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!

[shelly]

GREAT idea... we use Survey Monkey very often... my kids' school also sends surveys through survey monkey

[Carol Brand]

Karen,  I so appreciate your confidence, but well bred, show Poodles still do have genetic problems.  Yes, the good breeders pour over pedigrees,  test for everything they can and try to stay informed about new testing (new DM test came out 1/2009.... who knew Poodles got DM?), but unfortunately we are still struck by things we can't test for:  Addisons, Epilepsy, SA, JRD  etc   

 

I would like to think that all of us show breeders do care enough to remove ill dogs from our breeding programs.  When my foundation bitch Bloated, I spayed both her and her daughter even though the foundation bitch was a CH with a CDX working at Utility and her daughter had a CD was training in Open and was in full show coat ready to go into the ring.  It was a MAJOR hit for me and I had to start over. (I only keep 2 Standards)  Again, though, even show people don't always do the right thing.  A well know Special, tested SA subclinical, but his owners kept him intact and people lined up to breed to him in the hopes of producing their next fabulous show dog.  Sigh...

 

As far as hybrid vigor goes, I think it is bunk.  I have seen that Doodles get all of the same disorders as Poodles:  Addisons, SA, Epilepsy.  On top of this they seem to have a much higher rate of hip dysplasia, allergies and now cancer than the general Poodle population.  This, however, is based on anecdotal evidence I've gleaned from reading Doodle breeder and owner forums.  A formal health survey might help sort this out.

 

 

 

 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I know there are breeders with top champions who do not necessarily do the right thing in this regard; I like to think I would not buy from those breeders, lol. I also know that champions can come out of less than ideal breeding situations. I can only go by the breeders that I know or have done business with personally, and those are people who would and did do as you did, even though it meant starting over.

I guess the fear of "So-and-so has (name of genetic disease) in her lines" being out there only goes so far to prevent people from breeding dogs that shouldn't be bred.