Southern Counties SBT Society
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Staffordshire Bull Terrier Breed Council of Great Britain & Northern Ireland
Lead Health Co-ordinator's Report
Lead Health Co-ordinator's Report
Registration Colour Errors. Although not really a health issue, because of the genetic nature of coat colour transmission it makes sense to deal with this here. Some cases of two blues being mated and producing non-blue, invariably black (not possible genetically), puppies have been drawn to my attention after being listed in the BRS. These have been referred to the K C Registrations Department for follow up. The usual reason is a tick box error or similar error on the breeder's part and are corrected. However to prevent further such errors being published, the Registrations Department have, at my suggestion, liaised with the IT Department to see i f these can be stopped before publication in the BRS. 1 am thus pleased to report that a filter has been put in place to pick out registration applications where the progeny of two blues parent are given as black or black brindle, leading to the breeders being contacted. This will hopefully lead to the registration colours being duly corrected.However, if a breeder does not respond to the KC, he or she will have a bar put on further
registrations until they do respond.While it is hoped this will be effective in stopping incorrect colours being registered, it would be unrealistic to expect it to be 100% and for some reason or another, cases may slip through the net or there may be other 'impossible' colours being registered. Anyone spotting these can refer them to me and I ' l l follow up. Of the small number of such cases presented to date most, but not all, have been resolved but one or two 'non responders' who have not co-operated were to be expected but this is clearly a step in the right direction.
Breed Health Watch. Recently all club secretaries will have received the analysis of the reports of judges at Championship Shows in 2016 under the Breed Watch Scheme (obligatory for SBTs). These are pretty unremarkable. The majority of judges had no health concerns about the dogs they had judged and none had any major ones. No significant change from year to year is the emerging trend and of the two conditions judges are to look out for and report, misplaced lower canine teeth is the only one usually mentioned. Of course, getting accurate figures is impossible on account of variation between judges of what is serious enough to report plus an individual dog(s) being reported by several judges. Nevertheless the incidence in the show ring seems to be reasonably constant at a low level from year to year.
Breed Health Plans. As I reported before, the K C is putting into place plans on a breed by breed basis. Priority is being given to those breeds with serious problems such as the brachycephalic ones.As a pretty healthy breed Staffords were not on the priority list ( I would have been surprised had they been) and I have nothing more to report.An Interesting Case. Recently a clinical case of L-2-HGA with an inconsistent DNA result was reported on social media and inevitably I got tagged in. This has occurred in an unregistered bitch,which I have not seen, so we do not know what is in its background. With good
co-operation from the owner and her vet, Cathryn at the AHT is investigating under 'research'. The first step is to repeat the DNA test as the initial one was done at a commercial lab, then re-assess the next step after this. There is probably a simple explanation so the last thing needed is unhelpful over-reaction. As time goes by,cases requiring further investigation because they 'do not fit the bill' are bound to occur. All 1 can ask is to let me know as soon as possible please, and I can then do my best to ensure any relevant further investigations are conducted.
Archie Brydon