Dog Hemophilia

There are an unfortunate number of types of hemophilia in dogs as there are in man. One case in a fine, sturdy, ten-week-old St. Bernard puppy was perhaps typical of one type. The puppy was brought in with a swollen leg with no pain or obvious discomfort, so our suggestions were to do nothing but observe the leg from day to day. A week later the puppy was brought in with a large swelling over the top of the head; we presumed it was an abscess and lanced it. The puppy bled for two weeks and was given repeated blood transfusions to save it. With transfusions and intravenous fluids the puppy recovered from the bleeding episode and was taken to a research facility where with tender loving care he made valuable contributions to science and lived out full life span. The disease was identified as Christmas disease, which disinherited from a grandfather through his granddaughter by his grand-sons. Females carry it but only males have the bleeding problem. The three male pups in the St. Bernard's litter were all afflicted.

Dog Hemophilia Information

• Hemophilia is a clotting disorder. The process of clotting does not only have to deal with the platelets of the blood but also a series of chemical reactions or factors of clotting. Each stage of clotting factor is related to the other and all the factors are interlinked with one another and malfunctioning of each factor may lead to several types of clotting diseases.
• There are mainly two types of hemophilia. The severity of the Hemophilia A and Hemophilia B changes from one the level of the clotting factors. The Hemophilia A is the result of the deficiency of factor VIII of clotting while the Hemophilia B is the result of the deficiency of factor IX of clotting. Though less severe in form but the A type is more common among dogs than the B type. The intensity of the disease depends upon the factor VIII of the clotting.
• The disease hemophilia is a genetic disorder. It is the X- chromosome linked recessive character.
• Almost all breeds of dogs are equally vulnerable to the disease. Even the mixed breed dogs are also prone to the disorder. The dogs belonging to the German Shepherd get easily affected by the genetic disorder.
• The incidence of mild form of hemophilia in your dog is nothing to worry about unless it receives heavy rate of trauma or experiences a surgical operation. The occurrence of mild hemophilia in fact does not require any medical supervision at all if well kept.