Purebred dogs can present various dilemmas to practicing veterinarians. One area in which we can look incompetent is with regard to inherited diseases in certain breeds, especially rare ones. It isn’t uncommon to have an owner come in with rare (and of course oh-so valuable) breed “x” with a rare condition “y”(which of course everyone who deals with this exciting breed knows about). In many cases the first problem is that we don’t recognize the dog as being breed “x,” to us it merely looks like a not very pretty mutt, but then beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The other issue is keeping abreast of all these breed-specific problems, which is where this book can be an invaluable resource. It won’t help in breed identification (that is what Wikipedia is for), but it will give you a rundown of diseases the breed can have (ever heard of trapped neutrophil syndrome in border collies, ocular melanosis in Cairn terriers, or Burmese head defect??). The list of diseases is quite exhaustive and is divided into groups or conditions such as neurological, ocular, neoplastic, physiological, GI, musculoskeletal, reproductive, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, and hematological/immunological. The list for each breed varies in length but can be very extensive, for instance in the West Highland white terrier the list of 31 conditions is almost 3 pages long. Each condition has some short bullet points to go along with it, in most cases with a reference provided. The list of dog and cat breeds is also quite long, some breeds I haven’t seen and some I have never even heard of (Alaskan Klee Kai, Boerboel, McNab shepherd to mention just a few).
Given the information provided, this book is also ideal for owner education, especially those owners looking to obtaining a new pet. This text will allow you to provide objective information to clients with regard to what potential problems are seen in a particular breed; thereby enabling strategies to be developed that will minimize the impact of genetic disease in the patient or allow early identification.
The final section of the book is devoted to the more common diseases. These write-ups are very short, usually only a short paragraph so they will not suffice to gain a clear understanding of the condition but are a good starting point. The reference list is extensive and provides a current list of articles regarding various breed-related disorders.
I certainly think this book is a great reference to have in practice; it probably is a good idea to have it close to the examination room so that you can quickly sneak out and take a peek to see what diseases breed “x” can be predisposed to and what disease “y” actually is, thereby making you look like a really smart vet.