| Rescued Briards From the Past - page 3 |
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| HOLLY Holly was rescued from what was considered to be a Puppy Mill in northern Pennsylvania. |
| Eight 11 week old black Briard puppies were rescued from this location in PA. during the first week of March 1996. Holly was placed with a single woman living in Michigan when she was 13 weeks old. This lady took good care of Holly, until she lost her job. She told us that Holly had some health problems and allergies, and that she could not afford to take care of these problems with any medications that may be needed or vet bills. So. At the age of 10 months, Holly was returned to us. Upon her arrival, we took her to our vet. The vet said that one of her allergies is from the many flea bites on her body. (The lady had 15 cats.) After noticing her limp, we also had her x-rayed. The x-rays showed very bad hips. There was hardly a ball and not much of a socket to each of her hips. That is what is causing her to limp. At this point, we took Holly home with us to decide what to do. I had never seen a puppy whose hips were so bad, that it made them limp, prior to this. And it would be very hard to place a dog with extrememly bad hips and allergies. Once home, I took Holly outside to play. She wanted to play but would stop after one minute to rest. This sight was heart break- ing for me to watch. Holly was is extreme pain. Now, we had to make a decision on what to do with this pretty little girl. We can not place a puppy in her condition. So what do we do ? After another week of watching Holly, we were sure that she was also night blind. We tested her the best that we could at that time. At this point I came up with an idea. I made several phone calls to make arrangements and to get certain items in writing. Holly could not bring happiness to an adoptive family, but she could provide others with a possible future without night blind- ness. So. At 10-1/2 months of age, Holly was taken and donated to Cornell University and Dr. Aguirre for CSNB research. And from the papers that were printed about this research, Holly DID play an important part in Cornell finding the gene for CSNB. Excerpts from these papers are included below. WE ARE VERY PROUD THAT HOLLY WAS ABLE TO HELP FIND THIS GENE, THAT WILL MAKE FOR A BETTER FUTURE IN THE BRIARD BREED, AS WELL AS OTHER BREEDS AND POSSIBLY HUMANS. Published - 30Oct1998 The eyes from two dogs, 4.3 and 10.7 months of age, were removed following euthanasia by barbiturate overdose, and processed for microscopic examination using methods we have previously described for embedding either in plastic (4.3 months, both eyes) [10] or in the synthetic wax diethylene glycol distearate (DGD; 10.7 months, one eye) [11]; the tissues were sectioned at 1 µm and stained with azure II/methylene blue. The retina of the fellow eye of the 10.7-month-old dog was isolated under sterile conditions, and kept frozen at -70 °C until used for these studies. All procedures involving animals were undertaken in strict compliance with the guidelines of the US Public Health Service's policy on the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and the ARVO Resolution on the Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research. Retina from the enucleated fellow eye of the 10.7-month-old affected dog was utilized for RNA extraction; total RNA was isolated from retina using the guanidinium-phenol procedure previously described [13]. The RPE inclusions appeared to coalesce and were much larger in the 10.7-month-old dog. The RPE appeared somewhat reactive in that the cells were slightly hypertrophied, and their apical surfaces were irregular. At the two ages examined, there were no other pathologic changes in the retina, and no evidence of photoreceptor degeneration or cell death as indicated by the presence of an outer nuclear layer of normal thickness. Supported in part by the Briard Club of America, American Kennel Club-Canine Health Foundation, The Morris Animal Foundation/The Seeing Eye, Inc., The Foundation Fighting Blindness, NEI/NIH Grant EY 06855, and Swedish Medical Research Council grant 19X-09938. Three of the authors (Gustavo D. Aguirre, Gregory M. Acland, Kunal Ray) have a proprietary interest in a company (Optigen) that will perform the molecular test for csnb. The authors are grateful to the many owners and breeders who willingly participated in this study by making their dogs available, and to Julie Alling and Jill Czarnecki for excellent technical assistance. |
Holly at 10 months of age