[bjh]

Originally Posted by Woogie Man

It seems like there are enough members here at YorkieTalk to conduct an informal survey to see the incidence of LS among their dogs. Only problem is that most breeders (who would be the ones you would most want to hear from) might be reluctant to be forthcoming. Among owners though, it would be interesting to see the rate of occurence and whether it is higher among line-bred or open-pedigree dogs and also the rate among dogs of various sizes. Would posting such a thread be improper? I realize this wouldn't be a controlled, scientific survey but anecdotal evidence may be as good as we'll get on this subject.

I have heard that there are some top show breeders that are having health issues. I do not blame breeders for not wanting to get on a public forum and talking about problems in their lines. The problem is not so much if they have a problem but what are they doing to correct the problem. Could it be that the breeders that are doing the bile acid testing are doing so because they know there is a problem in their lines. I think anyone who breeds long enough will eventually encounter some genetic problems. Show breeders that keep their puppies until they are 12 weeks old are most likely going to find out if there are any liver shunts puppies in a particular litter, especially if they do a blood panel. It seems that most of the liver shunt puppies I hear about come from BYBs or hobby breeders.

You could try doing a posting in the general forum and you might get some response but I just really don't think you will get enough information for you to make any conclusions. I think liver shunt is a genetic defect that can pop up at any time in any line. There is just so much more focus on liver shunt because of the studies that have been going on but people have to realize there are a lot if different hereditary defects that can be passed on to offspring. The people that do these studies get government grants and they get lots of money donated to their causes so they will do everything they can to keep their causes in the limelight. Probably the ones that would really know if there is an increased number of liver shunts would be the veterinarians. To bad there is not a central data base that vets can use to report the number of cases they are treating. Hopefully some day we will have answers.