My dog (Tervueren) and one of his brithers in the same litter has an eye disease called Chronic Superficial Keratitis (also known as "Pannus")... there has been more reports about this eye disease here in Sweden during this summer.
Chronic superficial keratitis, as well known as pannus keratitis, is pretty common in tervs and groenendaels. It has been relatively unknown, because it wasn't diagnosted as hereditary earlier, but nowadays it has been checked more often. Without treatment it will blind the dog permanently. Accurate genetic code hasn't been found yet, but the disease pops up here and there.
In Finland all the eyeresults are public. More problems we are having with hereditary cataracts. In USA all cataracts has been diagnosted as not hereditary, but all finnish dogs with "non hereditary cataract" in USA have hereditary cataract siblings and close relatives in Finland.
I've noticed that Finland is way ahead of Sweden when it comes to having the eyes checked... But Finland seem to be not very interested in having the elbows checked instead. Hmmm... why can't EVERYBODY check all kinds of health - it would help so much, and only do the breed good.
A breeder from Finland told me that Muu Silmämuutos (did I get it right?) means that the dog has not got cataract or PRA or something like that - but they do have some kind of "change" in their eyes. Is that true?
The eyespecialist that put the diagnosis both on Tarass and his brother, told me that he had been visited by four Tervueren with Pannus the last two months (this was in 12th of October). He also told me, that one of them had to be put to sleep because the disease was too aggressive, and it had been diagnost wrongly by a veterinarian - for as long as a year!! He told me that there are probably plenty of Tervueren out there, who's gotten the wrong diagnosis (even earlier, like in the 90's)... because a lot of veterinarians do not even consider that it could be Pannus; they only know of it on German Shepherds.
There was a German Shepherd that had an appointment with the eyespecialist just before us, and he told the owner that they should have the eyes checked frequently the next couple of years, because he could see that Pannus could develop. And he even said: "It will probably be an outbreak by the end of spring next year, when the sun gets intense." And that is a good thing, I think! If an eyespecialist are skilled and know what they are doing, then they can detect it in a very early stage.
I reported Tarass desease to the Swedish BSD Club, and they said that they had never heard of it before...!? Anyway, they will publish an article about it in the first number of the clubmagazine next year. Goodie!
Author
Logged
