The Ostrich
Syndrome
First published in the 1994 Australian Shepherd Annual
by C.A. Sharp
In the decade and a half I have spent informing and educating breeders about
genetics and hereditary disease in Australian Shepherds, the most common
ailment that has come to my attention is also the most serious. Ironically it
is not hereditary. Dogs never get it. You won't find it in any text or resource
manual. But it's out there, and its presence can make controlling hereditary
disorders difficult to impossible. I call it the "Ostrich Syndrome."
According to legend, an ostrich will shove its head down in the sand when
confronted with something unpleasant. I have encountered more than a few dog
breeders who take a similar stance when faced with even a possibility that
their dogs might have or carry hereditary disease. What you don't know won't
hurt you, they seem to think. It may not hurt you, but it can hurt your dogs.
The Ostrich Syndrome can damage dogs in a number of ways. The ignorance, denial
and fear it fosters in breeders can prevent genetic diseases from being
identified and studied early enough to keep them from becoming widespread.
Breeds which develop a reputation for being disease-ridden risk rejection by
the public-including that part of it engaged in agriculture. No farmer or
rancher wants a sickly or crippled working animal.
The Ostrich Syndrome has its effect on individual dogs, too. In some cases dogs
which are ill will not get the care they need or will be euthanized
and forgotten as quickly as possible. Even healthy dogs can die from the
Ostrich Syndrome. More than one high-quality animal has died an unexpected and
tragic death--always of something distinctly non-hereditary--when too many of
its descendants have been diagnosed with genetic disease.
A few Ostrich Syndrome afflicted breeders avoid testing their dogs for one
problem or another because "it's never happened in this line." Well,
there's a first time for everything and if no one is checking there may be a
lot of it before you realize what has happened.
Others will excuse an animal which suffers from something very like a
hereditary problem with any number of flimsy excuses, most of which boil down
to "it's a fluke so I can ignore it." But a rose by any other name
can have nasty thorns. Convincing yourself they were
caused by too much or too little ozone will not make their prick less painful.
An interesting and dangerous symptom exhibited by some Ostrich Syndrome
sufferers is the tendency to shun those free of the disorder. I once heard of a
case where one breeder refused to sell a dog to another because the second
breeder tested for a particular disease. In other cases breeders who have
stepped forward and said "this dog of mine has/carries such-and-such
disease" have been vilified by their peers. I cannot fathom why someone
would heap scorn upon the breeder who makes an honest admission that he has had
a problem.
This latter reaction is a form of shooting the messenger. Should some poor soul
discover that his dog has a problem and try to share this information with its
Ostrich Syndrome infected breeder, he may find that the breeder holds him
responsible. Responses can range from unreturned phone calls to abusive
language and even threats. As a person who is something of a full-time
messenger, I've experienced this more than once.
Humans have an unfortunate compulsion for assigning blame. If something is
wrong, somebody (other than me) must be at fault and that somebody should pay.
When the Ostrich Syndrome breeder shoves his head deep in the sand and still
finds a problem glaring in his face, he is apt to explode in a flurry of
pointing fingers.
Breeders with Ostrich Syndrome are not bad people intent on destroying our
breed. They are frightened people faced with something they don't fully
understand, something which threatens the considerable emotional and financial
investment they have in their dogs. Denial in the face of the unthinkable is a
normal reaction. It gives us a little breathing space in which we can
Hereditary disease is no one's fault. The genes which cause it have been there
since before there were dogs one could call Australian Shepherds. Even in the
very rare case of a genetic mutation, the owner and breeder of the animal are
not responsible for its occurrence. Accepting this fact would go a long way
toward "curing" the Ostrich Syndrome. Such a cure would free breeders
to discuss hereditary problems openly and rationally, leading ultimately to
better control of genetic disease.
If we fail to cure the Ostrich Syndrome we are putting at risk the breed we all
claim to love. We must pull our heads out of the sand, stifle our tendency to
deny and blame, and face facts. Genetic diseases occur in Australian Shepherds,
as they do in all other breeds. Overall we are not in bad shape, but we could
get there. Every one of you reading this can think of at least one other breed
so riddled with a hereditary disease that it has become irredeemably associated
with that disease. We don't want this to happen to our Aussies. Facing facts
can be painful, but the alternative is far worse.
Copyright 1994 C. A. Sharp. All rights
reserved. C.A. Sharp
is editor of the "Double Helix Network News", the quarterly
newsletter for those interested in genetics and hereditary disease in the
Australian Shepherd.
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