113 Breed Notes – Belfast 2017

There are no CC’s on offer for Keeshonds at Belfast and Judge Peter Jolley had drawn an entry of just 2 keesies. Best Dog with BOB was Melanie Harris’ Ch Neradmik All About The Boy for Watchkees JW ShCM (Ch Am Ch Kemonts Skylines Game Boy (imp USA) x Ch Lady Godiva’s Guilty Pleasures with Neradmik (imp Fin)) and Best Bitch was Wendy McKean’s Kichigai This Girl Is Mine at Yawren (Bert Von Ricara (imp DNK) ex Kichigai Special Edition)

In the last of Walkee Talkees, it was announced that the Club is holding a ‘Kiddies Drawing Competition’ which is open to all children of members’ families. Entries will be judged at our Ch Show in November by Sheila Brown and there will be prizes for three age groups; up to 6 years, 7 – 10 years and 11 – 16 years. You can enter either a drawing or painting or both in any medium and all pictures should feature a Keeshond somewhere, doing something. Please send your entries to Steve Brown at Thrislington Cottage, Station Road, West Cornforth, County Durham DL17 9ET before the 31st October 2017.

Also due out at the Ch show is the Club’s magazine and Andy Fitches is now in the process of putting together the next issue of Walkee Talkees; but he doesn’t have much in the way of ‘literary contributions’ so far!! Please can you send him any articles (or things that you’d like to say) and/or pictures ASAP.

The Kennel Club have now finally published a more in-depth study of the 2014 Pedigree Breed Health Survey. Forms were received from Keeshond owners representing 62 living dogs with a total of 10 deceased dogs reported, representing 0.18% of all deaths reported in the Pedigree Breed Health survey. The range of longevity for the Keeshond was 6 years to 12 years.

Summary: From the dogs surveyed, most Keeshonds were not affected by a disease condition (75.80%). There were three reported disease conditions that represented an equal proportion of affected live dogs; these conditions were alopecia/baldness, chronic itching, and colitis. There were only ten reported causes of death that represented an equal proportion of the deaths; these causes were epilepsy; gastric tumour, gastrointestinal disorder (unspecified), hepatic liver tumour, hepatopathy liver disorder, kidney disease, kidney tumour, old age combinations, and pyometra.

Taking into account that quite a few people (myself included) entered more than one dog in the survey, that means that about only 30 or so forms were completed. Many excuses were made made for such a poor response; and when you take into consideration that our breed club Ch shows at that time pulled in entries in excess of 100 dogs – a poor response is a bit of an understatement.

When Dr Barbara Skelly of Cambridge University undertook our initial research into PHPT (following on with epilepsy) the 1st ever questionnaire into the health of the breed was carried out in 2003. 250 questionnaires were sent out with 106 returned completed (a 43% response rate); a further 10 were returned with notes saying the person no longer had dogs or were just not filled in. The questionnaires reported the data from 396 dogs; 260 dogs were still alive & 136 were historical reports about deceased dogs.

Three years later in July 2006 the report from the Kennel Club/British Small Animal Veterinary Association Scientific Committee was issued with summary results of the 2004 Purebred Dog Health Survey for Keeshonds; a total of 275 forms were sent out and 78 were returned, representing 194 live dogs (a 28.4% response rate).

Working on the assumption that there are on average 100 Keeshonds born each year and that an average lifespan is 12 years; that means that there is a population of at least 1200 keesies in the UK at any one time. So the poor response rate from this latest study asks the question – how representative of the breed are the results and what (if any) value does it have?

Anji Marfleet