Editor's Weekly Ramblings 5

Friday 4th April 2003

Note - This information is not meant to be a substitute for veterinary care. Always follow the instructions provided by your veterinarian. Canine Cushing's Disease - Jack's Tale

Jack is a nice little chap. We got him from a rescue home when he was a puppy, and he is now approaching 14 years of domesticity. I went to the home with my parents and my sister to choose him, and even then it was clear he was one of life's fighters. He jumped out of his skin to welcome the people who might be able to advance his cause; and it really wasn't a case of us choosing Jack. Jack chose us. Thirty pounds for one of my life's truly great companions was a bargain in every sense of the word.

Fourteen years or so on and Jack finds himself fighting a different kind of battle. He has been diagnosed with Canine Cushings Disease ('Hyperadrenocorticism'), a variation on the human form of the disease, which causes excess cortisol production. It was first described in humans by Dr Harvey Cushing in 1932, and is called a 'syndrome' in the 15% of cases which are linked to the adrenal gland, and a 'disease' in the 85% of cases that are linked to the pituitary gland. Either way the effects amount to the same thing. A tumour on either of these glands, even a benign one i.e. non-cancerous, causes the gland to secrete excessive amounts of cortisol.

In humans, it is a relatively rare condition, but in dogs (and other animals like horses and ferrets) it is much more common. It mainly affects older animals, with the clinical average reckoned to be about ten years (over 90% of cases are older than 9 years) and affects both male and females (with slightly more females - about 55/45 percentage wise). Typical behavioural symptoms in dogs are lethargy and decreased activity, increased panting, seeking out of cooler surfaces like hallways or bathroom tiles, increased sleeping during the day and restlessness at night, and decreased interaction with owners. This is accompanied by the physical symptoms of increased or excessive eating, drinking and urination; a distended abdomen which looks rather like a pot-belly (we have never given Jack Beer, so that cannot possibly be the cause), muscle weakness, thinning hair and skin and chronic or frequent infections. The ones that owners (horrible term - we don't 'own' him anymore than my parents 'owned' me when I was dependent on them as a child) tend to notice, is the water consumption and the urination. A rigorous appetite is seen as a good thing; leaving wet puddles on the living room carpet after downing twelve gallons of water, is not.

In our case it was more the pot belly and the lethargy that caused concern. Jack is fun to his very core, and like a sixty year old man that still places whoopee cushions in strategic positions at parties, it is unlike Jack to get puffed quite so easily, and ignore more often the main chance to exert his own brand of life force. He still has the inclination to fun, but the edge had come off it, and it is happening too quickly, in a matter of a couple of months, to only put down to old age. My dad got him tested as a preventative measure to see if anything clinical was up. The test has just come back positive that he has Canine Cushing's Disease, with the likelyhood that it is the pituitary form; and we are left considering what to do.