Leema Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 (edited) The rescue bitch here has started to have her litter (yay!), and third born puppy is deformed. He is severely undershot and his head appears all big and swollen. The puppy is not thriving (born only about 30 minutes ago) and we're letting mum decide if she wants it or not (seems not). Just wondering if anyone has any ideas what this irregularity is? Pictures to come once we've done this whelping thing. Edited January 15, 2012 by Leema Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Hydrocephalus? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leema Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 Er, maybe, from Googling kinda... Couldn't find any pictures of new-new borns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 ..or it may simply be a malformation in skull structure. Mother Nature does make the odd boo-boo .. poor baby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Baggins Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Hydrocephalus? I would agree with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alyosha Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 If it's a rescue you don't know the breeding? Could be something or could be normal... If it is some sort of bulldoggy or boxerish cross... Some of teh American and Aussie Bulldog lines seem to have very large heads and often have protruding bottom jaws. If it's severely undershot that may not be compatible with suckling and/or life anyway... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leema Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 Puppy died. It actually is severely overshot - I had a moment, excuse me. I doubted that he'd be able to suckle, too. Will post pictures eventually. We've up to puppy 5. Still going. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Baggins Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Puppy died. It actually is severely overshot - I had a moment, excuse me. I doubted that he'd be able to suckle, too. Will post pictures eventually. We've up to puppy 5. Still going. :) 5 that willbe right. Kadbury and I once whelped a litter of 8.all fit and well excellent Mum. This was just after a disastrous Cav litter of 3. It's Murphys law. Grrrrrrt Hope all going well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leema Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 Some pictures of him. Was very hard to get a decent photo in the bad lit room, but hopefully this will give you an idea. I also took a video to show the dimensions of his head. If anyone thinks that would be of interest, I'll upload it... Just say. Rescue bitch ended up having 5 puppies - first two were normal, then this deformed pup, the fourth puppy also was overshot (not as badly) and hasn't seemed to be able to feed (may have to get it D'ed at the vet check today), and fifth puppy was normal. All surviving pups are brindle boys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alyosha Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 His head is very odd. It may be just the pic but it looks smooth like it is fluid filled. Poor little mite. It's amazing what can turn up in crossbreds, complete outcrosses so we can't blame the all-evil inbreeding... But I wonder, if this stuff turned up in purebred litters, would inbreeding levels be he first place fingers were pointed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leema Posted January 16, 2012 Author Share Posted January 16, 2012 His head did look quite like it was fluid filled. Hydrocephalus might've been right, but maybe associated with some other malformation of his head. We took this poor boy to the vet today, but vet didn't have many answers. He suggested that perhaps the head was compressed during delivery. (I think the head looked odder when the puppy was alive - perhaps blood flow was sustaining its size?) The other overshot (overbite) puppy also died this morning. It had no interest in feeding, it wouldn't get warm (put it on heat packs etc and it just stayed icy to the touch), and it still had goop on it because mum wasn't interested in cleaning or tending to it. Another one that wasn't meant to make it. I'd be very concerned if this was one of MY litters - I'd want to know where these two big over bites came from! (And, you're right, it'd probably be blamed on inbreeding or the 'problems' of purebreds.) There are three fit and healthy brindle boys that are feeding well and passed a vet check today. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Baggins Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 It looks very odematous ie fluid in the tissue. Could be dueto a number of things, heart, blood disorder and abnormality of kidney. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astese Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Did you check to see if the puppy had a cleft pallette. Things like this happen when breeding dogs. If you stay in the game long enough you will see lots of problems. So dont become disheartened it happens to everyone if the breed dog long enough. Good luck with the other babies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leema Posted January 16, 2012 Author Share Posted January 16, 2012 Neither of the dead pups had a cleft palette, that I could see. I just like to learn things, and I like to know what stuff is. :) Thanks for those that commented. The vet didn't have much to say (brought the corpse in today)... The swelling had changed shape after death, so it wasn't really accurate anymore - suggesting that it was fluid and it just got pushed around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puglvr Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 We had a calf born once witha really swollen miss-shaped head. It was a difficult birth and the calf returned to normal within a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Baggins Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 We had a calf born once witha really swollen miss-shaped head. It was a difficult birth and the calf returned to normal within a week. That happens to babies as well. This looked more wide spread as in down the neck and shoulders and into the feet and legs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weiz4eva Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Is it just the head or is its body fuffy to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leema Posted January 27, 2012 Author Share Posted January 27, 2012 This puppy had an enlarged head only. Its neck and downwards appeared normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asal Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 (edited) ..or it may simply be a malformation in skull structure. Mother Nature does make the odd boo-boo .. poor baby. of course not...only unethical breeders have problems like that dont they? actually i only now finished reading this page... certainly food for thought re breeds and closed stud books. Very interesting reading, enjoy http://www.akhalteke.info/genetic-de...s-1-70-en.html haven’t checked out the rest of the site yet. Gee that herda is horrible..their skin comes off???????? "Omertà - or the Conspiracy of Silence The expression "conspiracy of silence" relates to a condition or matter which is known to exist, but by tacit communal unspoken consensus is not talked about or acknowledged. Conditions considered shameful or disadvantageous by society or a certain group of people result in avoidance of recognition of some problem in order to officially bury or hide it and thus prevent accusations, investigations or liability. A conspiracy of silence in some field has effects at many levels: those who are directly suffering, or causing others to suffer, perpetuate their cycle of harm and suffering, those who have suffered have their suffering extended by being having their condition ignored or minimized, and are not considered seriously or redressed appropriately, lessons that might be learned for the future are not learned, conditions are exacerbated or even this way allowed to become entrenched in the first place. Conspiracy of silence is a well-known and much executed behaviour among many if not most modern breeders. Unlike breeders of former times, who had to present animals well able to perform and had no problem with destroying those individuals which were showing faults or defects, especially as their livelihood usually depended on their good name in this respect, many if not most modern breeders are more or less hobbyists or - if themselves professionals - selling mainly to hobbyists. Unless they are selling directly to the meat market that is. These hobby breeders usually feel that the name of their breeding is riding on the health state of their animals, or indeed often considerable amounts of money invested are riding on the trust customers and fellow breeders place in them or they do not wish to start over rsp. are unable to buy new breeding stock. In view of the fact that since roughly 100 to 150 years ago studbooks of most pet breeds are closed as a rule and in view of the advent of pure showbreeding also among many if not most pet animal species, decisive and relentless culling has become more necessary than ever. As can be seen in nearly every pet breed which deviated from breeding for practical work, the assault (on genetic and general health) of inbreeding, genetic load, popular sire syndrome and omertà has led to genetic diseases cropping up and spreading through the genepools, as well as a general loss of health values. While horse breeds are not affected as fastly as small pet breeds due their larger generation span, they most certainly are not immune to this mechanism. Quarterhorses with HYPP, HERDA or EPSM, Arabians with LFS, SCID or CA, or Friesians with hydrocephalus or dwarfism, these are just a few examples for genetic diseases spreading like wildfire through either closed genepools or genepools bred heavily for show and perusing largely popular sires to do that. In all of these cases, in every one of them, the conspiracy of silence has seen to it, that the silence of breeders and owners alike allowed the initially but few cases of grave genetical diseases to spread throughout the whole breed, in some cases to the extent that so many individuals are carriers that culling becomes impossible. Only when so many animals are touched by the relevant problem, that at one or other point affected horses get sold to people unwilling to keep silent about it, a grudging acceptance takes place. Rescue measures at that stage then come much too late and the usual testing frenzy is more often than not just windowdressing. An additional problem is that in small, closed genepools even with testing there soon comes a point when the genepool consists of so many carriers that finding good, fitting breeding pairs is a major difficulty. The longer a disease is not talked about and not taken into calculation, the sooner that state will be achieved. E.g. among Friesians this already has resulted in semi-opening of the before firmly closed studbook and strict rules as to lower inbreeding coefficients. This, one needs to say it clearly, is a breed with way more than 10,000 breeding individuals worldwide and still it was discovered to not be sufficient to cull within the closed genepool only. The situation for the Akhal Teke with its much, much lower amount of breeding animals, may quickly become much more serious. Already today the genetic diversity of the breed is insanely low, an AVK of 30-50% (instead of at least 85%) in modern horses should ring any breeder's alarm bells long and hard. Next comes the fact that we already know that several of the extremely popular sires were or must have been carriers of the lethal recessive "Hairless Foal Syndrome". Such horses as 943 Arslan, 736 Keymir or 1054 Gilkuyruk, cases leading back to the immensely influental 448 Kir Sakar, 44 Bek Nasar Dor or 244 Toporbay, can be found by now in every single horse pedigree. That general genetic load and inbreeding depression also is by now taking its toll, should not be negated either, with a major lowering of the average life expectancy of the more recently born horses and the cropping up of such potentially polygenetic diseases as Wobbler Syndrome, Kissing Spine, ringbone, allergies, DLSD or OCD. There is but one way to deal with this for buyers, especially when on the brink of acquiring very expensive horses: • have the horse thoroughly checked by a vet, not the stable vet of the breeder, choose your own vet and make absolutely sure that he is not connected to the breeder! • tell this vet about the potential problems he needs to carefully check up on: Kissing Spine, Wobbler Syndrome, OCD, DSLD, skeletal problems related to early work and overfeeding/pushing of foals • if an independant vet cannot be engaged on place, make the sale and payment of the horse dependant on a thorough check-up done by your own stable vet. Arrange escrow of the payment with a trustworthy firm until the health of the horse has been cleared to your satisfaction. • ask the breeder about such ancestors in the pedigree which may be or have been carriers of the Hairless Foal Syndrome and demand an evaluation by the studbook management prior to the sale. Have this evaluation checked by an independant geneticist! • ask for a calculation of ancestor loss and inbreeding of your horse and if the intention is breeding, have the potential partners of it evaluated for pairing and the values possible foals will achieve. • do not take the simple word of a breeder as being fact. The Akhal Teke may be a rare breed, it however is not different from any other animal species. If claims are made as to potential performance and abilities, ask for direct proof of what the direct ancestors of that horse actually and provenly achieved in those fields. The most important thing to remember is the age-old saying: CAVEAT EMPTOR! As the buyer, you are the one who has to beware. Hopefully critical customers of these horses will eventually force breeders to see the sense in breeding for healthy workable horses, in becoming aware and open about the genetical problems the breed is facing and in using modern methods and knowledge where they can help avoid or combat genetic diseases and genetic load." the really interesting thing about this article is the comments re the closing of stud books being a part of the problem. Thus the problem now will be even worse since most horse registeries mandatory dna has been brought in, this was done because it was known that "some" breeders were introducing "outside" blood, but how to stop them without "everyone else finding out and devaluing the breed" now of course that cannot happen anymore. wonder if it was such a great idea after all? my husband pointed out an interesting fact we seem to be overlooking. the cane toad in australia has a completly closed studbook. apparently the billions of the buggers now inhabiting this country are descended from less than 128 original cane toads. re rabbits "The current infestation appears to have originated with the release of 12 wild rabbits by Thomas Austin on his property, Barwon Park, near Winchelsea, Victoria, in October 1859 for hunting purposes." how many actually were released is pure speculation but considering the stud book was certainly closed there are billions of them now. the australian possum was released in new zealand. again only a few were imported, there are now millions of them all descended from a closed stud book. as for the deer in new zealand...again millions of them from a very small importation. again a closed stud book? something does not make sense here? any idea's? looks to me like mother natures playing ducks and drakes with us all right. Edited January 27, 2012 by asal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asal Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 His head is very odd. It may be just the pic but it looks smooth like it is fluid filled. Poor little mite. It's amazing what can turn up in crossbreds, complete outcrosses so we can't blame the all-evil inbreeding... But I wonder, if this stuff turned up in purebred litters, would inbreeding levels be he first place fingers were pointed? I think you could bet your bippy on that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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