20-01-2009

Nuckle over/ extreme twisted front paws

This condition I have seen very often in the showring all over Europe, but nobody seems to make any objections. First time I heard about this was with my second litter, where we after matting 3 different bitches with same male, had at least 3 offsprings with this condition. Later I have bought 2 bitches turning out to have the same condition in different degrees.

I went to my specialist and got the reason for this condition. It is very often seen in Great Danes and my specialist have performed many operations on corgies for exactly the same. It is the question of growth of the Radius bone in the front leg. It continues to growth ( and grows faster than) after the parallel bone ulna stops. In some cases this results in the nuckle over syndrome, in other cases the Radius bones pushes the paw out to a side forcing the dog to walk on the side of the paw instead of on the pad and sometimes you will see both conditions on same leg.

It is very urgent to get into treatment as soon as possible with this condition. This as it must be done before closure of the distal radial physic The vet will break the ulna bone and it will be able to follow the growth of the radius bone. After recovering of the fracture, the dog will walk normaly and the limping is disappeared.

However if you do not recognize the condition before after closure of the distal radial physic the dog has to live with this condition for the rest of his/her life. You as the owner must be very carefull with the dog, never allowing the dog to jump, especially down jumping will put enormous presure on the frontleg and the weakness here.

Earlier the condition was related to wrong nurisment of the dog, overweight, wrong exercises e.g. the same way HD has been explained earlier, but now the gene for this condition has been found in the yorkshire terrie, which could be the breaking point for explaining the disease.

Fortunately and unfortunately this condition has been discussed between swedish judges. Fortunately the judges have started awareness regading this. However it is even more important that the judges knows how this condition looks like. I was showing in Sweden and the judge claimed that my dog had this condition. As an exhibitor I am not allowed to speak, so I hold my tongue, but as the owner of two bitches at home which has the condition I was more experienced in this area. But due to exhibition rules I could not tell the judge that he was wrong and did not know what he was talking about. Unfortunately I do.