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Your Healthy Pet

Essential Veterinary Care by Dr. Patti Maslanka VMD (9/2024)
Guide to truly preventative health care and extending healthspan for your furry friend

As we welcome these wonderful creatures into our homes and hearts we thrive from the joy and energy they bring: indeed we are healthier mentally, physically and emotionally by sharing our lives with a pet.
How can we give that back?
How can we extend healthspan: good quality health and longevity, in our pets?

There is no one answer to this question, as it is complex and multifactorial. But in the months to come, one step at a time, we will try to unpack this question and look at each piece of it, and then plan out a strategy individualized for each patient: truly preventative health care.

Preventative health care starts very early, long before the problem arises and seeks to delay the onset and slow the progression of an issue to which we know the patient will be very prone.

So how do we know this?  Genetics plays a tremendous role in our health and propensity to develop certain diseases: really emphasized in dogs by breeding for certain characteristics or appearances that inadvertently give rise to other conditions or make the patient prone to developing a certain behavioral or medical condition.

Diet, Exercise, Body weight, the influence of vaccinations, the influence of chemical toxins, timing of spay and neuter, dental care, screening tests for kidney, liver, endocrine diseases and common cancers, and finally the advent of nutraceuticals to promote healthy metabolism and prolong life are all factors we will discuss going forward.  But for now, let us look at genetics and what we can do with the cards we have, so to speak.

Behavioral issues, very often anxiety based, are the number one reason the human animal bond breaks and the pet is relinquished to a shelter or euthanized.  In dogs, anxiety has a strong genetic component, i.e. it is a factor of the neurochemical balance of that dog which is genetically controlled. And so it makes sense to try to choose a friend for your lifestyle and home that meets your ability to care for this friend and in which the furry friend can emotionally thrive in the home you can provide.  There are websites that help you consider all these factors such as Selectsmart.com.  It is just so prudent to research the dog you would like to welcome into your home by examining the known characteristics of the breed and if possible spending some time with the mother of the litter and really studying how the puppies interact with her and with each other.  Temperament is largely genetic.

Genetic testing is available for dogs and is becoming more and better refined all the time. Embark is just one company that offers intensive genetic testing looking for markers in that patient for all of the following:
1

Bleeding disorders such as Von Willebrands that affect clotting. Although spontaneous bleeding is rare it is essential to have this information before elective surgery in breeds that are prone, which are not only Dobermans, but other breeds including the Bernese mountain dog and the Corgi, Irish setters, and Kerry Blue Terriers.
2

Neurologic disorders in particular Degenerative Myelopathy: in some breeds such as the German Shepherd this condition has a “high penetrance” which means the genetic defect is more likely to result in clinical signs of this disease which is much like Lou Gehrigs’ disease in people.
3

Urate Stone formation: the inability to reabsorb uric acid through the kidney tubule back into circulation makes some dogs very prone to these urate stones in their bladder causing straining to urinate and obstruction of the ability to urinate, obviously a crisis. The breeds that carry this genetic mutation are Bulldogs and Dalmations. These stones are very difficult to dissolve and the patient must be fed a very restricted diet on a lifelong basis.
4

Blindness: Progressive Retinal Atrophy is a complex genetic disease with many factors causing the pet to go blind very early as a young pup 2 to 6 weeks of age, or later and more insidiously about 2 years of age. Although these patients generally adapt to blindness, knowing of this defect would allow nutraceuticals to be given to delay onset of blindness and prevent that dog from being used for breeding to pass this on.
5

Disc disease: strongly associated with chondrodystrophy or dwarfism (think dachshund, corgi): we can track through their genetic variants which dogs will have a strong propensity to have calcified discs at an early age that slip and paralyze the patient.
6

Mast cell disease: The tendency to mast cell disease, a cancer of the white blood cells that roam the skin looking for triggers, is at least partially genetic and can be tracked. Pit bull terriers are particularly prone to this.
Knowing these genetic tendencies or markers in the individual patient will help inform strategies to prevent these diseases from becoming fulminant in that patient, which is possible.  This is of course the foundation of individualized preventative care.
Next month we will discuss the influence of diet on health and factors to consider in what the right choice is for you and your friend.