This devastating disease is culling our wonderful breed at such an early age.  Dr Bruce Cattanach is researching this issue and trying to identify a gene screen so we know which dogs are carriers of this debilitating disease.  Unfortunately this is many years away and until then we need to try and identify affected dogs to prevent their suffering.  And by selectively breeding eradicating it.

We recently lost an 18 month old bitch we purchased to Juvenile Renal Disease.  The kidneys are very important in filtering the body’s waste products and when the kidneys start to fail these waste products build up in the body.  Symptoms such as

Drinking excessive amounts of water (polydipsia)
Passing large volumes of urine (polyuria)
Difficulty in house training
Bad breath (halitosis)
Smaller than siblings (growth retardation)
Delayed season in bitches
Dry coat
Hunched back on movement
Weight loss
Protein in the urine

These were the symptoms and signs we noticed.  If in doubt please take your dog to the vet and request a kidney function blood test.