Doodle Health Survey

[Stella]

After reading about the doodle that was just diagnosed with Addisons disease, there was some mention of a doodle health survey.  Knowing how many people are on this site, and how passionate everyone is about their doodles, I realised there would be a lot of potential data out there.  The question is, would enough people respond to make it worthwhile, what sort of information should we be collecting, how would we analyse that data, and what would we do with any relevent data that was collected?  What could be done to try and get as many people to respond as possible?  We would also want to make sure that this was done is as scientific way as possible and not for it to become a forum for people to target specific breeders (either for the good or bad).  I was thinking an e-mail survey, or through a site such as Survey Monkey, so that only global results are posted, and not individuals responses.

 

A few thoughts of the top of my head would be - type of doodle, age of doodle, where the doodle came from, info about the parents of that doodle (as much as is known), if the breeder did genetic testing and which conditions did they test for, general health problems that dog has had (ie: dietary/ digestive troubles etc), veterinary diagnosed conditions (epilepsy, addisons, dysplasia etc).  The age of the doodle when these conditions became apparent.  If you have a rescue doodle, you could still take part as we would still be interested in their health.

 

For the data to be actually useful, this would need to be something repeated at regular periods of time in order to see trends in health and illness of our doodles, say annually. 

 

So guys, what do you think??  A worthwhile project?  Or an awful lot of effort for nothing?  In order for this to be effective it would need to be carried out over a long period of time, really trying to follow our doodles right up to when they cross the rainbow bridge.  It would be a huge commitment for those trying to administrate over it!

[Tina, Clover, Plus 5 More]

What type of outcome are you looking for from the information received?  Is it to track health problems with doodles in general?  If so, then rescues should be included as long as they know 100% whether it's a labradoodle or goldendoodle.  If the doodle was a owner re-home then breeder information may have been given to the rescue or adopting family.  Some rescue doodles may have had DNA testing done to determine their breed (not many, but a few).

I understand that you are not looking to target specific breeders.  But if collecting breeder information identifies certain breeders are not testing prior to breeding and health problems are present.  What would be done with the information? 

Is the survey to help identy health issues not being tested for, that could be tested prior to breeding?

I'm just a little unclear of what type of outcome is trying to be achieved by the survey.  I'm not a breeder just a pet owner, so I understand trying to prevent future heartache for someone.  Especially if a simple test could have been done prior to breeding that would have prevented health issues.

[F, Calla & Luca]

These are good points. The idea was first brought up simply as a way of finding out the incidence of certain illnesses in the breed but clearly there is much more involved. A lot of thinking will have to go into this. If we could encourage health testing that would be wonderful. But we also don't want to create problems for conscientious, good breeders.

[Adina P]

I personally am not interested in which breeders are/are not testing...I mean I am but not for this survey. Testing is what we promote but the goal isn't to 'out' any breeders only to see how prevalent certain conditions are in doodles and whether those conditions are more ommon, less common or just as common among pups from tested parents.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I also am wondering what the real purpose of this would be.  I'm not at all sure we would collect a statistically valid sample.  Based on my experience with surveys (although they were being collected by a business), a 2% response rate was considered a success.  So with say 7000 emails sent, that would generate about 140 responses.  When we targeted an affinity group (like AARP for instance) and said that the organization was endorsing our survey we were sometimes able to get up to a 4% response rate...so about 280 responders.  Now DK is a very unique affinity group, so it is possible that the response rate would be much higher.  My guess is that the people who are regularly on DK would respond for the most part.  Would we be able to draw any relevant conclusions from data that is this thin...maybe not.  It probably would be interesting, but I'm not sure it would provide conclusions.  Possibly it's enough that we would be collecting "interesting" data.  I hope I'm not sounding negative, I just want to be realistic about how we would interpret the data.  Unless there's a much greater response rate than what I'm used to, there would be no valid way to "slice and dice" this information to develop conclusions at the "cell" level (e.g. age, breeder, prior testing, and relate them to specific issues like allergies, gastrointestinal, etc).  Also, if the sample isn't credible, it would be difficult to develop valid conclusions by repeating it annually (and how many of the responders would be the same).  Bottom line, it might be something that we would find informative, and it may raise more questions than answers, but I'm skeptical that we'd have enough diverse responses to develop "conclusions".   There is also the question of how diverse this responder group would be, e.g. are people on DK regularly more aware of potential (or even actual) health issues with our dogs that the Doodle owner population at large. I don't know, but maybe.

[F, Calla & Luca]

All your points are valid Jane. I am beginning to think this is not a good idea. I wish we had a better way and I do wonder if the survey that Noble Vestal wrote about could give us any ideas. Again there would be a bias because bad breeders would not participate in such a survey.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I guess it could be okay as long as there was a calculated credibility with each reported finding....I'm thinking that in many of the individual findings that credibility would be pretty low.  Then people could decide if they want to consider a "finding" with 50% (as an example) credibility as valid.  Without that my concern would be that human nature would have us drawing unsubstantiated conclusions, and that could be very harmful and misleading.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I'm beginning to think the idea is bad but I would love to know some of the findings from the registry Noble Vestal has written about.

[Adina P]

I'm with you on the sample size issue.  I think if 50% or more would respond that would be a very good sample size because it's only the frequent participators on DK that actually would fall under the 'more aware of potential health issues'....the rest who don't participate or rarely visit may not.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

A 50% response rate doesn't necessarily mean a 50% credibility.  It's a whole different calculation.

[Noble Vestal Labradoodles]

As a former board member for both associations (ALAA & ALCA) I am very familiar with the health testing standards.  I actually helped write the testing guidelines for the ALAA or at least sat on the committee that wrote them.  I also worked as an arm of the ALAA board to collect proof of health testing from every breeder member.  It was my job to do this on an annual bases for any annual tests required and any new dogs tested during that year.

 

Rather than me quoting them I feel it best to refer you to the associations.  Both associations list their health testing standards on their respective sites.

 

I personally do the following tests:

OFA (Hips, Elbows & Patellas)

PennHip (Hips)

vWD- lines cleared either by testing or by parentage where proof of testing is available

PRA- Tested or verified by parentage where proof of testing is available

CERF- Annually tested

Cardiac- Annually tested

Thyroid- Annually tested

 

I collect data on the lines that I breed from the parents, grand parents and great grandparents, siblings and off spring of siblings if available.  I cross analyze this data when trying to determine mates.

 

There is already a formal system and database established for collecting health related issues of doodles.  This database requires a vet report for the data to be entered so a person can not just claim their dog has an issue because it has similar symptoms.  This is a lofty task and I know better than anyone because I used to be highly evolved and had 2 others assisting in the collection of data and only received data from breeders.  If you are getting it from pet owners you A. Are going to have the potential to receive 100X the feedback and B. Aren't necessary going to get veterinary proof of the condition from pet owners C. Undertaking such a task to insure accurate reporting is a full time job. D. Accepting claims of ailment without proof is can be damaging to the breed even if the data is not meant to be published- anything that makes the net is somehow at some point available to be interpenetrated outside its context as proof.  This is very bothersome because people try to self diagnose and make claims as fact when they are not.

[F, Calla & Luca]

I appreciate your response, thank you. You certainly do all the health testing a new owner could hope for. All your points are valid. This task may be daunting or impossible. I am afraid I opened this can of worms by my comment "I believe good breeder's try to avoid breeding dogs with Addison's disease period. Of course, sometimes, the disease is not apparent before the affected dog has already been bred. Still, this site has over 7,000 people who have doodles, some of them more than one. Yet I don't think we've heard of more than a few with this disorder. I would be very interested in knowing what the true incidence of Addison's disease is in the doodle population." I wrote this in the discussion:

http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/addison-disease-in?id=2065...

I actually think that we see a bias toward exaggerating certain illness such as Atopy, Addison's, and GI problems because we hear more from owners with sick doodles than from owners with healthy doodles.

I am interested and glad to hear of the database that you mention. Where is this database?  Is there any way we could obtain general information on the incidence of certain diseases? I am glad to see there is a requirement for a vet report for diagnosis. It was one of the things I suggested we would need. Really we at DK do not need to duplicate the wheel IMHO.

Also, I have said and continue to believe that as owners we have to try to support responsible breeders.  I recognize that not all disorders are preventable. Some dogs are bred before they are diagnosed with certain conditions and that cannot be helped. I do think that all reasonable steps should be taken to prevent breeding dogs with the testing available at the time.

[Carol Brand]

The Poodle Health Registry requires a vet report and only allows owners to post health issues.  I believe this has lead to gross under-reporting.  Signed vet reports add a level of bureaucracy that many owners are not willing to surmount.  Allowing only owners or breeders to post a health issue allows people to withhold information for political or business reasons.  

 

I think the vast majority of Doodle owners can be relied upon to report accurately.  How could/why would the average owner make up or "self diagnose" conditions such at Thrombocytopenia, Addisons, Hip Dysplasia, Epilepsy etc.