An infrequent, puzzling phenomenon is the litter in
which many, if not all, of the whelps become strangely
deformed sometime in the first two weeks of life. A
flattening of the thorax and abdomen, top to bottom,
becomes evident about a week after birth from some
unknown cause. It happens most often in the dwarf (chondrodystrophic)
breeds but has been seen in the German Shepherd Dog and
other breeds. Instead of the thorax developing normally
into a progressively deeper tube from the prosternum/neck
area to the diaphragm, it forms more of a flattened
cylinder with the height from floor to spine about the
same all the way back to the loins, and perhaps even
lower midway down the back. The forechest, instead of
dropping from the prosternum to the last sternal
vertebra, may even be concave, and as time goes on the
puppy becomes even more pancake shaped.
As the ribs bow out, the heart and other organs may be
pushed into the pleural cavity and displace or decrease
the air volume of the lungs; as a result, untreated pups
become lethargic, lacking in energy and strength. By the
third to fourth week, when normal pups would be running
around, affected pups have not yet learned to push
themselves up into a standing position. If the extended
limbs, especially front legs, are moved at all, it is
with a paddling motion to the sides, hence the disorder
is called "Swimming-Puppy Syndrome". The hind legs
typically are extremely weak; they may be tucked under
the torso, or less frequently extend behind the pup, but
in either case they have little or no movement.
"Swimmers" have very poor circulation, respiration, and
ability to swallow food or keep milk in their stomachs,
and as they are old enough to wean, are very slow when
eating from pans. Stifles may be rotated underneath the
belly, patellas are often luxated, and other orthopedic
or osteochondral defects may be noted. Many die from
inhalation pneumonia (from inspiring regurgitated milk)
or other forms of respiratory failure.
If swimmers are not given some sort of therapy, there is
a less than even chance they will survive to eight
weeks. Generally, those that do manage to live, only
begin to walk at or after this age. A 1981 Veterinary
Medicine/Small Animal Clinician report on a litter of
Shepherd pups, five out of six of whom were swimmers,
mentions one pup that started walking by nine weeks old,
but by six months was still unsteady and slightly
undersized (female, 40 pounds). Because she tired
rapidly, even after only moderate exercise, she was
euthanized. Autopsy showed that her vertebral/rib joints
were enlarged, but internal organs seemed normal in
appearance. Based on this sort of evidence it's possible
to conclude that there might be another cause for the
weakness other than ventro dorsal compression. There may
also be permanent damage from the compression early in
life that affects viability later, even if therapy seems
to have helped. There may be variability in the
severity, based on genetic or environmental factors, or
a combination of these. Many factors have been accused
of contributing to the syndrome, both environmental and
some of unknown genetic origin. For a while, most people
blamed slippery floors, but I've raised all my litters
on smooth, impervious flooring covered with newspaper
and have never had a swimmer in my own operation. The VM/SAC
report mentioned above involved excellent footing in the
whelping/nursing box: clean, dry, rough surfaced
indoor/outdoor carpeting. Until this report, it was
generally believed that such a floor would prevent
swimmers from developing. I disagree, especially with
the use of carpeting, as this surface is notorious for
harboring germs. Newspapers are best for lining the nest
or exploration areas of the house that has new pups,
through the time they are housebroken.
Some Dachshund breeders told me they were fairly
successful in correcting the syndrome by putting each of
the pups in a sling for at least part of each day. This
practice encouraged them to make contact with the floor
with their pads. Some tied hobbles to the front legs to
keep them under the body and the elbows close together.
This, they felt, prevented the front legs from becoming
spread-eagled. Dish shaped nests of straw have also been
suggested, but not only does that present the danger of
filthy conditions, it isn't practical. A modification of
the idea has also been proposed: put the whole
whelping/nursing area into a sling thus making the
"floor" more like a hammock with the canvas or vinyl
suspended at the corners and edges and lower in the
center. I doubt the efficacy of any of these, but as
sailors used to say, "Any port in a storm."
Another therapy that may be beneficial, although
tiresome and time demanding of the breeder, includes
massage (passive exercise), administration of vitamin E
(with selenium added if they're not getting solid food
yet; but have your vet advise, as it's easy to overdose
selenium, which is then toxic), taping hobbles to
prevent splaying, and suspension in warm water. The
last-named is possibly the most promising if either
active or passive movement can be induced. Thus,
swimming (the real kind, in water) may help correct the
swimming syndrome. Whirlpool baths are beneficial for
partially paralyzed or weak adults such as those
suffering from coonhound paralysis, but of course the
waves in such a tub would overwhelm a 3 to 6 week old
puppy. Therefore, hold him in your hand or a sling, with
support to keep his head up out of the water, and let
him paddle for a while in warm water (probably around 75
to 80 degrees F to prevent chilling), but take him out
and dry him thoroughly if he tires. As many of these
sessions as you can manage should help the pup to
develop coordination, muscle development, and better
circulation while putting much less weight on his body.
Your hand or makeshift sling plus the buoyancy of the
water will take the weight off the chest. Finger
manipulation of his limbs would be a good idea, too,
while he's in the water, but also when he's out.
In 1999, after the above was printed in my book “The
Total German Shepherd Dog”, 2nd edition, www.Hoflin.com,
some e-mail correspondence on the subject came to me. A
French Bulldog breeder expressed the belief that a dam
that produced this defect should not be spayed! She
promulgated these dangerous ideas on the Internet, both
on her website and “chat rooms” where many can add their
own, frequently unscientific, comments.
She had two swimmers, each 12 oz at birth, never left on
flat surface; she said she put them on blankets, “facing
upwards and they stayed in a upright position”, and
claimed they were both fine within weeks. The syndrome
of swimmer puppies is sometimes referred to as Pectus
Excavatum, and described by her as “a condition of 'so
called' flat chested puppies”. Without intervention, and
often despite efforts, they usually die anywhere from
two days to four weeks of age. Sooner more often than
later, according to the Bulldog people I heard from.
When nursing (if it is able to get to the treat at all),
the puppy may arch its back extremely in a backward
movement to compensate for an apparent inability to flex
at the neck.
Some breeders prefer not to assign blame to genetics.
They disagree with those of us who hold that the puppy
inherited the problem from the parents, and a pair that
produces a swimmer puppy should be removed from one’s
breeding program. These people postulate that the bitch
was fed inadequately or that she did not utilize the
necessary dietary nutrients (i.e., vitamins, proteins,
fats, or minerals) to give the puppy the “skeletal
components needed”. This is really stretching credulity
beyond all limits, as swimmers also happen in households
of experienced breeders, and to bitches whose diets are
normal. In this age of commercial dog food, it is nearly
impossible to blame it on such a drastic dietary
deficiency. Others who refuse to acknowledge the major
part that genes play in determining characteristics and
deformities tend to blame environments such as “too flat
a surface, too hard a surface, too slick a surface,
bacteria, viruses”, etc.
A woman named Coreen, who raised Lhasa Apsos and
American Cocker Spaniels made some very interesting
observations that may give us a clue to the primary
genetic defect: She had become frustrated with the
feeble answers from “experts such as vets and breeders
[who]… all knew what it was and all had answers, none of
which were very successful… None of which had real
solutions”. She started to see a pattern emerge. The
incidence of swimmers appeared to be “random”. Type of
food or use of supplements “didn't decrease or increase
the occurrence of swimmers”. What she did observe was
that “the syndrome began to show up at anywhere from one
hour to a couple of days after birth, beginning with a
slight flattening of the chest or an actual bend in the
ribs”. I believe that by careful observation, she hit
upon a method of early identification of afflicted pups
and therefore carriers of the defect. By following her
techniques, one may prevent the development of the
symptoms, but will not eliminate the genes that cause
the untreated pup to become a swimmer. I am enough of a
eugenicist to want to remove such carriers from the gene
pool, but enough of a “compassionate conservative” (as a
famous politician’s speech writer coined the term) to
want to save any pup that could possibly live a useful
life and bring someone happiness. However, such pups,
while saved from death or painful existence, should be
neutered.
The Lhasa and Cocker lady became adept at determining if
a pup has a problem by picking up each pup and testing
its “righting reflex”. She correctly stated, “What you
will notice about these [affected] pups is that they are
always lying flat on the belly. If you lay them on their
side, they will immediately return to lying on their
bellies. This is what is known as the righting reflex.
You can observe this by disturbing a sleeping litter of
very young puppies and watching all of them 'right'
themselves. They immediately crawl to [lie on] their
stomachs and begin to look for a nipple. The righting
reflex is the first response to nursing and the cause of
swimmer puppies”. While that last phrase may sound a bit
awkward, it is true that the normal neonate has an
instinct to get onto its belly and drag itself to a
teat. Once there, it may just as easily and happily flop
over on its side a little, as long as it does not twist
too far in the direction of having its belly side up.
After nursing, the normal newborn pup will lie on its
side to sleep. As they get a little older, they will be
just as comfortable draped over each other, and as they
are old enough for the ribcage to have developed
strength, they may sleep belly-down for a while, but by
then it is not abnormal.
Occasionally a puppy seems to indicate that it “doesn't
want to” or cannot “return to a normal relaxed state on
its side and insists or remains [on its belly] causing
the flattening of the chest, which, if left undisturbed,
leads to swimmer syndrome and probable death”. This is
not a defect in the righting reflex, per se, but a
genetic defect in proprioception, the instinctive
knowledge of position. It may well originate in a
genetic defect in the embryonic development of the inner
ear. Perhaps the swimmer has inherited poor
proprioception and therefore its body “doesn’t know to
roll over on its side”; once in the righted position
used for finding the nipple, it has no way of knowing
that there is a more comfortable and normal resting
position.
The ear is divided into three parts: outer, middle, and
inner. The outer part helps funnel sound to the eardrum,
a membrane on the other side of which is the middle ear.
There, three bones hinged together relay eardrum
vibrations to the inner ear, which is separated by more
membranous tissue. The inner ear includes not only the
nerve endings that transform mechanical movement into
electrical impulses and carry auditory messages to the
brain, but it also includes the organ of balance. The
rear part of the membranous labyrinth has three
semicircular canals that look like three bicycle tubes
joined together in one bulbous end. Each of the three
canals is oriented 90 degrees to the other two, and all
are filled with fluid and nerve endings. The tiniest
movement of the body tells these moving-fluid-activated
nerves what direction the head is turning, and thus
informs the brain as to what muscles must contract in
order to change or return to a given position. It is my
hypothesis that in swimmers, somewhere along the chain
of events the message is not being relayed or
interpreted. We also see similar interruptions in these
messages in older dogs, caused by infections, poisoning,
or late-developing genetic factors.
The “cure”, if you want to call it that, will only be
for the individual itself. If it is indeed a genetic
problem, as I strongly suspect, correcting the condition
in the individual does not erase the cause, so cannot be
considered a cure in the strict semantic sense. If your
breed has been know to have swimmers, or you are
slightly paranoid by nature, steps to identify and
correct must be taken as soon as possible and can be
quite simple, Coreen says: “Check all the pups right
after birth and every hour or so for the next couple of
days. [I don’t know about you, but I have to sleep
sometimes, and don’t have shift workers in my kennel to
do this!] If you notice a pup that is always on its
belly or beginning to show signs of a flat chest, what
you do is lay mom down and put this pup on a good
nipple. After it's on, turn it on its side, holding its
entire body and … making sure it stays on its side. If
the pup lets loose… start over. Do this several times a
day until the pup returns to normal and lays on its
side; when that happens you have just cured swimmer
puppy syndrome”.
You will have to determine for yourself if it is worth
it, realizing that not everyone is able to save every
defective puppy. And, you will want to prevent it from
happening again, the surest and safest approach being
not to breed either parent again. Play the odds: assume
genetics unless you are absolutely convinced a problem
is purely environmental. The longer I live, the more
evidence I see that nearly everything has a bigger
genetic component than you would initially think.
Fred Lanting is an internationally respected show judge,
approved by many registries as an all-breed judge, has
judged numerous countries’ Sieger Shows and
Landesgruppen events, and has many years experience with
SV. He presents seminars and consults worldwide on such
topics as Gait-&-Structure, HD and Other Orthopedic
Disorders, Anatomy, Training Techniques, and The GSD. He
conducts annual non-profit sightseeing tours of Europe,
centered on the Sieger Show (biggest breed show in the
world) and BSP. Check out his website: www.MrGSD.com
All Things Canine -- consulting division, Willow Wood
Services Phone: 256-498-3319 Fax: 256-498-3311 E-mail
mrgsd@hiwaay.net
Canine HD and Other Orthopedic Disorders by Fred Lanting.
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Hip Dysplasia and Other Canine Orthopedic Disorders\"
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