Health Tests for Adult Dogs

(Veterinarians - full testing information is on this link)

Information for Owners:

Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers (SCWT) have a predisposition to certain hereditary diseases, so the Key Veterinary Researchers recommend that you perform an annual health screen on your Wheaten.
This gives a ‘snap-shot’ of your dog's general health for you and your Veterinarian, but more specifically it can indicate evidence of hereditary diseases.

Quick Definitions of hereditary diseases:
  • RD – Renal Dysplasia is the abnormal development of the kidney. This malformation can result in early renal failure (birth to three years).

  • PLE & PLN are syndromes characterised by the loss of proteins from the gastrointestinal tract (PLE); or the kidneys (PLN).

  • Addison’s Disease - Addison’s Disease (Hypoadrenocorticism) is the insufficient production and secretion of hormones (glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids) by the adrenal gland cortex

Every dog needs an annual veterinary check-up. Wheaten researchers recommend that owners take their Wheaten to the Vet for health testing, even if the dog is happy, exuberant and shows no sign of illness. All dogs hide pain associated with disease and instinctively hide pain from their owners. Many illnesses don't present symptoms until they are quite advanced. In many cases early diagnosis and treatment can prolong your dog's quality of life and even the length of life.
Don’t wait until your dog shows outward signs of illness.

Annual health testing is recommended to start at about 12 months.

Blood and urine tests cannot predict if a dog will develop these diseases, but they can determine if a dog is clear of signs of disease and establish baseline values for future comparison.

Clinical Signs of a disease are the things you can see, or that your veterinarian may discover on a physical examination of your Wheaten.

Therefore testing is important as, with many conditions, clinical signs do not show up until well after tests show signs of the disease. Also, many clinical signs of one disease can also be those of another.

Laboratory Tests at your Vet:

Your Veterinarian can check for signs of diseases and can undertake blood and urine tests ‘in-house’, or they may use an external Laboratory service.

Before testing, your Wheaten should be ‘fasted’ (not eat eight hours before the test), otherwise spurious results may occur. Important - drinking water should be available at all times.

Your Vet should include:
  • Biochemical Profile
  • Complete Blood Count (CBC)
  • Urinalysis - Including Specific Gravity, Dispstick and Urinary Sediment.
    Protein Creatinine ratio (UPC) or a Microalbuninuria (MA) test. These are add-on tests to Urinalysis and need to be requested.
  • In tick or heartworm endemic areas, a SNAP-4DxPlus or AccuPlex4 test.
  • Tests for IBD and PLE
  • Blood pressure measurements.
  • *PLN-Associated Variant Genes test (this only need be undertaken once in a dog’s lifetime) - further details on the Genetic testing pages *Check with your breeder that they have not already undertaken the test.

North America only:

Message from Dr Littman:

If you are concerned about finicky appetite, gulpies, occasional gastrointestinal signs, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or PLE in the dog or its relatives, ask your vet about additional testing such as fecal examinations, the: TAMU GI panel-plus (B12/folate/TLI/PLI with resting cortisol added), and the TAMU Alpha1-proteinase inhibitor (A1-PI) fecal test. Visit the Wheaten Health Endowment to obtain a test kit for the Alpha 1-proteinase inhibitor fecal test.

Take this information to the vet and really consider the testing she recommends - links here:

  • TAMU Alpha1-proteinase inhibitor (A1-PI) fecal test
  • TAMU GI panel-plus (B12/folate/TLI/PLI with resting cortisol added)

If you or your Veterinarian suspects RD or Addison’s, the following tests can be undertaken:

Renal Dysplasia (RD)
  • Abdominal radiographs/Ultrasound
  • Final confirmation of RD, kidney biopsy (wedge, not Tru-cut).
Addison’s disease
  • ACTH stimulation test

Please Note that Veterinarians testing protocols page has full details of these tests.

Please download and give Documents 1 and 2 to your Veterinarian:

1. Annual testing for healthy dogs (a quick guide) use this pdf (opens on a new page)

2. Recommendations Concerning Protein-Losing Nephropathy (PLN) in SCWT, available on pdf (opens on new page)

Key indicators of symptoms:
RD PLE PLN* Addison's**

Increased water consumption

Increased urination (dilute urine)

"Poor doer"

Decreased appetite

Vomiting

Possibly prone to urinary tract infection

Vomiting

Diarrhoea

Weight loss

Ascites

Edema

Pleural effusion

Thromboembolic events

Listlessness/depression

Decreased appetite, vomiting, weight loss

Ascites, edema, pleural effusion

Increased water consumption

Increased urination (less common)

Thromboembolic events

Hypertension

Listlessness/ depression

Decreased appetite, vomiting, weight loss

Inability to handle stress

Sudden collapse

Slow heart rate

Signs can be intermittent, recurrent, or sudden

 

*PLE and PLN can be difficult to diagnose. The initial stages of the disease may be mistaken for liver, glandular or other enteric or kidney diseases.

Wheatens with PLE and/or PLN may have serious thromboembolic events - lung, heart, brain, portal vein or distal aorta (saddle thrombus) before symptoms of renal failure start, and eve before there is increased SDMA, creatinine or BUN.

** The clinical signs of Addison’s Disease are often non-specific and can mimic those of multiple other medical disorders.

Diagnosing: RD, PLN & PLE & Addison’s Disease

Here are some of the similarities and differences.

RD PLN PLE Addison's
Age of Onset <1-3 yrs Mean ~ 6 yrs Mean ~ 4.5 yrs Mean ~ 3.5 yrs
Sex Predilection None noted Female: male=1.6 Female: male=1.7 None
Polyuria / Polydipsia Yes Only 25% had PU/PD No, unless on steroids Yes
Vomiting/Diarrhoea Yes Yes Yes Yes
Ascites / Edema No Possibly Possibly No
Azotaemia (elevated SDMA, BUN, Creatinine) Yes Eventually No Possibly (pre-renal)
Kidney Size Small May be normal Normal Normal
Hypoalbuminaemia No Yes Yes Possibly (melaena)
Hypoglobulinemia No No Yes Possibly (melaena)
Hypercholesterolaemia No Yes Hypocholesterolaemia No
Low Na/K ratio Not noted Rarely (~10%) Rarely (~10%) If typical
Urine Specific Gravity Isosthenuria Mean 1.023 Mean 1.033 Low (medullary washout)
Proteinuria (elevated UPC) None or mild Yes No No
Histopathology
K = kidney
I = intestine
Fetal glomeruli, Fetal mesenchyme (K) Glomerulonephritis, glomerulosclerosis (K) IBD, lymphangiectasia, lymphangitis (I) Not indicated

Adapted from: 1999 ACVIM PROCEEDINGS: Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier PLE-PLN; Meryl P. Littman VMD DACVIM, Philadelphia PA

There are four Comparison Charts on the Hereditary Diseases which are available as a pdf on this link (opens in new page) Please supply the link or copy of this document to your Vet

Abnormal Results
If your Wheaten has abnormal test results do not panic.
There are multiple causes besides genetic diseases why there may be abnormalities. In many cases, one lab result or even one set of results is insufficient for diagnosis. Your vet may wish to repeat testing in a few weeks to see what’s going on and to do additional testing to rule out other causes.

Treatment for RD, PLE, PLN and Addison’s disease are often part of a veterinarian’s standard practice.
If your Vet needs additional resources concerning these diseases they should contact:

  • Meryl P. Littman VMD, DACVIM, Professor Emeritus of Medicine (Clinician-Educator), University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, who led the research into PLN in Wheatens for decades. Dr Littman has retired, but is available for paid consultations and can be contacted at this email.

  • Shelly Vaden, DVM, PhD, DACVIM, Professor Internal Medicine, North Carolina State University is available for consultation ONLY with veterinarians. If you wish a consultation, please have your vet contact her at this email

  • The International Renal Interest Society (IRIS) have published consensus guidelines on the treatment of Renal Disease.

  • In the USA, if your Veterinarian is unable to manage your dog's care, seek the assistance of a Veterinarian who is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (DACVIM). You can use this Find a Specialist tool to locate one near you - be sure to select SAIM which is a specialist in Small Animal Internal Medicine.
What to do next?

Should the blood/urinalysis tests confirm abnormalities, you and your vet need to take action.

  • You - Contact your breeder immediately, he/she will want to know in order to help you and to take action on other dogs in their breeding program.

  • If your Wheaten is diagnosed with a hereditary disease, then you you will be advised to test more frequently.

  • If your tests are normal continue to test every year and have your veterinarian compare results.

  • Keep a copy of the test results in a file at home. This could be a paper copy, or a spreadsheet on your computer.
    The *Watchdog Health Tracker is available in the UK (example on this page) and is available in the USA through the SCWTCA Endowment Inc.

  • Consider sharing your health & testing information with your respective breed club and also the SCWTCA Endowment Inc. Pedigree and Health Database, details on the this page.
For further reading see pages on Hereditary Diseases


WHI would like to thank: Dr Littman, Dr Vaden and Dr Allenspach and the ©Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier Club of America (SCWTCA – visit www.scwtca.org) for their kind permission to reproduce this information.

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