Unusually High Incidence of Kidney Problems???

[DRamey]

Excellent information from everyone, and a very profitable post. If everyone here posted information relating to the deaths of hounds by kidney failure, there may be a common thread that jumps out at us, save a bunch of hounds' lives.

[SilverZuk]

My dog that died of kidney failure at age 2 was a grade hound.

He was never wormed with Ivermectin, just general dog wormers (panacur and canine tapeworm meds).

He was fed the same diet as all my other dogs. Normal dog foods, meat scraps, and hi-pro dog food in the winter.

This dog was a good dog (probably the best I have ever had).
I noticed when he was a pup that he took more water than my other beagle. He would drink so much that you could hear him slosh.
I never thought much about it until after his death.

One June he started getting poor on me.
I didn't think much of it, just figured he was wormy or maybe just sick.
I didn't run him as much, and when I did could tell he wasn't 100% but he still ran.
A few weeks later he really got sick, so my wife took him to the vet.
Blood work showed kidney failure.
His breath smelled like he had already died.
My neighbor doctored him with antibiotics and B-12 injections for a week or so. I had to put him down the following week.

I did all the research I could on kidney failure in dogs.
Here are some of the things I remember:
Antifreeze - it takes about 1/2 tablespoon to damage a dog's kidneys.
Tapeworms - Tape worm infestations can damage kidneys.
Congenital defects - Beagles are one of many breeds of dogs that are known to have kidney defects. Most show up prior 12 months of age, the rest can show up at any stage of life.
Diabetes - beagles are often known to have diabetes, which untreated causes kidney failure.

I agree that the meds and hi-pro food have some effect, but not buying it as a sole cause. If it was simple as that, you would see more cases across diferent hunting dog breeds (we all use the same food and meds).

[rock pushin rabbit hunter]

I owned the Speck dog.He was fed Purina Dog Chow for the past 2 years.He was wormed with Interceptor once a month.I never gave him Ivermec or anything else that wasn't prescribed by a vet.He did get very hot on me about a month ago running in the champion finals at a local hunt.It seemed from that point on he went downhill.Speck will be greatly missed,he was the best hunting buddy I've ever had.

[rock pushin rabbit hunter]

I owned the Speck dog.He was fed Purina Dog Chow for the past 2 years.He was wormed with Interceptor once a month.I never gave him Ivermec or anything else that wasn't prescribed by a vet.He did get very hot on me about a month ago running in the champion finals at a local hunt.It seemed from that point on he went downhill.Speck will be greatly missed,he was the best hunting buddy I've ever had.

[JUDE]

I owned the Speck dog.He was fed Purina Dog Chow for the past 2 years.He was wormed with Interceptor once a month.I never gave him Ivermec or anything else that wasn't prescribed by a vet.He did get very hot on me about a month ago running in the champion finals at a local hunt.It seemed from that point on he went downhill.Speck will be greatly missed,he was the best hunting buddy I've ever had.

Sorry to hear about your loss .



Buddy

[rock pushin rabbit hunter]

Thanks Jude.He never was right after that hunt at Redbush.The vets at West Liberty tried their best to save him,but his kidneys just completley shutdown.One things for sure,I'll never forget Speck and the great times we had in the feild.

[bullboy]

i lost two dogs to it and know of several others i talked to several vets about it they all said that food is not the cause.the one bitch had a problem with her immune system and they felt that was the cause the other one and 1 of her sibs also died from it had the same dog in there ped ali baba heavy linebreed. so now what do i do i have a young male out here that is out of my mountainman male and the first bitch that is something to recon with do i breed with him or not

[JUDE]

i lost two dogs to it and know of several others i talked to several vets about it they all said that food is not the cause.the one bitch had a problem with her immune system and they felt that was the cause the other one and 1 of her sibs also died from it had the same dog in there ped ali baba heavy linebreed. so now what do i do i have a young male out here that is out of my mountainman male and the first bitch that is something to recon with do i breed with him or not

If there is a problem with the genetics of a dog or line there of , you may want to stay away from breeeding them all together . Just my opinion though .

Goodluck either way .

Buddy

[Jane]

This is a quote that Bev posted on the Beagles Canada site : I found it to be very informative. ~ Jane~

I've been saying for better than ten years that the use of cattle or sheep Ivermectin in dogs is the root of all evil, and especially responsible for death at an early age due to kidney failure. Every time it comes up as a topic and I go into my thought process on it, I get blasted by folks who can cite me dozens of instances where my theory is wrong. I think they get their feelings hurt or feel like I'm criticizing, so I rarely participate in the topic anymore. I will today, and if I get blasted I get blasted. For every success story of using ivermectin, I have a horror story. I knew of a dams who were given ivermectin during pregnancy and aborted - or whelped to horribly disfigured, stillborn puppies.

Number one, it's not made for dogs; it's made for cattle or sheep - with very different physiologies than dogs have. Everybody knows these days that dogs can't tolerate Tylenol (aceteminophen) or large amounts of chocolate. Those things will kill a dog with a single ingestion, so folks wouldn't dream of giving this to their dogs. Everyone is on the same page there. Well, the same is true of Ivermectin in that it's a poison, especially to dogs, and it has a VERY LOW margin of overdose. But, because Ivermectin is proven to do certain good things in dogs, and they don't see any immediate negative results, they ignore the greater danger and use it anyway.

If we look at how our bodies handle toxins we will find that it's the kidneys that keep the blood clean and chemically balanced, and after filtering out the toxins, they release them into the urine and away it goes. Well, away goes the big portion. A certain percentage of any chemical will reside in the tissues - that's why pathologists can tell from a sample of hair what drugs a person took, or what was in the water they drank.

In any event, the best way to wear out a set of kidneys (or any other organ) is to continually ask it to perform above and beyond the call of duty. The best way to poison someone to death and nobody know is to do it slowly - a little at a time so that it's barely noticeable. Finally the kidneys will say "enough, can't do it anymore." Toxins remains in the blood because the kidneys have suffered damage, and the person or animal goes down quickly. It seems like an unexpected event - like sudden heart failure...like Jim Fixx flopping over dead one day after a run in Hardwick, VT. What we don't realize is that there were other contributing factors at work which led to that moment.

"I don't know what happened. I just found him dead in the kennel one morning. He was only 5."

For those who have been told that 1/10th of a cc per ten pounds of body weight is safe, I say to you - yes, it is safe in that it won't make your dog instantly ill or kill it right in front of your eyes with that very dose. The bone in the throat here is that few people are as exact as it takes to safely administer Ivermectin. Remember, the tolerance for overdose is extremely small. Do you use it in the ears, too, for ear mites, you also use it for mange or fleas? You've gone way beyond the margin of tolerance now. Even if one doesn't, and one only uses it monthly for heartworm prevention and gut worming, one is slowly and chronically poisoning the dog. He is taking years off the dog's life for an inexpensive fix. Ivermectin is not even an effective wormer. It doesn't get 2 of the 4 worms we're after - tapes and whipworms. Now we have to add another chemical to get the things Ivermectin doesn't.

Toxins tend to remain in the tissues that see the least amount of blood supply or blood flow, i.e. fat, bone, and hair. The fat is the part that concerns me. With strenous activity or a starvation of sorts, the body calls on fat to feed it. You get the fat...and everything in it. I have to wonder how many dogs are getting a re-dose of Ivermectin when this happens.

Overexertion and overheating will also compromise the kidneys. Combine all the factors, and with these dogs we now have a higher, added probability of death due to kidney failure.

My quick thoughts on commercial products. Heartguard is Ivermectin-based, but remember, it's also dose contolled - hard to put in down their ears or draw out 1/10th cc too much, but if you're willing to pay for a commercial product, use Interceptor instead. It's milbemycin, not ivermectin, and it gets heart, hooks, rounds, and whips. It's virtually impossible to overdose (a dog can eat a package of six without harm), you can give it to pregnant dams and start pups on it at 6 weeks of age. It's safe. Now, if we could just get Novartis to make it more affordable...

(Here's where I duck from the fallout, lol)

Next Post :

As noted in my earlier post, I think it's a matter of overloading the kidneys, regardless of how. Overheating (and overexertion) is hard enough. Even pregnancy is hard on already-taxed kidneys. Having to filter whatever toxins are in the blood (even besides Ivermectin) is enough. Combine these factors and we're inviting disaster.

I'm no vet, either, and none of this came from a vet. This is strictly my opinion, and y'all know what they say about opinions . It is based on trends I've observed over the years. I tend to do that - I trend things and then try to find the common denominators. What I have observed is that most of those who lost dogs young (4 - 7 years of age) from kidney failure or idiopathic causes {unknown causes) had used Ivermectin as their cure-all. Surely all the facts are not out, but I'm not waiting for them. I will err on the safe side from my suspicions.

When I first started keeping and acquiring dogs, I didn't even know about heartworms. Didn't know about brucellosis, either. All I knew was these dogs get wormed as puppies, and if you see worms then you have to worm them yourself or have the vet do it. Problem gone. That was until I took all seven of my dogs at the time to the vet for their yearly rabies, and the vet suggested I test for heartworm. Two of my dogs came back positive for heartworm.

I was heartbroken, and the only treatment at the time was the old "arsenic and keep them quiet" routine. I knew I could never keep them quiet or from getting excited, and I was afraid the treatment would kill them. They were showing no signs yet of the heartworm, so I opted to leave them be and when life got too rough for them I would simply put them down. I put the rest of the dogs on Interceptor and never worried about worming them again. I did not put the 2 positive dogs on Interceptor (for fear of killing them) so I just gave them a Droncit twice yearly to catch any gut worms that may be present.

I finally put one old boy down this past January at age 15. He and the other dog both outlived the heartworms. Heartworms have a lifespan of 3 - 5 years (or so I'm told), and either their worm burden was very low or they were infected with 2 female or 2 male worms, etc. - not able to reproduce, and they were never infected again. I was lucky. I would never advocate trusting that dogs would outlive heartworms so don't treat them. I had every intention of putting these dogs down once they showed symptoms. These days heartworm treatment is safer and easier, but prevention is definitely the key.

I still have some of those first dogs that I put on Interceptor. Dolly will be 11 years old her next birthday and she's still running. Ozzie just turned 9 and he's still rearing to go. Since I started them on the milbemycin (Interceptor) all those years ago, I may have given them Droncit a couple of times over their whole lifetime when I saw tapes. They've never needed worming for anything else. Interceptor is indeed expensive ($4/mo per dog) so I use it April to November. It takes 9 months for a heartworm to mature, so if by some freak incident they get infected after november, the developing worm will be destroyed come April.

Good topic, Terry. Thanks to all for reading my ramblings.

This post has been edited by Bev: Jul 22 2007, 09:30 AM

[Emery]

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_he ... ntion.html



The development of Ivermectin in 1987 represented a huge breakthrough in heartworm prevention. Preventive medication for the first time could be given once a month instead of daily. These medications utilize an extremely low dose of ivermectin which is adequate to kill any L3’s and L4’s which are inhabiting the pet’s skin tissues at the time the medication is given. In other words, infection takes place but is halted every month when the medication is administered.

If an ivermectin-containing heartworm preventive is inadvertently given to a heartworm infected dog with circulating microfilariae adverse reactions would not be expected; in fact, these products are commonly used in the treatment of active infection to clear microfilariae safely. This means, however, that giving this product to a dog with heartworm will kill all circulating microfilariae and the dog will test erroneously heartworm negative by Difil or Knott’s testing. In addition to killing microfilariae, ivermectin will also suppress reproduction in the adult female worms.

There is also a phenomenon called the “Reach back effect.” This means that if a dog goes off heartworm preventive medication for a prolonged period (four months was the time tested), re-starting ivermectin could still prevent adult heartworms from developing in the heart. In 1988 experiment by Atwell, dogs who went off heartworm preventive for four months and then restarted with ivermectin had 95% fewer adult heartworms than dogs who went without ivermectin (though it should be noted that some heartworms were still able to establish infection).

Ivermectin at the heartworm preventive dose is not strong enough to kill common intestinal parasites but it is available with pyrantel pamoate included (Heartgard30 PLUS or Iverheart Plus) to control hookworms and roundworms.

There are breed related sensitivities with ivermectin (i.e. collie-related breeds have some difficulties) though at the very low doses used in the prevention of Heartworm disease are not a problem for any breed. (Note that Merial has selected Lassie as the “posterdog” for their products).





MILBEMYCIN OXIME (INTERCEPTOR & SENTINEL made by Novartis)

This product is also given monthly, also clears microfilariae, acts by killing all L3’s and L4’s accumulated in the month prior to administration, and will suppress female worm’s ability to reproduce. There are a few important differences to note, though.

If milbemycin is inadvertantly given to a dog with active heartworm disease, the dog may experience a serious shock syndrome if an especially high number of microfilariae are circulating.

When milbemycin is given to a dog after a prolonged period without heartworm preventive (the Atwood experiment), the dog can be expected to have 41% fewer heartworms than if heartworm preventive were not restarted. This was not as good a result as with the ivermectin product as the ivermectin product is better able to kill young adult heartworms.

Milbemycin, however, is able to control roundworms, hookworms, and whipworms without the addition of a second parasiticide. It is also available combined with Lufenuron for the control of fleas. There are no breed-related sensitivities for milbemycin.

Milbemycin oxime is also used effectively in the treatment of demodectic mange.




http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_he ... asite.html

The adult heartworm is fairly large, several inches in length, and it prefers to live, not in the heart, but in the pulmonary arteries. It swims into a cozy tubular artery, where it is massaged and nourished by the blood coursing past it. In the pulmonary arteries of an infected dog, the worm's presence generates a strong inflammatory response and a tendency for blood to inappropriately clot. If enough worms are present, the heart must work extra hard to pump blood through the plugged up arteries.

If the worm infection is a heavy one (over 25 worms for a 40 lb dog), the worms begin to back up into the right ventricle (the chamber which pumps blood through the lung). The worms actually take up a significant amount of
space within the heart, leading to less
blood being pumped.

When over 50 worms are present, the ventricle is full and the atrium, the chamber receiving blood from the rest of the body begins to contain worms.

When over 100 worms are present, the entire right side of the heart is filled with worms and there is very little room for any blood to be pumped. This drastic phenomenon is called "Caval Syndrome" and most dogs do not survive it.

MICROFILARIAE (First Stage Larvae)





microfilariae in a blood smear



With adult male and female worms present, mating begins to occur. Heartworms do not lay eggs like other worm parasites; instead they give live birth and the baby worms are called Microfilariae. Microfilariae are released into the circulatory system in hope that they will be slurped up by a mosquito taking a blood meal and carried to a new host. Microfilariae may live up to two years within the host dog in whom they were born; if after this period a mosquito has not picked them up, they die of “old age.” Microfilariae may also be transmitted across the placental barrier to unborn puppies if the mother dog is infected with heartworm. It is important to realize that such puppies will not develop adult heartworms or heartworm disease from these microfilariae; in order for a heartworm to reach adulthood, it must be passed through a mosquito.

Parasitic worms have 5 larval stages and are termed "L1," "L2," "L3," etc. Heartworm microfilariae are first stage larvae: "L1"s.

Note: Ivermectin, selamectin and milbemycin based heartworm preventives will kill microfilariae after prolonged use. Dogs on these heartworm preventive, even if infected with adult heartworms, will not test positive for microfilariae. Moxidectin based heartworm preventives (ProHeart® and ProHeart6®) will not reliably wipe out microfilariae and infected dogs who have received these products may or may not test positive.

INSIDE THE MOSQUITO

Within the mosquito's body, the microfilariae will develop to L2’s and finally to L3’s, the stage capable of infecting a new dog. How long this takes depends on the environmental conditions. In general, it takes a few weeks. A minimum environmental temperature of 57 degrees F is required throughout this period. The process goes faster in warmer weather.



INFECTING A NEW DOG

When a dog is bitten by an infected mosquito, the L3 is not deposited directly into the dog's bloodstream. Instead, it is deposited in a tiny drop
of mosquito "spit" adjacent to the mosquito bite.

For transmission to occur, there must be adequate humidity to prevent evaporation of this fluid droplet before the L3’s can swim through the mosquito bite and into the new host.






Once safely inside the new host, the L3 will spend the next week or two developing into an L4 within the host's skin. The L4 will live in the skin for three months or so until it develops to the L5 stage and is ready to enter the host's circulatory system. The L5, which is actually a young adult, migrates to the heart and out into the pulmonary arteries (if there is room) where it will mate, approximately 5-7 months after first entering the new host.




Note: All commercially available heartworm preventives act by wiping out the freshly delivered L3’s and the L4’s living in the skin. The Heartgard products are also able to kill the younger L5’s..

[B.Trull]

Genetics - beagles is just one of the breeds known to have kidney defects.

It would be interesting if all beaglers who lost hounds to a particular ailment such as kidney problems, would post a pedigree. It may point out a particular line that is prone to having such problems.

Anyone got ahold of Auburn or Purdue on this one ??? I have lost 1 hound to kidney failure at 6yr old . Of course was the best hound I ever owned, and never got a litter out of her.


Human/dog kidneys fail for a variety of reasons. If I were going to to point a finger at feeds I wouldnt neccessarily look at protein content as much as the additives.

Mabye this is a more breed specific problem ????

[Jane]

Friend of mine lost his 4 year old female in July, excellent hound that is deeply missed. Kidney failure. Could have been lepto, we don't deal with heartworm up here in the North East. He did contact his vet to see if the Atlantic Veternary College had any study going on for kidney failure in hounds, they didn't. They do all their work at the College exclusively on beagles as their guinea pigs... it is a great place to treat hounds though.
She went down hill over an 8 month period, lost foot when she had plenty, one win short of finishing.
I suspect it may be due to the fact that they are high performance animals that burn a tremendous amount of energy while working, and if there are toxins in food, meds, what have you, they are expending it at a rapid rate, and the immune system may have alot to do with that. How often do you put your hounds out for a couple of runs and they get remarkably in shape very fast. JMO.