Working breeds don't show pain?

Or: when the drive and will to work can overcome pain and discomfort.

I have owned Border Collies for many years, and their health and wellbeing has always been paramount to me. I have been so lucky to have had so many amazing, intelligent, hard working and driven collies in my life. Some owned by me and some in a working sense on farms. All have shared good breeding, and all have gone on to lead active and fulfilled lives.

Good breeding comes from health testing the parents, knowing which lines to combine and breed from, and exceptional care of the sire, dam and litter.

ISDS collies have a wealth of pedigree and are often only bred to produce offspring suitable for farm life and working trials. Some are sold to agility and sporting homes, but usually the breeder will wish to know all details from the prospective owner regarding their knowledge of the breed and their plans for the future of the puppy — whether sporting, or a very active experienced home.

KC collies generally have more show lines in their ancestry. This does not mean that they are not suitable for sport in any sense. Many top sporting dogs are KC registered and not ISDS. Being KC registered and not ISDS just limits the working trials competitions.

Whichever the pedigree, the collie will have natural drive, focus and instinct to herd and work to please us.

What the health tests are actually for

The required health testing of ISDS and KC registered dogs is detailed and informative to anyone who understands genetics and disease.

There are diseases common to both registered and non-registered collies which can severely shorten or damage their lives if not detected.

For example, a farmer owning ISDS collies may wish to breed his bitch with a suitable stud dog. He can check with the ISDS for health tests of suitable sires and check back in the lines for any signs of disease or disorder such as Collie Eye Anomaly (CEA) or hip dysplasia (HD).

CEA is detected through a manual eye exam and through a DNA swab test. The sire (and dam) will be classed as:

• Affected
• Carrier, or
• Clear

Because CEA is a recessive trait, breeders from a clear parent to a clear parent will result in 100% clear puppies. Clear to carrier will result in 50% clear and 50% carriers. If both parents are carriers, this will result in 50% carrier and 50% affected. Both affected parents will result in 100% affected offspring.

CEA is a disease which affects the development of the retina and choroid. It can range in severity from unformed blood vessels in the choroid to severe bleeding and detachment of the retina, and blindness.

Not a happy future for an active collie nor his owner.

How many non-registered Border Collie breeders will spend money checking the CEA status of their mating pair? Not many, I feel.

MDR1 — the one that can kill on the operating table

Another common condition which also affects herding and sight hound dogs is MDR1.

It's thought that around 75% of collies (rough and smooth) are carriers or affected. 50% of such breeds as long haired whippets, Australian shepherds and miniature American shepherds, and lower incidents in GSD, Old English Sheepdogs, Shelties and Border Collies. Also, any breed crossed with a herding breed may also be a carrier.

This condition is very serious and can lead to the affected dog's death.

Like CEA it is a recessive gene and therefore needs a carrier gene from both parents to become the full blown disease. The disease affects that affected dog's ability to remove certain chemicals from their blood/brain barrier. A protein pump called P-glycoprotein is broken, and this is the protein that stops drugs and poisons entering the brain.

It may not seem a big deal, but these chemicals are found in common dog wormers and in several sedatives and anaesthetics — including ivermectin, milbemycin, loperamide (anti-sickness drug).

How would an owner feel if their dog died on the operating table from basically being poisoned by the anaesthetic received to stitch up a cut paw? And how many breeders test for this condition in their breeding stock?

Not every disease can be picked up by a £100 DNA test

Hip dysplasia is a structural condition in which the hip joint does not form correctly in the puppy. It is genetic, but its gene cannot be identified as it has multi gene input to create it.

The best way to test for HD is to hip score the parents and grandparents. Hip scoring is when the vet takes a specific X-ray of the dog's hips and the radiograph is examined by a team of experts at the BVA, and the hips are both scored a figure through measuring several criteria including shape of the femoral head and depth of acetabulum. The dog will be graded with two numbers, the lower the better, and these can be measured against the breed average. The breed average for Border Collies is 13.

The KC also have a range of DNA conditions that must be met with testing before mating, and only these KC registered dogs will have their results shown on the KC site for everyone to see. These diseases include ones which can affect hearing, the digestive system and even the ability of the offspring to survive to weaning.

So, isn't a non-registered collie bought from a farm the same as a working sheepdog?

I get asked this quite a lot, especially when a new client brings me a Border Collie, sent via the vet for treatment for HD. Generally, the answer I give is NO.

Registered and well-bred Border Collies do not usually get sold to the public unless that breeder is sure that the new owner is experienced and a suitable home for one of the litter. "Puppy farm" Border Collies get sold to anyone who wants one. These are the puppies who have no health testing proof from the breeder.

So why go to all this effort when deciding to breed a litter of Border Collies?

Well! Some people don't.

They are happy to sell to anyone who will buy them, and especially if the buyers don't ask about health testing.

Unfortunately, the party who comes off worst is the puppy/dog who may be destined to go blind at four years of age, or be crippled in pain by the time they are six.

There may be no signs of these conditions in the young puppy.

Plus, once the new owners have bonded with the puppy for months or years, they are not going to return the dog back to the breeder. The breeder, upon being told about the issues, will generally say the issues must have started with the new owner, as he or she has never had a problem with their litters before.

What hip dysplasia actually does to a collie

Over the years I have seen and treated many collies with hip dysplasia.

Because the collie is built to carry a higher percentage of body weight on the fore legs — which is part of what makes them so agile — they can off load the hind legs and lose muscle over a relatively short period of time. This means less power available in the back end, so more weight is tipped to the front end. When running they will appear to bunny hop, or rock like a rocking horse, rather than the smooth and four legged run of a healthy collie.

After the exercise the muscles can't clean themselves of toxins and lactic acid, so they stiffen and become sore when the dog starts to move again. Granted, after a few minutes, the collie may appear to walk or run OK again — but this constant pattern of:

• Exercising with poor muscle and joints
• Fatigue of the muscles
• Rest
• Lactic acid builds up
• Stiffness
• "Walking it off"
• Repeat

will get worse, and eventually veterinary intervention is needed — whether medication or surgery.

But if the dog has a working brain, surely his body can cope with the activity?

A working dog's desire to complete the task in hand can outweigh the messages from the dog's nervous system which are telling the dog to stop because of pain or self-preservation. A high drive dog is just that because of a combination of temperament, reward desire, genetics, motivation and the relationship the dog has with the handler.

Years ago, one of the farm collies I knew went missing for a while. The dogs had been working the cows and he had taken himself off. It wasn't until I noticed the blood on the yard that I went to see what had happened. He had cut along his side, from his neck to the end of his rump. Blood was dripping from it and muscle was showing from his shoulder. It took around thirty stitches to put him back together again — and three days later he escaped from the farmhouse to fetch the cows in. On investigation we found that he had cut himself on some broken fencing on the way out to fetch the cows.

That amazing dog put his job before his wellbeing. His drive to work far outweighed his instinct for self-preservation. Luckily his fitness and excellent breeding meant that he recovered quickly.

This is the working brain in action, and this is why working dogs will sometimes carry on with life when really, they are in pain and discomfort and need veterinary intervention.

Badly bred working dogs may try to carry on at all costs, but the outcome to their bodies can be very different.

So, do working dogs not feel pain the same as other dogs?

An experienced dog handler will recognise the changes in their dog and stop the exercise. Sports dogs are usually retired at the top of their game because their handlers see the drop in ability and the slight signs of stiffness or slowing. Working with the dog correctly at this time will result in the happy and pain-free retirement of their canine athlete.

Many thirteen and fourteen year old dogs will still compete in veteran classes in agility, and this is due to the care and intelligence of their handlers.

Can a non-pedigree working type dog cope with pain the same? Unfortunately, badly bred dogs may still have some of these high drive traits, but not the structural ability to be able to deal with it.

During exercise, the high state of arousal and adrenaline may mask the body's natural behaviour response to pain. The dog may carry on the activity and therefore not look like damage is being done. Once the body cools down, the lameness or reluctance to move may kick in.

The owner placebo effect

I use this term a lot. In this case, the owner placebo effect is when:

• The owner feels that the dog doesn't have an issue and so carries on throwing the ball.
• The dog fetches the ball repeatedly, BECAUSE the owner throws it.
• The owner throws the ball again, BECAUSE the dog wants to chase it.
• The dog chases the ball BECAUSE that's what the owner wants.
• The dog chases the ball even though his body is trying to tell him to stop.
• They go home, that evening the dog gets off his bed in pain, stiff and sore.

I have had the occasional client tell me that "their dog just loves chasing a ball" and that they don't really know why the vet has referred their dog to me for treatment. These dogs have had hardly any muscle tone on their hind legs, obviously in pain and cannot walk without trying to pull all their body weight forward over their fore legs. Quite often though, after questioning, they will admit their dog is "a bit stiff" either during or after the exercise.

Their intentions may be kind and understanding regarding the fact that their dog may be sore, but I can guarantee that if that owner picked up a ball and threw it, that poor dog would chase it.

Is lameness the only sign?

Lameness is certainly not the only sign that a dog is in pain. In fact, lameness may occur alongside no pain at all. Genetic structure or altered joint shape and angulation can lead to a lameness. It does not mean that that dog is in pain and needs veterinary intervention. Certain reconstructive surgeries will lead to an altered gait, such as femoral head removal in advanced hip dysplasia.

My general rule of thumb is:

• If lameness occurs during the time of active exercise, this is due to the joints heating up and starting to swell and cause pain signals through movement. This dog needs rest.

If you have any doubt about your dog's movement, video him. Video your dog from the day you get him, at walk, trot and run, and compare the footage as the months and years go by. If you can, get footage from the breeder or from the show ring of dogs of similar breeding — OK, there are differences between show and working breeds, but generally lame dogs do not get shown, as the people showing them do not want to be thrown out of the ring in front of their peers. It will be easy to compare the footage from the breeder or show with the footage of your own dog, and abnormal movement can be picked up sooner.

The sooner the abnormal gait is picked up, the sooner the vet can examine or X-ray, the sooner a good physiotherapist can help to limit further damage through physio and exercise regimes, and the sooner that dog can slow down the progression of damage and live a much happier and less pain filled life.

It is down to us

It is down to the handler or owner to know and understand how their dog should move at walk, trot, run and jump. They should also know how that dog should move post exercise. If that dog shows even the slightest hint of lameness, stiffness or abnormal gait, investigations should take place.

The working dog will try his hardest to finish the work task in hand, regardless of the damage it could be doing to his body.

It is our responsibility, first as good breeders and then as good owners, to prevent these workaholic creatures from the self-destructive action that can snowball when bad breeding and inexperienced owners combine.

A well bred Border Collie, with a fully stimulated lifestyle and a bombproof off switch, can make the perfect companion.

— Kate

Kate writes from nearly forty years of breeding and a veterinary physiotherapy caseload. This piece is her professional experience, not veterinary advice — if you have any concern about your own dog's movement or comfort, speak to your vet.