Experience with grade 4 & 5 heart murmurs?

[lgslgs]

Ho Paiton-

I have to tell you that I was holding my breath as I read that first paragraph of yours. Whew! Thank goodness everything went so well.

Thanks for letting me know how things went with Miss Huggs. I'm glad your girl is doing well for now and giving you so much joy.

I hope we both are able to get plenty of good years with our pups and that they are able to grow and mature and enjoy quality of life. Pat and I find we sometimes need to remind ourselves that our guys are only concerned with enjoying every "today" and wondering about tomorrows is strictly people stuff.

Lynda

[paiton]

good day lynda, and thank you for your reply concerning my baby girl. it is really impossible to say how long she will live, but, i can give her an awesome happy, healthy, and extremely loved quality of life for however long it is. she is healthy, active, and a beauty. (of course all rottees in my eyes are beauties). i love them all.
i hope your puppies live a long life as well, and with your love and caring, they do not want to leave that is for sure. it was so hard for me to take her in to get her spayed, but i had to do it. isn't this interesting enough though? the specialist recommended that i give her a beta blocker called atenitol. he said to give it to her for the rest of her life. i read that dr. fleming, a cardiologist in california recommends not to give heart meds unless the dog is exhibiting symptoms or the meds do absolutely nothing. i decided not to give her the meds and to treat her holistically once she made it through her spay, as she has no symptoms. she is extremely healthy in all other ways, b.p. normal, everything, so that is why i did not take the chance with the meds. she is healthy, happy, and when there comes the time that she needs meds, then of course. btw the vet that did the spay is a normal, good vet and knows his stuff for sure, absolutely. i felt that i may lose her either way, so just went for it. this morning she is outside being a brat as usual bugging my other two rottees. i love her. so i wish you all the best with your babees, and i have so much faith in the breed that i know they would not give up without a fight and i know in my heart that you will make the right decisions for them and they will give you their unconditional love and loyalty for the rest of their lives, just like my girl and all my rottees have and always will.

[frontierrots]

PLEASE consider submitting blood, pedigrees and cardiac reports to the Dr Meurs study. If you don't currently have that info or cannot find that post here with the info just ask and I'll re post it!

[lgslgs]

Originally Posted by frontierrots

PLEASE consider submitting blood, pedigrees and cardiac reports to the Dr Meurs study. If you don't currently have that info or cannot find that post here with the info just ask and I'll re post it!

Hi FronteirRotts -

I don't have specific information about the Dr. Meurs study, and the only info I could find at the Rottweiler Health Foundation site discusses a grant for a study that has already been completed.



When I talked to the breeder last week, she said that she was going to discuss with my vet how we get her patched into the right folks at the Rottweiler Health Foundation. I don't think breeder and vet have actually connected with a phone call but once they do I expect breeder and I will have a better idea about where we go next. Any info you may have about what we should be doing with the RHF would be greatly appreciated.


We might not have exactly the right data to fit into a study as our vet is not a cardiologist. However, before she did the sonograms she spoke directly with Dr. Larry Tilley who is apparently the big canine cardiology textbook author and heart specialist to get some guidance as to how to best perform the sonograms and what she should look for. If the fact that she is a general practitioner, or the particular limits of her equipment prevent us from being formal data points in a study, we are hoping that the breeder can make proper connections so that we at least become a part of the information pool.



Oh! I just did a web search and see that you are the Darla Fund person! Yes, by all means please provide us with RHF contacts if you have them. And thank you for posting Darla's story at RHF. Your story there and your posts about her here were important to us as we made the choice to bring these two puppies into our home.



I don't know how these puppies are going to fit into current research studies as our budget is dictating that we rely on our vet's free sonogram offer instead of going 90 miles to the quite expensive university clinic's cardiology department. But our vet is pretty special, and has an amazing drive to learn and learn and keep learning. The only thing you could say bad against her is that if your farm animal has an emergency on a Sunday, it might be a couple of hours before she calls you back because she's in meetings out of town squeezing more continuing education into her non-clinc day. I'm thinking that she's the sort of person who will want to at least discuss these puppies with others who are focusing on Rottweiler cardiology study.


Lynda

[paiton]

i found these sites interesting:
Glen of Imaal Terrier: Bregorrey Glens - Home Page
Orthopedic Foundation for Animals

[paiton]

www.offa.org/cardiainfo

[frontierrots]

Here is the info again

Rottweiler Familial Subaortic Stenosis Study


We are currently looking for DNA samples from Rottweilers with a diagnosis of Subvalvular aortic stenosis (diagnosed by Doppler echocardiogram) or proven clear of Subvalvular aortic stenosis (as cleared by a cardiologist) to advance our study to identify a gene for the disease.
· For the technique to work well, we need DNA samples from 20-30 affected dogs and 20-30 clear dogs
· Please return the form on page 2 with your sample and mail to:

VCGL – WSU
Post Office Box 605
Pullman, WA 99163-0605

Sample collection
Please ask your veterinarian or a veterinary technician to pull a blood sample into an EDTA tube. Most veterinary hospitals have these readily available.

1. Blood drawn into a Standard EDTA Tube does not need to be refrigerated.

2. Blood draw volume should be 1 to 2 ml, if possible.

3. Please label tube well, with dog’s call name and family last name and send the samples to our lab via the address above.

Blood drawn does not need to be mailed back with ice packs or be shipped overnight. However, if possible please try to send the sample within a few days by standard mail. Until the blood can be mailed, it is a good idea to refrigerate it (i.e., if the blood was drawn late Saturday and cannot be mailed until Monday, it’s a good idea to refrigerate it between Saturday and Monday).

Questions? Contact Info: Email: meurs@vetmed.wsu.edu Phone: 509.335.6038

Thank you very much for your submitting a sample, we greatly appreciate it!







Rottweiler Familial Subaortic Stenosis Study

Dog Name:

Gender:

Birthdate:

Owner Name:

Complete Address:


Phone Number:


E-mail:


Please include a Xerox copy of a pedigree and any echocardiogram information, all information will remain confidential!

[lgslgs]

Thanks for the study information.

We'll contact her and see if she'd like samples from our guys. We do have electronic copies of a couple of sonogram photos as well which might be of interest to her.

Lynda

[Sharon Marples]

All I can say is that these pups are so very lucky that their breeder placed them with you! Your willingness to learn and understand and your caring will give them the best they can have. I congratulate you and hope to hear stories about them for years to come. Good luck.

[lgslgs]

Sharon - you made my day. Thanks. :)

[lgslgs]

Follow up:


I talked with Dr. Meurs, and our pups don't meet the requirements for the study. She does require a diagnosis from a veterinary cardiologist, not a general practitioner. But even if we were to have a veterinary cardiologist diagnosis the fact that each pup has an additional heart defect beyond aortic stenosis would rule them out.

It was worth looking into it, but now it's back to our regularly scheduled puppy activities.

Lynda

[frontierrots]

I am so very sorry about your pups AND that they don't fit the study

BUT THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for trying!! That is more than many breeders have done