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"Do NOT give extra vitamins to "affected"

Basenji Health Issues & Questions
  • Sorry to double-post, but I wanted to make sure youngandtired got the message since the question had been asked in the midst of the middle of a long conversation–----- so,

    I did email Dr. Gonto again, and I got a response this morning.
    I am SO GLAD that I asked BEFORE starting to "pre-treat" Jazzy.

    He recommended strongly AGAINST that.

    He did suggest WEEKLY STRIP TESTING, and mentioned the venous blood gas tests as a way to get an earlier "catch" of the syndrome {gee, Pat, where've we heard that before }

    I told him what I was thinking of doing:
    I am thinking of beginning to feed high protein canned lamb at least once a week, giving 1/2 Pet-tab and 1/2 Pet-cal w/D twice a day, 1 Centrum complete vitamin once a week, and possibly 1 amino fuel tablet once a week, holding off on the bicarb since the dosage for that would be related to the progression of the disease {from what I understand}.

    And he responded:

    I must disagree with ALL the above, since you are "replacing" what the dog is NOT losing yet (and MAY NEVER…since we are not yet sure that ALL dogs with the gene set express it). In fact, the excess vitamins and protein may HARM the kidneys!!!! All that excess MUST be renally wasted. I would just feed NORMAL good quality food, use FILTERED water for the dogs drinking (a tap end PUR, Culligan or BRITA is fine)...even a BRITA type pitcher is fine. However, FILTERED water is best for ALL your family with the stuff we are finding in our tap water now

    So now we know….....

  • Thanks for posting that.

  • hay what a minute!, dr.gonto's told me to start giveing my basenji pedro the vitamins!! and i did tell him that my basenji was tested for the fanconi and he came back carring both the genes< affected and carrier!!.

  • He is not Carrier and Affected, he is PROBABLY AFFECTED. Did you have his blood gas results? Did Dr Gonto base his recommendation on those results? You said you were having that done this past Monday. If he made his recommendation based on Pedro's medical history, he may have seen something that led him to believe your boy needs this supplementation.

  • tanza, pedro: when i got pedro's resaults back i called to find out what they ment, i was told by a guy there named john, that pedro had both the carrer and the affected gene!, now ivoss is telling that they can't have both genes.!!!?? i'm so darn confussed here, the test is maked (homozygous A/A- at risk for developing fanconi!!). so that means he has the affected gene only!????

  • hi ivoss, glad to hear from u!!. how have u been? i did get the test done and emailed the resaults to dr.gonos, and he said evey thing looked good, but to start him on vitamins!. and i also got the water filter and boy is there a big difference in the taste!!. IVOSS WHAT DOES ( PROBABLY AFFECTED)?????? DOES THIS MEAN HE MIGHT NOT EVER SHOW SIGNS!???. OR DOES IT MEAN (HE IS AFFECTED!!!!?)

  • Homozygous A/A means that he has two copies of the defect gene so he is Affected. A Carrier is heterozygous A/N so has only one copy of the defect gene and not Affected. The results are all PROBABLY because it is a linked marker test and not the direct gene test. Even so the test has so far been quite accurate.

  • thanks ivoss!, that helped me more on this. so this means BOTH PARENTS HAD BEEN AFFECTED THEN!!!!!> DA```IT!!!!

  • It means both parents had to have at least one copy of the gene. They could both have been Carriers and still produced Affected offspring. That is why a Carrier should only be bred to a Clear because otherwise they can produce Affected offspring.

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