The Carter/Peggy Story
The
Musladin-Lueke Syndrome Puppies
When I first started
showing beagles in confirmation shows and became involved in
the world of showing, I fell in love with the people, the
competetion and most of all working with beagle. I had shown Spencer to his Canadian
Championship and was already involved in training him in agilty.
I had discovered that Spencer had the drive and willingness to please
temperment needed for agility so decided my goal with my breeding
program would be to breed performance beagles which are structurally
sound and competitve in the confirmation ring as well as the
performance rings.
My next challenge was
to find a foundation bitch and after interviewing many
breeders I decided to purchase Sage. On August 26, 2006 my first
litter was born by Caesarean Going through a a caesarean for
your first litter is a
little scary but also a great learning experience. This
should have been my first clue that something was terribly wrong
with my litter of 6 beautiful puppies. I brought my puppies home
at 6:00 AM in the morning after spending all night at the vet clinic and when I went to place the
puppies in the whelping box I noticed one of them was very
blue and was hardly moving, my husband rushed back to the vet,
unfortunately after working on him for 30 minutes we lost
him.
Since this was my first
litter, I watched my puppies very carefully and at about 1 week
old I noticed that one of the puppies, later known as Peggy,(2nd
puppy from the right) had one leg which was turned the wrong
way, at first I thought it may just have been the
way she was carried in the mother's womb, but it never
straightened or turned correctly. The other thing I noticed was
that one of the puppies, later know as Cheyanne, ( 2nd puppy from
the left) seemed to be very flat on her stomach.
The puppies in this picture were 11 days old.
As the puppies got older, I started to notice other
things which didn't seem right. Some of the puppies moved around
better than others and the little boy, later know as Carter seemed to
walk around stiff legged. Also some of their faces had a
strange look to them, which I couldn't quite identify. I returned to the vet and he agreed with
me that something was the matter with the puppies and sent me to a
speciaist, who thought possibly they could be swimmers. This
turned out to be correct for Cheyanne and she was almost 6 weeks old
before she was finally able to pull herself up on her legs and begin to
move around.
My mentor Beverly Davies-Fraser from Waskasoo Kennel
in Red Deer came to visit when the puppies were about 4 weeks old.
I had been telling her for weeks that there was something the matter
with these puppies, and she thought I was just paranoid, since it was my
first litter. However, she took one look at my puppies and knew
what was the matter. She was sure my puppies had what was know at
that time as Chinese Beagle Syndrome. She had brought with her a
book called "The Beagle Book" By Drs. Tony and Judy Musladin and
Ada Lueke, who were the first breeders to recognize this syndrome.
I returned to my vet with the book in hand and he confirmed our
suspicions. If you would like more information about Musladin-Lueke
syndrome visit Aladar Beagles at the following site:
http://www.aladarbeagles.com/health.html .
This disease is now know as Musladin-Lueke symdrome
name after the first breeders to identify and document this genetic disease that effects the puppies muscles which causes
deformaties, in their legs, heads and over all body shape. If you
understand anything about genetics, you would know that the probablity
of having a litter like this is about 1 in a million and I was that
unlucky person.
The other sad part to this story, is that another
reason for having a litter sired by Spencer, was that my son,
Christopher who had grown up with a beagle since he was 9 years old had
always wanted a beagle and I always told him I would not give him
a beagle until he grew up and settled down. He wanted a Spencer puppy
because Spencer played fetch tiredlessly, and beagles are usually not
interested in this game. He had recently moved into a house
with his girlfriend and one of the male puppies was to go to
Christopher. Christopher was living in Toronto at the time and
there were many phone calls home, wondering if there would be a puppy
for him. His question always was "Well is he O.K.?" I didn't
really have an answer for him.
When the puppies were 8 weeks old Christopher came
home to see the puppies, so that he could see how this disease affected
their movement. He fell in love with the little boy you see in the
picture below, who is beside his foot.
A week later Christopher's girlfriend, Sarah
came to see the puppies, when she was home for the weekend.
At the time I did not know what the quality of
life or the life expectancy of these puppies was and I didn't know if I
should send them a
puppy who they would become attached to, if something would happen to
it, and break their hearts. After researching the internet and
being told that the disease didn't get any worse after the age of 1
year, and that many live happy and fulfilling lives, we decided to send
Christopher the only male puppy in the litter. The one we had lost
was the only other male.
Christopher had decided to call his puppy Carter so
when he was 9 weeks old I put him on a WestJet flight for Toronto.
He was very tiny and looked so sad all by himself in his crate but he
was a very brave and out going puppy who was never scared of anything
right from the start. He arrived in Toronto safe and sound and had a
very busy weekend. My niece Carmen came to visit from London and
they took little Carter everywhere, the park, the beach along Lake
Ontario, shopping in the beaches district of Toronto and everywhere he
went he was a hit.
Carter found a warm place to curl up inside Christopher's coat when he
got tired of walking and wanted a nap.
Carter loves to go for walks, but because he walks on his
toes he sometimes lags behind and I guess when this happens the only
thing he can see are Christopher's big feet. Carter can be left
off the leash and Christopher can walk anywhere, with Carter following
his feet. If Christopher walks on the grass beside the sidewalk,
Carter walks in the grass, if Christopher walks on the sidewalk, Carter
walks on the sidewalk, even though the sidwalk hurts his little toes.
This page is a work in progress please stay tuned for the continuing
story of Peggy and Carter.
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