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SMALL BREEDS OF DOGS… A LOOK AT THEIR MEDICAL ISSUES

By Dr. T. J. Dunn, Jr. DVM

It was ten o’clock Sunday night so when the phone rang I knew it meant only one thing…I was about to head for work. “She’s doing it again, Doctor. Her pups are three weeks old now and she’s got that shaking and trembling condition and she can’t even walk!” My client bred Chihuahuas and recognized a serious condition seen often in small breeds but only rarely in larger dogs… canine eclampsia. Because the nursing dog’s metabolism favors the production of calcium-rich milk, the shifting of calcium reserves into the mammary glands to support growing pups can lead to dangerously low blood calcium levels. A serious and even life threatening situation results and veterinary intervention is needed. These patients often have high fevers, low blood sugar levels and require slow and careful intravenous calcium therapy to get them through the crisis.

A normal dog’s metabolic processes strive to maintain homeostasis, which is a state of balance of chemicals and functions within narrow ranges. Any deviation outside normal ranges will have an adverse impact on the dog and could lead to rather sudden death. By their very nature, small breeds of dogs have less tolerance to deviations outside the homeostatic ranges. One of the easiest homeostatic issues to envision is tolerance to temperature changes. Large breeds of dogs, due to their surface to weight ratio, can tolerate extremes of environmental temperatures for longer times than a tiny breed. That’s precisely why veterinarians are acutely aware of body heat loss with small breeds during surgery and postoperative recovery.

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