Dale Malony: You’ve mentioned
Willis’ book a number of times, and also in your book. If a breeder
were looking for one book to compliment yours of those you recommend
in your book, which would you say would be the best complement?
Dr. Padgett: Willis - no
doubt, Willis. Yes, he’s by far the best. There’s another one -
Nicholas - which really gets into technical genetics and would not be
good for most breeders. Willis is a good complement. He’s got two
books out. The second one is directed more to breeders, but the first
one is a better book. If you can understand mine, you can understand
that one. If you have a reasonable feeling for what I said in my book,
you’ll understand Willis. He’s good.
Debbie Martin: …In the last two years we’ve been educating
ourselves about what the diseases are, because, for example many
people just didn’t know that atopy is the same thing as allergies.
They just didn’t know what any of these things were. We accepted that
German Shepherds had diarrhea a lot. Nobody thought that it could be a
disease. So what we’re finding now is that many people will say "Oh,
well my dog has allergies, I didn’t put it on the survey, I didn’t
know that’s what that was." Or "Yeah, my dog always has diarrhea", but
they didn’t put it on the survey, didn’t think it was a disease. My
impression is that if we were to do the survey again with the
knowledge of diseases we have now the incidence of disease would be
much higher than it was at the original time of the survey. Would that
be a typical? Have you found that with other clubs?
Dr. Padgett:
The only club that has done a post-survey is the Cairn Terrier club,
and they did one at five years of age. In their survey there was about
a one percent increase in the frequency of disease compared to the
original one. But they didn’t have time to change them negatively. So
I think that’s the kind of stuff that was already in the works. I
mean, that’s my opinion because you can’t do anything about genetic
disease until you’re generations past. So what you’re asking is what
happens to the next set of dogs, not what happens where you’re at.
I would wait before conducting
another survey. I really would wait, and I would collect the data
separately. If you can get accurate diagnosis that says this is split
and you collect that over a couple of years then you ought to be able
to see either the disease was skipped in the first place, because they
didn’t know it was genetic or you’re going to see a change in the
frequency of the original disease. That’s what I would bet. I wouldn’t
do another survey until you come to a point where change could’ve been
made. That’s got to be three generations.
Debbie Martin: As we’ve been
learning about all these diseases, and it’s been a real learning curve
for everybody, because we just didn’t have the knowledge of what they
were, and one of the things we keep on hearing…
Dr. Padgett: And
remember, you’re going to have a permanent kindergarten because you’re
getting new breeders all the time. It’s a permanent kindergarten, so
you need to keep in place the things you’re doing now. I’m not sure
where you guys are, but AKC says the average breeder lasts six years.
So, keep your educational tools, because you’re going to have to do
them over and over again. And as you do them over, hopefully, your
description of the diseases will be improved – you’ll be better and
more recognizable and allow that to happen. I mean that’s a good thing
to do.
Debbie Martin: Now just touching
back on… when we originally did the survey, nobody knew what the
diseases were. We’re also running into the average vet who isn’t
really aware of the diseases of the German Shepherd. So like, spinal
stenosis, … many of them don’t really have a clue. Would it be helpful
for us to take our worst diseases, write up the symptoms, and put it
in a booklet that everybody who buys a dog can take to their vet and
say "my dog’s having many of these symptoms. Is it this disease?"
Dr. Padgett Reply: Two
clubs have done that, and they think it’s helpful. Most vets, but not
all vets, think it’s helpful. The vast majority say thank you, but
some don’t like to be challenged. As far as I’m concerned you can’t
worry about that. Most vets like it, when you help them they like it.
Dale Malony: And they don’t like
it when you get a second opinion.
Dr. Padgett: Right, they
don’t. Because he’ll start to complicate things and you end up with
fights and vets who dislike dog breeders. …They fight between
themselves.
