Refund....

[kandi]

Hi all

my 1 yr old amstaff with breed papers (Pet only, not show) has been diagnosed hip displacement.

We are getting a second opinion but our vet seemed to think not much could be done apart from a complete hip replacement.

Should I be asking for some sort of refund? I don't want to offend the breeder but surely paying over the odds for a pup from champion blood lines should guarantee a healthy dog.

I feel bad even asking the forum as it makes me sound like we are only concerned with the money.

We are not and will pay what ever it takes to get him fixed.

cheers

K

[Aziah]

There are no guarentees for HD, it can pop up at any time despite a breeders best efforts to breed form parents with excellent scores.

Contact the breeder and explain the situation (after you've got your second opinion) they may be willing to help out with costs of the operation or refund you.

[MellG]

Hi kandi,

Fellow Amstaff owner here, Did you ask if the pups parents were health tested? champion blood lines doesn't always equall healthy bloodlines.

I'll send you a PM, however what state are you in? I can recommend a good specialist if you are in NSW who can give you a second oppinion and allow you to look at all the options, also a good chiropractor can help alleviate some of the discomfort as well as dietry supplements.

I am sorry about your pup, and wish you all the best, check your PM's!!

Cheers

Mell

[cowanbree]

The one time I encountered it I gave the pet people a full refund and as long as I was sure they hadn't done anything stupid like take the dog running from 6mths or feed rubbish food I would always refund. Having said that when I brought a bitch that had HD I didn't receive any refund

[montall]

Hi Kandi,

I had a very similar experience and I approached the breeder for help. I didn't get any. I didn't think it was unreasonable to ask and I don't think you would be wrong to ask either. After all you have a big vet bill now and probably supplements for the rest of the pup's life. I hope you have better luck than me and I am pleased that you are going to look after your dog either way. I have done the same thing.

The good news is that my little girl has recovered well from her surgery. She is a little dog, a chinese crested and I guess that they recover a bit quicker than bigger dogs, being lighter, but all in all the outcome for these operations seems to be good. Good luck, my fingers are crossed for you.

P.S. I should add that I didn't much care about whether or not I offended the breeder by asking but if you are really worried about that you should be aware that there is a good chance that you may never hear from him or her again.

[kandi]

thanks all for your replies. The breeder is alreay aware of the issue so we'll just waitand see what the specialsit says before taking it further.

cheers

[Cavandra]

I have read many articles on HD, and even though YES it CAN be hereditary, it CAN also be envirmonmental, and is MORE so the case.......things like slippery floors (tiles, floorboards), stairs, hard playing, long walks or runs as a youngster, and not to mention, poor quality diets........

Your pup should really be hip xrayed & sent away to be scored to accuarately diagnose this condition......i havent a clue what symptoms he is exibiting??? Can pinched nerve or other injury be ruled out???

Any decent breeder WILL want to know that any particular lines they are working with have produced a problem. Especially so in a small gene pool situation as with AmStaffs........if you do not talk to them about it, they could repeat that mating or similar matings without ever knowing there has been any problem, and so it goes on for years to come

any decent breeder would be providing compensation if it does look to be hereditary.

Cheers

[ILuvAmstaffs]

Hi Kandi,

My 11month old amstaff pup has had an operation for Elbow Dysplasia, so I can relate to what you are going through. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding surgeons etc.

[amstaffchick]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear of you pups HD....

If the breeder is aware of the issue have they not suggested any form of a refund or costs being paid etc ?

Maybe best to find out exactly what u re dealing with b4 getting too caught up in who owe s what and then take it from there...

I wish your pup all the best and hopefully you and your breeder can come to a happy compremise for the sake of all involved.

[curlygirl]

Hip dysplasia is hereditary, its poly genetic and can be made worse by environmental factors. Non of the vets I've worked with (20 yrs vet nursing) have ever said it can be just environmental.

Get your second opinion done then approach the breeder. Best of luck, I hope your breeder is more helpful than the breeder of my curly coated retriever, bought as a show dog, obedience and agility prospect, and has a hip score totaling 41.

[Cavandra]

*Interesting article on Hip Displasia............

http://www.showdogsupersite.com/hips.html

[MTD]

I am so sorry to hear about your dog Kandi. I know what you are going through as Maggie was also diagnosed with Hd at the age of 7 months .

I personally didn't expext any refund as I took Maggie on and I feel it is my responsibilty to ensure she has everything she needs to lead a happy and healthy life.

All I wanted from the breeder was some sympathy, a recognition that it is in her lines and possibly some help in

managing the disease.

I suppose it is up to the individual but don't forget if you want a refund as with anything you will have to give the dog back.

PM me ( if you want ) as I have been there and done that as far as all the NON SURGICAL options available.

[sas]

I wouldn't expect a refund a year later. It may not be a genetic issue. Even if it were even the best breeders come up against it from time to time.

How severe is the HD?

Edited March 29, 2007 by sas

[Jed]

HD is far from a clear cut genetic issue.

As a breeder, I would do something to help - PROVIDED the dog had not been incorrectly fed and exercised.

As an owner, I would speak to the breeder.

I would also investigate management of the problem as well as an operation. Some vets have had success with alternative treatments - a controlled exercise regime to build up the supporting muscles, supplement etc. It is worth asking because it is being used by more vets.

This is for Cavandra - and those who haven't been on the forum very long. 6 RR - parents hip scored - very very low scores. No pup in earlier litters with HD. 5 pups from the latest litter are fine at 12 months, 1 had bad HD. Diet, exercise etc. seemed ok with the affected pup, according to the owner. The breeder visited. The house was in a very steep hilly area, the yard sloped, and there were about 40 steps to the back door - and of course, the dog had spent his life running up and down the steps. The owner didn't even think about the steps, although he had followed the exercise/diet suggestions religiously.

Every pup is born with perfect hips.

Some dogs with high scores remain unaffected all their lives.

[Cavandra]

This is for Cavandra - and those who haven't been on the forum very long. 6 RR - parents hip scored - very very low scores. No pup in earlier litters with HD. 5 pups from the latest litter are fine at 12 months, 1 had bad HD. Diet, exercise etc. seemed ok with the affected pup, according to the owner. The breeder visited. The house was in a very steep hilly area, the yard sloped, and there were about 40 steps to the back door - and of course, the dog had spent his life running up and down the steps. The owner didn't even think about the steps, although he had followed the exercise/diet suggestions religiously.

Doesnt surprise me any! I can quote a similar incident. Golden retreiver litter , where parents low scored from a line of excellent scores. Had ONE from a litter have dodgey hips,it was raised in a yard that was STEEP sloping yard, and every entrance into the house has steps...........Same as your situation.

BTW for those looking at alternative treatments take a look at "Ester C" supplementing. (sorry about the length, I have no link to it :-(((

Ester-C: Miracle Cure for Hip Dysplasia???

By Larry Mueller, Hunting Dogs Editor, Outdoor Life.

Reprinted from Outdoor Life, January, 1996.

An acquaintance of mine, B.J. Richardson, was calling from Texas, doubt and

hope in his voice. "My English Pointer isn't a year old, and he's already

lame in the rear end, especially the left hip," Richardson said. "The X-rays

show hip dysplasia. The veterinarian says there are two choices: operate to

alleviate the pain, or put the dog down. I can't afford one and won't do the

other. Is it true that Vitamin C might help?"

I had to say that I'd never heard of Vitamin C curing canine hip dysplasia,

but I was aware that veterinarian Wendell Belsfield of San Jose, CA, did

prevent CHD -- or least its symptoms -- in eight litters of German

shepherds,

a breed that is prone to crippling abnormal development of a dog's hip

joints. In those instances, all of the dogs' parents had CHD or had

previously whelped pups that became dysplastic. Belsfield gave the bitches

Vitamin C throughout pregnancy and lactation. The pups received Vitamin C

from weaning until they were two years old. None of the pups developed CHD

during that entire period.

Though Belsfield's work wasn't scientific in the strict sense, it certainly

indicated that CHD could be prevented. Still I couldn't see how the joint

could be remodeled once it had grown improperly, at least not without

surgery. However, Vitamin C therapy seemed to be Richardson's only hope, so

I

told him what I knew.

Many readers had written and told me that their arthritic dogs normally were

laid up after a few hours in the field, but when given Vitamin C, they could

hunt several days in a row. None had said they did it with dogs that had

CHD,

but maybe....

I also recalled reading about the efforts of Dr. Bob Cathcart, a medical

doctor in California who championed the use of Vitamin C in curing a wide

variety of joint ailments and illnesses. Much of his work centered around

using the vitamin in large quantities, increasing the doses until the body

reaches "bowel tolerances." Though Cathcart's work was with human patients,

many veterinarians adopted his method, saying that Vitamin C should be given

in increasing doses until the dog's stools loosen, at which point the dose

should be backed off a half a gram or a gram at a time until the stools

became firm again. At that point, the dog's body receives the maximum

Vitamin

C that it can utilize.

I also understood that a superior form of the vitamin is Ester-C, which can

be purchased in health food stores. The vitamin in Ester-C is molecularly

locked to calcium, so it doesn't cause the acidity problems normally

associated with ascorbic acid (the common form of Vitamin C), which can

upset

a dog's stomach. Ester-C also has natural C metabolites that get it into the

cells faster and more effectively (common ascorbic acid is slower getting

out

of the blood serum, so it passes through the kidneys, where much of it is

rapidly lost in the urine).

Pinto's Rebound

A month or two later, I heard that Pinto, Richardson's dog, had begun

improving less than a week after receiving maximum doses of Ester-C. Pinto,

the grandson of Miller's Chief -- an 11-time champion in horseback-style

bird-dog trials -- was now running like the wind. I was as surprised as I

was

delighted.

Two years later, I was in Texas and dropped in to see Pinto. Richardson had

kept him on a maintenance dose of Ester-C. The dog was moving with a fluid

grace and power in the hips. Twice, for a step or two, I saw a bunny hop,

suggesting that not everything was 100 percent correct. But both times,

Pinto

immediately shifted back to a normal gait.

I still couldn't understand how Ester-C could remodel a defective joint, but

I was hopeful. Nobody I knew whose debilitated dog had improved clinically

on

Ester-C had ever taken X-rays of the joints, so I asked Richardson to have

X-rays taken.

He did and mailed me the original X-ray taken two years before and a new

one.

I showed both to Dianna K. Stuckey, a board certified radiologist in St.

Louis, who looked at the original and pointed out the hip dysplasia with the

left hip most severe. The second? "Arthritis that customarily follows hip

dysplasia," she said. I explained Pinto's quick and lasting response to

Ester-C. "How could this dog go from lame to moving freely, and apparently

without pain, in a few days -- and stay that way without something improving

in the joints?"

"We occasionally see this," Stuckey said. "A dog is arthritic yet moves as

if

it feels no pain. We don't know why. Great 'heart' maybe, or high pain

tolerance."

Mystery Unfolds

I'm sure that veterinarians do see this. But the answer to my question,

Pinto's improvement was not because of great heart or high pain tolerance.

He

had been hurting and he had been limping badly. If his response to such pain

improved in just a few days, something caused that change.

Dr. Chuck Noonam of Weston, CT also compared the X-rays. He noticed slight

improvement in the severity of the dysplasia but said the hip joint had

clearly succumbed to degenerate arthritis from the dysplastic hip joint

banging around in and out of the socket.

"Eighty-three percent of dysplastic dogs either show an improvement in their

hip dysplasia or they learn to deal with the problem as they grow older,"

Noonan said. "The second X-ray shows that the dysplasia is slightly less

severe, but because of the arthritis, the joint is worse overall than in the

earlier X-ray. It is possible that the Vitamin C was helping to sort of

lubricate the joint so the dog felt less pain."

In my investigations, I had found that Pinto's results from Ester-C weren't

unique. Soon after Richardson first called, I received a letter from Steve

Dudley of Arizona. His young black Lab, who showed great promise at hunting

Gambel's quail, went lame with CHD. Dudley's vet suggested that Dudley

replace the hip -- or expect to put the dog down by age four. Dudley tried

Ester-C instead and the dog promptly improved. Kept on Ester-C, the dog

lived

until age 13 without showing signs of soreness, lameness, or unwillingness

to

hunt, Dudley wrote.

Flood of Proof

My investigation also led to Charles Docktor, an Arizona veterinarian who

was

the first to test Ester-C for its effectiveness in healing joint problems.

In

1983, he used Ester-C on a large number of arthritic dogs, finding that 75

percent improved in various degrees in a short period of time.

Independently, a continent away, Dr. Geir Erick Berge, a veterinarian in

Oslo, Norway, performed a similar study, that was reported in the August-S

eptember 1990 issue of The Norwegian Veterinary Journal. Berge selected 100

dogs with a variety of joint ailments. His testing revealed that 75 percent

of the dogs rapidly improved on Ester-C, some only slightly, some almost

totally. Dr. Berge added that large amounts of Vitamin C metabolites,

substances essential to a body's metabolic processes, are required in

rebuilding diseased joint tissue.

Corroborating data were also reported by Dr. N. Lee Newman, who conducted 18

months of clinical tests using Ester-C to combat degenerative joint disease

in performance horses. She reported a remarkable 90 percent success rate,

ranging from good to excellent. Furthermore, 80 percent of the improved

horses remained sound after Ester-C was discontinued. Newman credited

supplemental Ester-C with maintaining the integrity of collagen and

connective tissue and with mobilizing white cells in the immune system,

while

deactivating free radicals that damage cell membranes.

But other respected voices were making contradictory statements. The Cornell

University College of Veterinary Medicine Animal Health newsletter in May

1995 denied that Vitamin C was of any value for either preventing or

treating

skeletal diseases in dogs. "There have been absolutely no confirmed reports

that Vitamin C is helpful in any such instances," the newsletter stated. It

went on to theorize that supplemental Vitamin C has no value because dogs

produce adequate amounts of the vitamin in their livers.

But that reasoning is questionable. Vitamin C production varies from dog to

dog, individual bodily needs vary, and circumstances -- health and

environment -- vary enormously. "Adequate" in human medicine only means

enough Vitamin C to prevent scurvy. What is adequate for a strict carnivore

like a dog? And in any case, "adequate" should not be assumed to be a

synonym

for "optimum."

This is where a Vitamin C standoff occurs, and getting people to change

their

scientific opinion is like asking them to change their religion. In

Cornell's

favor, the evidence that has existed supporting the use of Vitamin C on

dysplastic dogs is heavily anecdotal. Even the various veterinarians'

research that has been cited was actually efficacy tests -- that is, all of

the dogs tested were given similar doses of the vitamin and no controlled

comparisons were made. Efficacy testing strongly suggests conclusive

evidence, but it does not provide scientific proof.

The Acid Test

But in 1994, veterinarian L. Philips Brown presented the results of

scientifically acceptable "double-blind crossover" study on the effects of

Vitamin C to a national conference on holistic veterinary medicine. Brown,

the owner of the largest veterinary hospital on Cape Code for 22 years,

tested Vitamin C on 50 dogs with serious joint problems. The dogs were among

a population of more than 500 canines at a large animal sanctuary in Utah.

It

should be noted here that representatives of Inter-Cal, makers of Ester-C,

specifically asked Brown to study the vitamin because they felt it could

have

a major role in the treatment of joint abnormalities. Dave Stenmoe, one of

the representatives of the manufacturer, says "We told [brown] not to take

our word for anything." Just to keep an open mind and conduct a scientific

comparison of Ester-C, ordinary Vitamin C, and a placebo. He finally agreed

to do it.

Brown, along with the Utah sanctuary's resident veterinarian, hand-picked

the

dogs with the worst cases of joint disease and placed them in five groups.

After four weeks of testing, the supplements were withdrawn for three weeks.

Then, each dog was crossed over to a different group and received another

supplement for another four weeks. After yet another three-week layoff, 60

percent of the dogs were switched to a third supplement. The remaining 40

percent went back to whatever they were given during the first four weeks.

At

the end, mobility scores were calculated to determine the average for each

of

the five groups.

The results were impressively in favor of Ester-C therapy. Seventy-eight

percent of the dogs on 2,000mg of Ester-C experienced improved mobility

within four or five days. The average improvement score was 1.52. About 60

percent of the improved dogs relapsed when Ester-C was discontinued, but the

group that returned to Ester-C in the third phase then regained mobility.

Handlers reported no negative side effects.

On the low (850mg) dose of Ester-C, only 52 percent of the dogs improved,

with an average score of 0.45. Obviously, size of dose was important. Of

dogs

receiving 2,000mg of Ester-C with extra minerals, 62 percent improved by an

average score of 0.87. Why Ester-C without extra minerals had better results

remains unknown.

Ordinary Vitamin C improved 44 percent of the dogs, with a score of 0.67. As

expected, no noticeable change occurred among dogs on the placebo.

Not even the most dyed-in-the-wool skeptic can ignore the results of such a

double-blind crossover study. But the success of Vitamin C in treating CHD

can still be questioned, or even denied, because X-rays show that the joints

remain loose or arthritis remains. Even Brown confirms that X-rays taken for

his study reveal defective skeletal structures even after the Ester-C

treatment.

[kandi]

Once again everyone thanks for your replies.

As my emotions are all over the place at the moment, I guess I'm just looking for an easy option to lay blame. After reading all of your comments, I have realised that yes, it MAY be hereditary or it MAY have been caused. Hopefully the specialist will shed more light....

Our boy has grown up with a staffy, they are always having a play and a rough and tumble and often have visits from our friends dogs. Maybe it was caused then, who knows. One thing is certain, our dogs have excellent diets, varied between Eukanuba and Hills Science diet, they never eat any old junk and get our off cuts of steak and chicken. In fact sometimes they eat better than us!

The reality of it all is he's young and it will effect his life from this day forward. It's sad, upsetting, heartbreaking and we will do all we can for him to lead a happy, dignified and healthy life as I'm sure everyone on this site would do.

thanks, cheers

have a great weekend.

[Jed]

Belsfield gave the bitches

Vitamin C throughout pregnancy and lactation. The pups received Vitamin C

from weaning until they were two years old. None of the pups developed CHD

during that entire period.

It is coming more and more to light that what the bitches are fed does make a difference to the pups. I have a breeder friend who feeds all dogs Vit. C. Never had HD - in a breed which is not terribly prone to it, but there are quite a few incidences of it in the breed.

Will be interesting to see what the MDBA feeding trials, which are now underway, show about feeding dogs, and pregnant bitches. Will take a few generations, but I can hardly wait to see some results.

[cowanbree]

Belsfield gave the bitches

Vitamin C throughout pregnancy and lactation. The pups received Vitamin C

from weaning until they were two years old. None of the pups developed CHD

during that entire period.

It is coming more and more to light that what the bitches are fed does make a difference to the pups. I have a breeder friend who feeds all dogs Vit. C. Never had HD - in a breed which is not terribly prone to it, but there are quite a few incidences of it in the breed.

.

As I said previously I have had an entire litter that had HD. The dam of that litter was in whelp when I found out her entire previous litter was severely affected (and their sire wasn’t) I absolutely pumped the Vit C into that bitch and her resulting puppies and none of them have a score over the breed average. The bitch was later hip scored and had a huge score. The only other thing I changed was the first litter was partial BARF feed and the second litter was 95% dry fed.