CRUCIATE LIGAMENT RUPTURE

This is very common in Newfoundlands and seems to be one of the most common complaints in ALL breeds, regardless of size. The following link may be of help.

Please note that permission must be sought from the Kennel Club to show after this operation.

Liverpool University

Animal Health Channel

Mar Vista Animal Medical Center

Newfoundland Dogs and cruciate ligament damage – Can you help?

As you may be aware the chance of your Newfoundland tearing their cruciate ligament in their knee is quite high. When this occurs it leads to lameness, chronic pain, stiffness of the knee, and osteoarthritis.

Previous work has indicated an inherited basis to cruciate disease in Newfoundland’s, and we have secured funding from the Kennel Club and the UK Newfoundland Society to identify the actual genes that are responsible for the problem. This, ultimately, will hopefully allow breeding strategies to be put in place to reduce the incidence of the disease and to improve dog welfare. A great benefit to dogs, breeders, owners, and all!

In order to carry out the research, we require DNA samples from Newfoundland’s affected by cruciate disease, but also Newfoundland’s who are free from cruciate disease and over the age of 7 years.

• If you would like your dog to be part of this study then please be aware of the following conditions:

• If the dog has cruciate disease then it can be of any age - cruciate ligament rupture must be confirmed during surgical treatment.

• If the dog is free of cruciate disease then it must be over 7 years of age AND be examined by a RCVS or ECVS specialist in small animal surgery (orthopaedics) to confirm that there are no clinical signs of cruciate disease.
• A list of RCVS specialists in small animal orthopaedics can be found at

http://www.rcvs.org.uk/Shared_ASP_Files/UploadedFiles/rcvs/A07EB782-833A-479F-ABF3-4B51603BB6C4_spec_list050309.pdf.

• If your local specialist requires more information, please ask them to contact us. This examination by a specialist would need to be voluntary on their part, and although several specialists have told us that they would be happy to help with the project, we have not spoken to all specialists. If you are finding it difficult to find a specialist willing to help with the project, please contact us

• Ideally, we require 2-5ml of blood in an EDTA tube from which to extract DNA. This cannot be taken just for the project; it must be taken for another reason e.g. health screen, a diagnostic test for another disease, pre-anaesthetic tests, etc. This is because we are only allowed to sample dogs for clinical reasons. With your consent we are allowed to use excess blood taken from samples for research purposes.

• Alternatively, if a blood sample is not being taken for clinical reasons, we can take a saliva sample – specific sampling kits can be supplied to the vet if this option is preferred.

• We can supply vets with sample submission tubes, forms and pre-paid ‘Jiffy’ bags. Unfortunately we cannot cover costs of blood sampling procedures or any other veterinary fees that may occur.

If you, or your vet, have any questions regarding this project, then please feel free to contact us:

Arabella Baird arabella.baird@liverpool.ac.uk

Musculoskeletal Research Group

Veterinary Sciences Building

University of Liverpool

Crown Street

Liverpool L69 7ZJ

TEL – 0151 7944208 FAX – 0151 7944219 MOBILE – 079022 27044

Or alternatively you can contact

Professors John Innes (j.f.innes@liverpool.ac.uk)

and

Stuart Carter (scarter@liverpool.ac.uk).