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What's up with all the low Thyroid?

Seems more and more dogs have low thyroid these days. Something's causing it cause numbers are way up on dogs on thyroid medicine. Any suggestions? Tell us your thyroid stories and treatments.

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Dave Trumbo II
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What are the common symptoms when dogs suffer from this?

Probably a lot of it has to do with genetics and line breeding.

I see a lot of people using it as an excuse as to why their dog look like a turd for a few weeks. Although I believe having low thyroid can effect the performance of a dog, I do not believe it is truly a measurement of performance. Meaning I have heard hunters (not Vets or any scientific literature) say a hound has to run a t4 of 2.5 or higher. Hogwash.

My Vet is a pretty smart guy (much smarter than me) and is actively involved in trainng and research at one of the top Vet schools in the country. His take on low thyroid in dogs is this. #1 its the most over diagnosed disease in canines. He says if a Vet is treating more than 1% of his practice for hypothyroid, he or she is over treating the disease. #2 a low T4 is not sufficient enough testing to diagnose and begin treatment for low thyroid. He suggest a Thyroid Panel and at the very least a free T4, TSH, and T4 by ED (which is a more sensitive measure of free T4). I will try to link a few helpful web pages.

Most say overheating and sluggish. Lose there mouth and nose.

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Dave Trumbo II
Kouts, IN
219-309-9257
Home of :
"GR NT CH TBO's Lucy Lawless"

R.I.P. :
"GR NT CH Chief Executive"
"GR NT CH Trumbos Lady"

Had a vet tell me that the thyroid is located behind the wind pipe if the levels are low it causes the thyroid to enlarge therefore puts pressure on the wind pipe which causes problems for the dog to breath when very actice. So say you take your dog hunting it has thyroid problems it runs for a couple hours and trees... it isn't getting enough oxygen into its system to maintain its energy level... so starts to slow down.. the next day it just lays around and sleeps all day you try to take it again the next night and it acts like it doesn't even want to go hunting.. and the third is even worse... you put the dog up for a couple days and it sort of has some of its energy back.. it was able to lay around and get its blood oxygen levels where they need to be once again... it make since to me that if the thyroid is acting up and putting pressure on the wind pipe and the dog isnt treeing that hard it is having to catch its breath in there so can't bark every breath... gets hung up on a track because it is trying to get more oxygen into its system by breathing through its mouth instead of using its nose.. so I can see why the thyroid can effect the way the dog hunts...

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iread these adds every day. I see more of a thyroid problem in the wipeout line of dogs. Why is that?

I am beginning to wander if they even know what a hounds thyroid level is supposed to be. Almost all of them come back as a .6 T4 and the first thing they do is slap them on meds. They did it to my female. She was treeing coons as good as she ever had and looked fine. They started her on the pills and she went down hill. Her coat started looking bad her performance in the woods was up and down. This has went on for almost a year. I stopped giving her the meds. Her coat looks good now and her performance is back to what it should be. I'm thinking a lot of dogs are being diagnosed with it when they shouldn't be.

The flip side to it is if they do have a problem then it is genetic and there is more than one stud dog that have been diagnosed with it. Maybe it needs to be a question that is asked when you are trying to figure out what to breed too.

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Thyroid

Maybe the government should start checking peoples thyroids . There is a lot of lazy , non working low energy people out there . Hell instead of Obama care give every body free thyroid meds . Would be cheaper than free health care , housing and so on.


On serious note I have hunted with dogs that have been on thyroid meds . The dogs owners stated unless your really hunting the dog hard , like night after night you would never notice a problem

I know of at least 2 popular strains of walkers that carry thyroid issues. Doesn't seem to hurt their ability but I think several behavior issues & sometimes the slumps dogs go through are directly related to thyroid issues that are often overlooked.
Sometimes it goes unnoticed and sometimes the owners are content with having to treat it.
Personally there are a couple lines I always stayed clear of because I didn't want to increase my odds of having to deal with it, at times that's difficult as popular as some of those lines are. Personally if people wouldn't line breed on them it might not be so prevalent.
I'm glad I'm not in the market for a hound anymore. Nearly every walker dog my buddies have bought over the last few years either has thyroid issues, or carries the lines that do, or has tick disease issues.

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quote:

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Originally posted by joey
I am beginning to wander if they even know what a hounds thyroid level is supposed to be. Almost all of them come back as a .6 T4 and the first thing they do is slap them on meds. They did it to my female. She was treeing coons as good as she ever had and looked fine. They started her on the pills and she went down hill. Her coat started looking bad her performance in the woods was up and down. This has went on for almost a year. I stopped giving her the meds. Her coat looks good now and her performance is back to what it should be. I'm thinking a lot of dogs are being diagnosed with it when they shouldn't be.

The flip side to it is if they do have a problem then it is genetic and there is more than one stud dog that have been diagnosed with it. Maybe it needs to be a question that is asked when you are trying to figure out what to breed too.

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Excuse for one looking like crap. A majority of the time anyhow. Some really do have a problem.

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Michael Ghorley

Mine was a big hunting, get treed somewhere type of dog! He went from that, to a 100yd. dog, look for something easy to tree, and do a lot of standing around. Took him to a vet, and he was skeptical about a low thyroid, but tested anyway. My dogs was at .2! I take a thyroid pill everyday of my life, and I decided there was no reason why I should be on them, so I quit taking them for about 2 months. In that 2 month period, I almost lost my job, wife couldn't stand to be around me, and I had zero energy! Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get back on my meds. The wife still can't stand to be around me, but that may be another problem. LOL Oh, and by the way, after about 2 or 3 weeks on his meds, my dog got back to normal.

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Bruce Profitt

quote:

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Originally posted by brogy
I know of at least 2 popular strains of walkers that carry thyroid issues. Doesn't seem to hurt their ability but I think several behavior issues & sometimes the slumps dogs go through are directly related to thyroid issues that are often overlooked.
Sometimes it goes unnoticed and sometimes the owners are content with having to treat it.
Personally there are a couple lines I always stayed clear of because I didn't want to increase my odds of having to deal with it, at times that's difficult as popular as some of those lines are. Personally if people wouldn't line breed on them it might not be so prevalent.
I'm glad I'm not in the market for a hound anymore. Nearly every walker dog my buddies have bought over the last few years either has thyroid issues, or carries the lines that do, or has tick disease issues.

---

I have to correct myself... One of the lines that is known to have thyroid issues was already mentioned by someone else. The other that I had in mind suffers from seizures not thyroid. Might not be one in the same. Either way, some top hounds from those lines but I've seen or known of enough issues with the two lines that I personally would not want to line breed on either but it is being done all the time.

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Believe it or not if a vet tech draws blood into a serum separator tube (black and red top) instead of a plain red top tube the test will be way way off. Unfortunately a lot of vet techs draw the blood and don't know that a serum separator or gel tube literally eats hormones. Most vets do not monitor the drawing. This mistake at the vet office is the single most common error in any type of hormone test. Including progesterone. I have heard of a rash of errors by an endocrinologist friend of mine. So next time ask them to make sure they use a red top tube. It seems like something you shouldn't have to check but you do.

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I believe my male has a thyroid problem but for one reason only. I hunted him hard after being laid up for about a month to get him ready for a hunt. After about two weeks of hunting he just got to where he didn't want to eat and got weak and lazy. I gave him a day or two off a week to rest but the more I hunted him the worse he looked. It was during winter so I know he wasn't overheating. I laid him up for a week before the hunt and he acted normal and even won the hunt.

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Mostly its just something that's WAY over diagnosed...sort of the "new fad"/new excuse of hounds for the last several years.

there is also something to be said for the fact that a lot of the ones who realy have it are never known because there coffie shop coonhunter handlers never accualy put them in the woods enough to notice.

mostly it shows up in some dogs who are "wired 440"........and I have wondered if sometimes it might be the reason they ARE wired 440....runs super high (and the cause of the supercharge) then crashes (after a long period of hard hard hunting)

but mostly I think its just the new fad/excuse.

The vet I use for hounds also treats most of the other comp dogs in this area.......when a dog I used to hunt started acting "off" ( turns out he had some issues with tick diseases) first thing almost all of the local hunters said was "thyroid".......so I take him to the vet to get some tests done and tell him one guy in particular (who has done pretty well with his walkers) mentioned it might be a thyroid issue and if he (vet) thought we should check it too.......

his exact words were " **** (not going to say his name) has thyroid on the dam brain...he thinks every dang dog has a thyroid issue.."

that same guy treats just about every dog he owns for "thyroid" issues to this day.

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Yeah, that's what I want to do, pay my vet $100 bucks to have him checked, give my dog 2 pills a day for life, just so I have an excuse when he trees slick!!!!!! Give me a break.

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From the great philosopher, Ron White, "you can`t fix stupid"
The 9 most terrifying words, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help"........Ronald Reagan





Bruce Profitt

My female

Got ellichia {spelling?} from a tick.Infection in her body ended up making her thyroid go way down to .2
I'm sure the all doxy didn't help her body either.If I remember right she was on doxy 2 pills a day for 30 days.

She acted like she was 15yrs old until vet finally checked it.Never affected her mouth though.
After getting her thyroid numbers back up,she acts and hunts like before.Actually became real independent after getting back healthy.

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Re: My female

quote:

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Originally posted by prostockpat
Got ellichia {spelling?} from a tick.Infection in her body ended up making her thyroid go way down to .2
I'm sure the all doxy didn't help her body either.If I remember right she was on doxy 2 pills a day for 30 days.

She acted like she was 15yrs old until vet finally checked it.Never affected her mouth though.
After getting her thyroid numbers back up,she acts and hunts like before.Actually became real independent after getting back healthy.

---

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Re: Re: My female

quote:

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Originally posted by joey
Its an epidemic around here. The doxy usually gets rid of it but it comes back. Do you have a tick problem? Its normally a southern problem.

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Queen of hunt TWBFA Walker Sectional.Franklin Co. Coonhunters{Oh.}2013.

we tried the tetra and doxy treatments with loose, and nada. erlicia and RMSF. I had my vet bring in Imasol and it worked...think it was 2 shots total a few days or a week apart, I cant remember for sure now.

by then between the drugs and the diseases he was pretty run down.........but he came back to show us a steller night here and there for a cpl yrs after.

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It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.

Robert E. Lee

i have allways herd

wipeout and coma dogs have it the worse I have ben tould it is common in them it must be hereditary just what I was tould

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