[nagdu] Medical Issues and Program Differences

[Brent Reynolds]

I think that any program or organization that sends out a number of dogs
over time is bound to send out the occasional one with an undiagnosed
medical condition, especially since some such conditions don't manifest
themselves in such a way as to lead to a firm diagnosis until after the dog
is past two years old.  I'll give you an example from my personal experience
shortly.

I first went to The Seeing Eye at the beginning of February, 1978.  When I
went home with my dog, one of the items in the information packet they gave
me was a complete "Health Record," showing every innoculation, every little
thing for which the dog had been treated, what treatment was prescribed, and
detailing the outcome.  This might include a minor thing such as a tooth
puncture to an ear sustained in a puppy scrap and which ointment was applied
to it, up to a major invasive proceedure such as, spaying.  The record
covered the entire time the dog had been in the possession and under the
care of the school.  I have gotten such a record all six times I have gone
to The Seeing Eye for a dog.

My second dog was a tall, gangly German Shepherd who was 27 inches tall and
weighed only 64 pounds when I took him home.  He was about 17 or 18 months
old when I left the school with him.   I was told that the dog would
probably fill out by the time he was three years old.  It is fairly common
for large male German Shepherd Dogs to get their full-sized frame by the
time they are about 18 months old, and then fill out and, as it were, grow
into the frame from then until they reach the age of about two years or 30
months old.  Having grown up around German Shepherd Dogs, I knew this to be
true, but I thought this dog's case was a bit on the extreme side.  Other
then the weight issue, which got me investigated by the Tallahassee, Florida
Humane Society because I had been reported as starving and possibly
otherwise abusing my dog, his work was flawless, and he was an active, and
apparently happy working dog.

After a year of trying to put weight on him, including doing serious
research into the premium dogfood market, and feeding him super high-energy,
expensive high-end food enough to maintain a dog normally weighing up to 150
pounds, and having him still never weighing more than 70 pounds, I took him
to the School of Veterinary Medicine at Auburn University in Alabama.  For
two weeks, he was evaluated and tested, probed and biopsied in six internal
organs by two of the world's top three university specialists in canine
internal medicine, one of whom was a visiting professor from one of Europe's
top veterinary schools located in France.

This high-caliber team of specialists and their graduate students determined
that the dog had significant scarring of the liver, cause unknown. His
pancreas and spleen were underdeveloped, and he was not producing the
enzymes necessary to digest fats, thus loosing out on any nutrients carried
in, bonded to, or metabolized with the aid of, fats.  I was told that it was
as if the dog had been born with his entire digestive tract outside his
body, and that no matter how much of what I fed him, he would never gain
weight.  I was told that he could live like that for another ten years, or
he could literally drop dead in harness, in the middle of a street one day.
They put that in the report they sent to The Seeing Eye.  The Seeing Eye
also agreed to pay the entire cost of the veterinary treatments, including
all the lab work and other tests.  The university considered it such a rare
and unusual case, that they charged The Seeing Eye only 140 dollars, and the
dog's case entered in to the medical history records of that and other
universities and may still be a subject of case study for veterinary
students to this day.

I retired the dog a few months after his Auburn experience, and returned for
a successor dog in August, 1981.  That Shepherd was my second dog, the first
one having been retired because she developed an uncontrollable fear of
sudden noises, such as those often made by busses and trains.

In 1978 or so, when you got your dog from The Seeing Eye, they first told
you only the dog's name, breed, sex, and color.  Later in the class period,
they told you its age, and whether it was from the school's breeding
program or came to the school as a result of a donation or purchase, and
whether it had been raised as a part of the school's puppy raising operation
done in conjunction with 4-H.

When I went back in 1981, I got all that information, along with the usual
detailed health record, and information about the dog's bloodline, both
parents, going back two or three generations, if it was from the School's
breeding program.

By the time I returned in 1990 for a dog, we got all that above information,
plus a report from the puppy raisers about some of the dog's likes and
dislikes, some of its puppyhood experiences, and the types of situations,
places, and environments to which the dog had been exposed, as well as some
information about the age and sex of the official puppy raiser, and the type
of environment in which the dog was raised--rural, city, suburban, etc.

Since The Seeing Eye opened their new and enlarged vet facility around 2001
or so, some time in the last week before they go home, students go to the
vet clinic with their dogs, witness the exam, have a talk with the vets
where any questions can be asked.  And, as always, if the dog is being
treated for anything while in class, the student goes home with enough of
the prescribed medications to finish the course of treatment being
administered.  Of course, if the treatment is for something really serious,
or major, the student would not likely go home with the dog, but would
return to finish the class after the dog is well.


When I went home with Mychal in the middle of September, 2004, I noticed
that the information had more details about the puppy raising stage; a
pedigree chart going back at least three full generations on both sides of
the bloodline, plus a lot of information that would have been relayed
verbally over the course of the class.  This time, the health record was
detailed only for the most immediate 12 months, less detailed for the first
part of the dog's life.  Maybe they figured most vets might not be all that
interested in having so much details.  I kknow mine was not.  All he wanted
was current information, vaccination information to determine on what
vaccines he was current, and the usual stuff like, age, sex, breed, weight,
and the most recent treatments for whatever.  I still would have liked to
have the "whole megila" so to speak, and will most likely request to have it
with the next dog.


Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA  USA
Email: burddawg at bellsouth.net  Phone: 1-404-814-0768