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  Auto immune disorder

Auto-immune disorders are various in occurrences. This is where the immune system fails to recognise "self" and attacks some part/s of the body as though it were a foreign substance.

The immune system takes care of the attack and removal of disease-producing bacteria and viruses. When this immune system doesn’t function as it should, illnesses will occur.

Known facts with Irish Wolfhounds are frequent episodes of pneumonia, often without a clear cause. Or the dog has skin problems, often quite severe, and starts to bite his skin until it bleeds, also seldom with a clear origin. Sometimes these dogs can be free of illness for quite some time, and without any reason the ailment starts playing up again. Most times there are no results when tested for parasites or allergies.

Repeated bowel problems can involve a form of auto-immune disease. The dog will suffer from diarrhoea, often without an apparent reason. All can go well for some time, and all of a sudden his health will deteriorate rapidly.

A very serious type of auto-immune disease is called Myositis. Literally this means an infection of the muscle tissue.

The first symptom is that the dogs appears to lose weight, suffers from vague muscular pains, doesn’t like to jump up against things and squeaks with some movements. The next stage is a scull-like appearance of the dogs’ head, this you can also feel very clearly. This is caused by the steady loss of the chewing muscles and head muscles.

Sometimes the eyes will tilt due to deterioration of the eye muscles, and the dog will turn nearly blind. Small cuts will heal badly or not at all, nails stop growing and the pelt will look feebly.

In a later stage the dog will often have a fever, and eventually the heart muscle will be affected, first apparent by hearth rhythm disorders.

This whole process is irreversible. Vanished functions can never be regained. At an early point the process can be stopped or slowed down, but most times the cause of the problems is discovered too late.

When still in an early stage, prednisone or Immuran can help to stabilize the dogs’ condition.

For the outburst of this disease a trigger is necessary. This trigger can be a vaccination, a serious form of kennel cough, poisonous substance they eat accidentally, or particular medication. The disease is known to occur in many breeds, with a repeated occurrence within certain families.

Hereditary tendencies therefore are suspected.