs (none poodles) in her ‘valley’ had been diagnosed over the last month (different vets) and this is her second Standard Poodle to develop the disease.
Standard Poodles are at great risk of this issue. Every line out there has produced Addisons. The standard poodle breed was inbred in the 60s to leave us with a very very small gene pool world wide. With the use of Popular sires, producing 100s of litter that people then breed back into over and over, the immune complex has been depleted in the breed. Now that semen can be shipped, we have no breeders who are isolated from US dog influence. Some breeders, myself included, are doing all we can to openly admit any issues, track and supply any information we can on all our pups, and donate money towards research that might help us find the reason. We need a new direction to turn because denial will only cause our dogs to drop into extinction. It doesn’t matter what type of breeder your dog comes from, Pet, Show, puppy Mill, Back Yard Hobby breeder… they are all related if you look back 15 or so generations.
Here is what Elizabeth sent me on Boomers decline and diagnosis.
In early April, Boomerang’s interest in his meals began to wane. He became less and less interested at dinner time and ate with less gusto at each meal. He also became “picky” about his water. First, it had to be fresher, then he’d only drink if it was really cold, and later only if it had ice in it. My instructor made a comment in class that week that “since I didn’t have my fast dog…”. But it wasn’t until after the following weekend I really began to notice things. He was no longer harassing the other dog when they went outside, he was a little lethargic, and he began to leave part of his meals behind. It had been a LONG time since he didn’t want to eat. I stopped using the toys (Kongs, etc) to feed him and just put the food in a bowl, but even that didn’t seem to help. Finally one night, he only ate part of his dinner and the next morning he refused to even look at his food. That was the day we went to the vet. He had lost about 9lbs (down to 46 from 55) and was slightly dehydrated. They took blood for a standard work up and gave him some IV fluids as well as some sub-cu fluids. The next day his results came back – cortisol = zero. So we began treating with prednisone. Saturday & Sunday went well, he began to eat again and seemed a little better, but Monday evening he refused food again and Tuesday they gave him more fluids and did another blood draw. Results on Wednesday – electrolytes all out of whack. He was given a Percorten injection and was responding well within 24 hours.
Ten days later, he has already regained more than half the weight he lost and is feeling MUCH better. He’s been to all of his classes this week and done a spectacular job. He is barking at me for meals, he eats with gusto and begs for more!
Elizabeth
I will keep everyone posted on how Boomer does. He is active in Agility and Elizabeth plans to keep him moving in that direction. He is one lucky dog to have such a great mom. 🙂
Boomer is the second puppy I have produced to come down with Addison’s. The other dog is Sadie- from a different line than Boomer.
Compare the pedigree’s below