Health

Health is the new buzz word in Great Danes or so they have been saying recently. With all the health problems we have been hearing about in the past weeks then it is about time it came to the fore. Yes we have the familiar health issues that we associate with Great Danes.....bloat, heart problems, wobblers, entropian, bone cancer, cherry eye, OCD, etc . But what about some of the less well known problems currently affecting Great Danes like glaucoma, Addisons disease, diabetes, cruciate ligament ruptures, allergies and hip dysplasia amongst them.

Sometimes we are too quick to be dismissive about certain health issues. There are plenty of people in the breed who are adamant that Great Danes don’t suffer from hip dysplasia. Hence there is no point in hip scoring. But tell that to those owners whose Danes have been diagnosed with hip dysplasia recently after the hips have been x-rayed. Some people don’t think Great Danes get Addisons disease but they are affected by this disease as owners will tell you. Others think glaucoma is a problem from the past but Danes are currently being diagnosed with this dreadful condition.

The truth is we have no real grasp as to what is the scale of health problems in our breed. This has come about for lots of reasons. Our Vets are not always able to be accurate in their diagnosis of health conditions. Owners rarely request post mortems when their dogs die. Some owners may prefer to say their Dane has died of something different to the actual cause of death. Some breeders may keep quiet about health problems for fear of not being able to sell their puppies. Or maybe we just don’t know that our Danes have health issues because they have lived to seven, eight or nine years old and beyond. The real dilemma is how can we collect and collate the information on health problems in our breed.

The only way to try and establish what is the scale of health problems in our breed is to survey every Great Dane owner in the UK. But that isn’t being realistic. The number of owners filling out health surveys in the past have run into a few hundred or even less. So the information coming from the surveys has a limited value in assessing what are the health issues in the Great Dane breed. This is such a fundamental conundrum that we need to explore ways of collecting the relevant information that will allow us to understand the state of health in our breed.