Schip Health Concerns & General  Information 

Luxating Patellas * Hip Dysplasia *  Eye Disorders 

  Epilepsy *  Legg Perthes * Thyroid

Luxating Patellas can be genetic.  There are degrees of severity in luxating patella's...mild, moderate, severe...or grades 1,2,3,4 with 4 being severe...and for the more severe cases there is the surgery to consider.

When did your puppy first show signs? Did he have a physical trauma or injury?

The Luxation is broken into two catagories (1)medial (genetic).  Apparently-small breeds are more likely to have these problems and (2)lateral -from what I understand this can be genetic OR from trauma to the knee

How often is this problem occurring in Schips? Do breeders check for this routinely or do you only check if there is a problem of  lameness early on?

When I researched I had most vets and articles point to genetics but would not say for certain...I suppose as in dysplasia- it can be genetic or trauma or diet related from my understanding. .It would seem that our canine medical information is gray on these things.. UG!

Get a second opinion..

Here are a couple of informative sites about luxation I found a while ago:

http://italiangreyhound.org/patella.html

http://www.offa.org/plgrade.html

http://www.veterinarymall.com/info/patella.html

Hip Dysplasia

http://www.offa.org/ofahd.html

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Eye Disorders

    http://www.prodogs.com/chn/cerf/index.htm

Epilepsy

Good list regarding Schipperke epilepsy.  Requires yahoo group membership.                  http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=schipperke&submit=Search

Legg Perthes

    http://www.offa.org/ofaothr.html

Thyroid

    http://www.offa.org/ofathy.html