It’s been a pretty fantastic month for heart testing. Firstly, The National Whippet Association hosted a Doppler testing session. This was heavily subsidised by the Sarah Pirie Heart Testing Fund, meaning that dogs could have an echocardiogram for a bargain price of £99 if they had been detected as having a heart murmur thus saving their owners hundreds of pounds. This was their second session, testing 12 dogs and the previous session tested 8. What a fabulous fundraising campaign the NWA has done in the name of their late Chair and it looks to continue next month with another auction.
Midland Whippet ran an auscultation session at their championship show on the 22nd October. There was a great uptake and cardiologist Sarah Smith had a busy day! For the first time, a breed club also ran an eye testing clinic and again, there was a very positive response. I am very grateful to Rachel Hambling and her team for their great support.
The Kennel Club decided that they wished to focus on Whippets at their cardiology event held at Stoneleigh on 19th and 20th October and this gave three weeks to advertise the event which presented a challenge. At the time of writing this report, 52 spaces had been offered, with all being taken and quite a waiting list. They are offering echocardiograms completely free of charge. This was a wonderful opportunity for further data collection and will hopefully take us a step closer to working towards a formal scheme for the breed.
Updates
Results from heart testing at MWC
56 dogs were tested.
43 clear
3 grade 1
4 grade 3
Jo Whitehead