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Deafness

Deafness is tipical desease for Bullterriers, especialy white ones. Also coloured bullies can be deaf, but posibility is smaller. Desease is recesive genetic carried, so even 2 hearing parents can give deaf puppy. But to lack this possibility, dogs should be tested with BAER test( Brainstem Auditory Evoked Responce).More and more breeders are testing puppies, before they go to new homes. BAER test can be done to puppies at age of 5 weeks, so you know what puppy you get when you take it. Dog can be deaf on both ears or just on one, and those who are just on one ear can behave normal, so only BAER test can show us if our dog hears normaly. Important is, if we have deaf dog, we don't breed with it, like this he cannot carry deasease forward on it's puppies.

Unfortunately we do not have BEAR test machine in Slovenia but I hope soon we will get one. Anyway we can be happy that time to time come veterinary and breeder of bullies Mag. Regina Bregenzer from Austria and test our dogs. We are also possible to do BEAR test in Croatia ( Zagreb ). So there is no barier to test your puppies or adult dogs. If you need some informations about testing in Slovenia, feel free to contact me.  


Puppy during the BEAR testing. Thanks to Phil&Agnes (kennel Bigshot) for allowing me to put on their pic!

"Deafness is perhaps the genetic disease of logest standing in the breed. It is hard to trace the problem, as deaf dogs are usually born of normal parents. It seems to be associated with lack of skin pigmentation, as it occurs mostly in breeds with white hair and white skin colour. General awaeness of the possibility of deafness occuring in any litter, testing of puppies and older animals before they are bred, and observation of the tendencies of any given animal or strain to produce hereditary deafness are all indicaed in order to control the condition. Deaf animals absolutely should not be bred from, and normal animals from strains of families which have produced deafness in recent generations should not be mated to other animals with the same familial tendencies. If they are mated, great care should be taken to identify deaf offspring before the are unwittingly sold. Minor degrees of hearing loss occur in some dogs and cannot be detected without special equipment available to veterinary neurologists. The total elimination of hereditary deafness would require that such partially deaf dogs be identified."

taken from book "The new bull terrier", by John H. Remer,Jr.


 

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