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Am/Can Ch. Hoka-Hey's
Where Eagles Dare, ROM is "Scarlet", and she is a well known Joey/Sealy daughter
...in fact their first daughter! She's the ultimate beauty -
striking jet-black brindle with pretty white markings, beautiful cheeky head,
undeniably sound, healthy, good size, perfect balance; just a breath-takingly
beautiful girl. AND our sweetheart! Scarlet would rather sit in
your lap and give you kisses than anything else in the world! We love
Scarlet in a way that can't be expressed; she's very special to us,
and always has been.
Scarlet
finished her American and Canadian championships very easily and very
young, and after three litters, she now has her ROM. Unfortunately, the
ROM came at a great cost. She was bred to Ch. Nia Minda Catcher In The Rye for her 2nd litter,
and we were devastated when one of the puppies turned out to have bad
patellas. Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. Later, another
littermate was diagnosed with SA
at about 5 years of age. SA is a hideous auto immune disease, believed to
be a simple recessive, meaning that both Scarlet and Catcher carry the
gene. This was a shattering revelation, because after 15 years of working
within our lines, we have never seen anything like this in any of
our dogs, or any related dogs.
Unfortunately, we have since learned that Catcher’s father
produced SA, and Catcher himself has produced it with other bitches totally
unrelated to ours. He has also produced pemphigus and lupus; both horrible
auto immune diseases. Ironically, each of the four beautiful champions from
Scarlet and Catcher’s litter is now neutered or spayed, either for
having health problems, for producing them, or for just being too closely
related to the health problems in the littermates. That’s a terrible
price to pay in any breeding, and not something we would have ever done
intentionally.
Despite a lifetime of excellent
health, Scarlet is now spayed of course, and so is our own Scarlet/Catcher
son, Comanche, even though Comanche continues to be vibrantly healthy and
playful. There are just some chances not worth taking. Research is being
done on this monstrous disease SA, but owners who try to nurture their dogs
through it know the real horrors. Hopefully there will be a DNA test
to show if a dog is a carrier in the near future. This is an example of how
important it is to learn the background of a dog before you buy a puppy or
do a breeding. The heartache is unbearable for any owner of an SA-affected
dog, to say nothing of the misery the dog endures. We strongly
believe in total honesty when it comes to genetic diseases in these
magnificent Akitas we all love so much. The future of the entire
breed is at stake.
SCARLET is OFA Good
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