Re: [pyrnet] New member of list has a health question...

[JGentzel@aol.com]

I would follow the more conservative approach first and the most conservative approach is rest.  The addition of the Adequan may be warranted.  Genetics and diet seem to be the acknowledged most likely causes, but it is not really understood.  The good news is if you can limit the activity completely except for absolutely necessary movement and there is not joint damage already, it will most likely pass and the dog will be normal.  We do not see it ever, so have very little personal experience except over 25 years ago when we were breeding some dogs that may have had a higher incidence. 

There is a lot of information on the web about it so if you search under the name you will get many "hits," but one that I just looked at that was good is:

http://www.cah.com/library/ocd.html

Since we have been talking about diet and those high this and high that foods and large dogs this and large puppy that, it is important to realize that too much of a good thing in bad.  The supplementation of the food can either cause or make worse things like OCD and that was felt to be the case 25 years ago when we had to deal with it.  So just use a good brand of food that agrees with you pet.  Don't really supplement with a bunch of stuff as you may be upsetting the balance and causing problems.  Diets like the BARF are probably fine, but supplementing with calcium, etc., is bad.  This breed evolved very naturally over about 5 thousand years and worked very hard the whole time.  It probably got fed rather poorly along the way that mostly consisted of milk, grain, and maybe the occasional meat from a dead sheep or goat.  

Joe