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Continued from part two.

Epilepsy/seizure disorder

When your Boxer is between 2 to 5 years old, he may develop seizure disorder.

When he has an epilepsy attack, he'd be unconscious and may look like he is not breathing but he is. He is not suffering.

The information that would be important to your veterinarian regarding such episodes includes:

> Duration of the attack

> The type of muscular activity your Boxer exhibits during seizure

> Any abnormal behavior during the attack

> Frequency of the seizure

What you do in such instances is not panic and time the attack by actually looking at a watch or clock.

It may only take place for 30 seconds but may seem forever to you. You need a veterinarian if it lasts more than 5 minutes.

Emergency treatment is definitely called for if your Boxer goes into seizure for 10 minutes or longer, twice in the span of 24 hours, or if he has a second attack before he could completely recover from the first seizure attack.

Remain by your Boxer's side; be there when he comes out of the seizure to calm him. Stroke and comfort him.

To keep your Boxer from hurting himself during the seizure, move away furniture from the immediate area and protect him from water, the stairs and any sharp objects. If you can, place a pillow under his head to protect him from head trauma.

Unlike seizure attacks in human, animals do not swallow their tongue. So you don't have to put your hand or spoon or any other object into your Boxer's mouth when he has an attack. You might get bitten.

Also, keep children and other pets away from your sick Boxer.

Coming out of the seizure, your Boxer will be groggy, confused and feel like he has done something wrong. He may make unusual sounds and stumble around.

Do not allow him on the stairs until he has fully recovered. In the mean time, sooth him by talking to him softly, offer him some water, stroke and comfort him.

And if he doesn't recover fully after 30 minutes, consult your veterinarian or any emergency vet facility.

Flea-infected Boxers

Flea-infected Boxers can develop skin diseases especially those allergic to fleas.

Black specs in the fur and bite marks on the skin tell if your Boxer has them. To check further, spread some newspapers and place your Boxer on top. Brush him and look for the black specs falling off.

Fleas live up to 6 weeks, feeding on blood and during that time would have laid hundreds of eggs that mostly land on your Boxer's bedding, carpets and other favorable nests around your home.

The eggs hatch into larvae that seek nice, dark places while feeding on flea's droppings, dust, human shed skin, dandruff and other such tasty morsels.

The larvae turn into hardy pupae that could survive for months before changing into adult fleas.

Fleas are host to tapeworms. Both problems are likely to occur together in your Boxer and, therefore, the treatments are also usually given together by the vet.

A bit of garlic a day may keep the fleas away from your Boxer.

Heart ailments

-Bradycardia or slow heart rate may be a symptom of thyroid disorder in Boxers.

-Dialated cardiomyopathy constitutes a serious, emergency case.

Your dog may collapse from it or the back legs have sudden pain and paralysis.

It is a serious heart condition whereby the heart muscle is enlarged and thin walled. Your Boxer will experience shortness of breath, coughing and can't take to exercise.

Another serious heart condition is called cardiac conduction disease that is affecting Boxer's longevity. It was previously known as Boxer cardiomyopathy but the new term is used to differentiate it from dilative cardiomyopathy.

Cardiac conduction is difficult to deal with due to 3 factors.

-One is many Boxers will not show any symptom (asymptotic) but will just drop dead suddenly from it.

-The Boxers develop this disease later in life, often after they have been bred.

-There was no good screening method for it until the one recently developed by Ohio State University researchers, called the 24-hour Holter monitor test.

However, there is still no assurance that Boxers "cleared" now from cardiac conduction disease by the Holter test will remain so in the future.

Many breeders and Boxer experts are now working to refine the test procedures, expand the database and come up with a guideline to select only, for breeding purposes, those Boxers with high probability of being free of the disease.

There are also concerns elimination of too many dogs from the gene pool would be bad for the breed diversity and could cause more problems in the future. Some opinions hold that extensive culling should only get done after more studies on genetic diversity in Boxers.

Hip dysplasia

This is a bone disorder whereby there is an improper fit of the large femur bone with the hip socket, causing lots of pain and lameness.

It occurs more in male

Daniel Lesser
Dog and Puppy Articles, Pictures and Resources
http://www.thingsfordogs.com

Part 1 is available at http://www.thingsfordogs.com/dog-health.php
Part 2 is available at http://www.thingsfordogs.com/dog-health2.php

About the Author

Daniel Lesser
Dog and Puppy Articles,
Pictures and Resources
http://www.thingsfordogs.com

Written by: Daniel Lesser

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Dog Health Health.blogspot.com Human Pet Article

As with most pedigree breeds, there are certain hereditary conditions that can be a problem in the German Shepherd Dog as well as other health issues that are more prevalent in this breed which need to be considered if you are thinking acquiring a GSD.

If you are buying a German Shepherd puppy it is important to ensure that you only purchase a healthy dog from a reputable breeder and a good idea would be to contact the breed council who should be able to provide you with a list of such breeders. Most reputable breeders don't need to advertise but if they do they tend not to use free papers or other general advertising media but will usually place their advert in a specialist dog magazine or paper. The Kennel Club will provide a list of breeders but this does not signify that they are reputable only that they register their puppies with the KC. There are a number of common conditions seen in this breed, some of which have a better prognosis than others but all of which are expensive to treat - so insure your German Shepherd Dog as soon as you get it.

Inherited conditions such as hip dysplasia are becoming more common largely because of irresponsible breeding so you should look for a puppy whose parents are both hip scored and the lower the score the better - ideally less than ten. This is a distressing and painful condition for a GSD as well as the costs for treating being prohibitive if the animal is not insured. Elbow dysplasia is also a common hereditary condition.

Bloat or gastric torsion is a real emergency and a life threatening condition, which has become more common in deep chested dogs over the years. Experts are divided but good tips for reducing the risk are that it is best to feed 2 small meals rather than one large meal a day and to avoid feeding your GSD before strenuous exercise.

Anal furunculosis is a distressing auto immune condition which can be controlled with expensive drugs for a while but will inevitably progress as is the condition CDRM which is a degenerative disease which will ultimately lead to the loss of use of the dogs back legs and then bowel/urinary incontinence.

For whatever reason there seems to be an increasing number of GSD's suffering from PI - pancreatic insufficiency, which presents as chronic watery diarrhoea and failure to thrive. This condition is treatable with expensive pancreatic enzymes and a low fat diet but the regime must be strictly adhered to.

Epilepsy is also more common these days and although it can be controlled by drugs, usually tolerance eventually occurs which will often result in the loss of control of the fits and the likelihood of brain damage as a result of prolonged uncontrolled fitting.

To protect your new puppy and in order to try to minimise long term or future health problems, it is vital that a high quality feeding regime is adopted from the start. German shepherds often have digestive problems so it is important to find a quality food that your dog likes and one that doesn't upset the digestion. If in doubt ask your vet for advice or contact German Shepherd Rescue UK.

About the author:

German Shepherd Dog Health Problems. Written by Jayne Shenstone who runs German Shepherd Rescue UK which helps rescue and rehome GSD's across the UK

Written by: Jayne Shenstone

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