(Written by Cecilie and published in "Boxer '96, the annual of the South Western Boxer Club of Great Britain)

10-15 years ago an unusual large number of young boxers in Norway had to be euthanased due to lameness and pain in the back, they all had one thing in common - severe calsification of the columna.

Several veterinarians reported to the breed club, which in turn decided to do something about it. The breed club appealed to boxer owners to have their boxer x-rayed to asess the problem. A veterinary was hired to examine all the x-rays to ensure homogenous diagnosis. The situation turned out to be quite alarming, as animals free from spondylosis were scarse.

Several veterinarians have done research on spondylosis in boxers, especially in Germany and Switzerland, where the problem has been recognised for years.

All these papers has shown that spondylosis is a widespread disorder in Boxers. A Swiss paper (R.Mühlebach and U. Freüdiger, 1973) showed that of the 324 randomly chosen Swiss boxers from 9 months to over 10 years, only

7,1% showed no sign of spondylosis(!) 40 % of the more severely affected individuals had clinical signs.

A German paper (Helga Eichelberg and H. Wurster 1982) showed that of 283 (193 randomly chosen) boxers from 9 months to more than 7 years, almost every single one had some degree of osteophyte development between lumbar vertebra 7 and the os sacrum, apart from this 63,6% of the randomly chosen boxers had some degree of osteophyte formation on other vertebrae. There also was a diffence between the incidence in the two sexes, the females having a higher incidence than the males.

Both these papers conclude that the defect is worse in older animals,

18 months after the first study, dr. Eichelberg and dr, Wurster examined 79 of the same boxers once more, finding that 55,7 % of them now had a more severe degree of osteophytes. They also found a significant difference between the incidence in males and females, as well as a predisposition in dogs with hip - dysplasia.

None of these authors found any link between environmental factors and the development of spondylosis deformans.

Dr. Helga Eichelberg has investigated further, to try to find the reason for this disorder, it has a striking resemblance to a human disorder called Bechterews disease, but she coulnd't find any parallells in the origin of the diseases.

This brings us to where the situation stood in 1991, when Marianne Langeland of the Norwegian College of Veterinary Medicine started on her Ph.D work on spondylosis deformans in Norwegian boxers.

She found that in the 402 randomly chosen boxers from 29 different sires, 91% had some degree of osteophytes. The incidence increased with age, as the youngest dogs from 12-24 months only had a incidence of 55%.

She also found a significantly higher incidence in females, in boxers with HD, and in heavier animals.

The heritability was estimated to be h=0,42 when estimated by paternal half-sib correlation, and h=0,62 by the regression of offspring based on the parents. This is a very high heritability.

At the first glance the situation may look depressing, but the high heritability is very good news indeed, since it means we can easily breed away from the problem by considering it in our breeding program.

The Norwegian boxer club has taken the consequences of these findings, and recommends that all boxers used for breeding should have their backs X-rayed, and have no more than a mild degree of spondylosis.

For the last 7 years the requirement has been that the breeding stock has to have a known status. This has started us off on a good track, as at least some of the most severly affected animals have not be bred from.

Of all the boxers X-rayed in Norway this last year as many as 69 % of the boxers between 12 and 24 months were free from the defect (compared to 45% a few years ago!), and allthough most of them will probably develop it later in life, this is a vast improvement!

What has all this got to do with boxers in Great Britain? Well, as any other boxer-disease, it is likely to be spread all over the world. The symptoms are; stiffness in the back, lameness in one or more limbs, change of gait, aggression, upset stomack (a stress reaction to the pain), depression or any combination of these. The symptoms may come and go, but steadily gets worse as the osteophytes grow. Severely affected animals may have atrophy of the muscles of the quarters since the osteophytes can compress the nerves to these muscles. The more severely affected dogs may also have loss of reflexes.

On our trips to shows around England, I have seen several boxers with the typical gait these boxers develop, as well as dogs with well developed fronts and tiny quarters, so my guess is that spondylosis is quite widespread among boxers in England as well - the important thing is to avoid it becoming a problem as severe as we had in Norway a few years ago.

How? We have the tool to avoid it, as it has a high heritability we can avoid using severely affected animals for breeding purposes. If you have the slightest suspiscion it might be a problem in your boxers, it is wise to have the whole lot X-rayed, and only breed from the best. This will be very rewarding, as a high heritability will ensure positive results in a few generations. I wish you luck in doing this, and I really hope you can avoid this awful cripling disease in your boxers!

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