Right on, Peggy. I couldn't agree more! I had a friend who bred his champion greyhound bitch to a top producing stud. The ensuing litter was born, I believe there were twelve pups in it. I had help with the whelping and began to worry when we had such trouble getting the puppies to nurse. Milk kept coming out their noses and they were snorting. On further inspection, we found that every single pup had a cleft pallet. It was devastating to say the least. All pups were put down.
The bitch's owner was convinced that it was a hereditary defect and he had the bitch spayed. Nothing we could say would dissuade him. When he was able to calm down and behave rationally, I questioned him about anything physical that happened during the pregnancy and was told that nothing had happened....except that when she was about four weeks in whelp, she caught a cat that scratched her rather badly. One of the scratches needed some stitching so his vet stitched it and gave an antibiotic shot followed by a steroid shot!!!!. Steroids given at around the same time in a pregnancy is documented to cause birth defects and cleft pallet is one of the common ones. Nothing would change the owner's mind that it was not a hereditary problem in this case. It was caused by the insult to the fetuses at that sensitive period of development. Sadly my friend kept his bitch as a pet, but dropped out of dogs entirely. This is a classic example of why to avoid giving anything other than food to a bitch in whelp, and also not to through out the proverbial baby with the bath water. Pat ========================================================= "Magic Commands": to stop receiving mail for awhile, click here and send the email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20NOMAIL to start it up gain click here: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20MAIL E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. Search the Archives... http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ckcs-l.html All e-mail sent through CKCS-L is Copyright 2002 by its original author.
