Jonquilow's Lowchens(Australia) Health Page
Karen Quigley and I (Pat Jones) of Jonquilow Lowchens congratulate Jen Roller of Storyteller Lowchens on her
commitment to producing lowchens not only of beautiful type and temperament, but lowchens with good health
records too. We are proud to assist her in this aim by sharing our knowledge of the health records of our own
Jonquilow lowchens, in particular their eye test records. Our particular interest in this began when the eye
examination of our foundation bitches - "Livvy" - (Aust.Ch.Bigglesmere's Liv'n Doll), showed an unusual
appearance which, in a less experienced Opthalmologist, could have been mistaken for PRA. An ERG
confirmed that Livvy's eyes were normal. Subsequently we found similar appearances in several other
of our lowchen, some of which were only very distantly related. The important issue is that Livvy was
born in the UK with a long pedigree of UK bred lowchens, whilst our Australian bred bitch,
"Mo-mo" - (Aust.Ch.Jayzer Cozette), showed exactly the same picture, even though she
had an equally long pedigree of Australian bred lowchens. Our own Opthalmologist, a
highly experienced practitioner and Chief Panelist of the Australian Canine Eye Scheme
was of the opinion that these appearances in such distantly related lowchens indicates
that it is likely to be a 'norm' for the breed and that it is important that this
information should be shared with other Opthalmologists and Lowchen breeders
in order to avoid the possibility of misdiagnosis of PRA. Naturally, all dogs
showing this appearance should have an ERG performed to ensure that the
assumption of 'breed norm' is correct. Since these reports were done
both Livvy and Mo-mo have died, at ages 12 and 13 respectively, both
had normal vision until they died.
Pat Jones
Jonquilow Lowchens
Australia
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Read Livvy's Eye certificate Exam and ERG results on 5 May 2001.
SeeAustralian cerf liaison's
discription of eye exams on Jonquilow's Lowchens on 15 October 2008
Message to littleliondog list 15 October 2008.
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