WFA Education Projects

By Martha Black

Summer, 2005

The Westie Foundation of America continues to educate the Westie Community on health problems and accompanying issues. Our commitment to this goal has been very successful in the seminars that are held in conjunction with the West Highland White Terrier Club of America at the annual specialty each October.

In selecting a topic for the seminars, we choose priority diseases mentioned in the last health survey: Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), Atopic Dermatitis and genetic diseases in general. Once a topic is chosen, the WFA looks for the highest quality speaker who has expertise in this area. Many of our speakers are involved in research projects which the Foundation is funding in these areas. We brought Dr. Brendan Corcoran from Scotland to speak on IPF and Dr. Thierry Olivry from North Carolina to speak on Atopic Dermatitis. WFA has purchased audio equipment so that the speakers can be easily heard. We have provided an excellent seminar site at the Freedoms Foundation in Valley Forge, PA, and have had top quality food for a dinner before our speaker’s presentation. This provides an opportunity for people to sit and discuss issues of interest to Westie Lovers.

The following is just one of the success stories that the Westie Foundation received, this one related to Dr. Olivry, whose presentation in 2003 was on atopic dermatitis: “Since WFA has sponsored seminars with regards to skin conditions, I’d like to tell you about our success with Atopica. We adopted a little girl Westie three years ago with a very rare skin disorder. In fact, it stumped the experts. She had hundreds of infindibular cysts that would fester and become infected so that she was covered with runny bleeding sores and had severe hair loss. For three years, we have tried everything we could think of to help her and nothing worked. Our vets had never run across it, so she was sent to Michigan State University veterinary clinic for dermatology. They, too, had never seen it. Her case was also presented before a veterinary seminar by our girl’s primary vet. No one had ever seen or heard of her condition. I contacted a doctor at the University of North Carolina vet school via e-mail and explained her condition. He thought that her condition is caused by a mutant gene condition. Before we adopted her, we had purchased one of her puppies. At age two, he developed these same cysts. He only developed sores occasionally. Shortly after his second birthday, he became very lethargic and had a difficult time eating and eliminating. Vets did exploratory surgery and found him full of cancer. He could not tolerate the chemo therapy and passed shortly after his first session. His Mom came into Westie Rescue while our little guy was struggling with his health. She had the cysts at that time and the breeder sold her and her new owners didn’t want to cope with her problem so she was surrendered to the Westie Rescue in Michigan. We were familiar with the problem and to honor our little guy, we thought what better way than by adopting his Mom. We have been determined to find something to help her. Finally, six months ago we pulled her off every medication she was on and began using only Atopica. She now has a healthy coat, some bumps-BUT NO SORES. She has begun to play and interact with our other dogs. She has developed a Westie attitude and we just love it.”

For the past three seminars, the Westie Foundation of America has also either put up the speakers’ PowerPoint presentations on our website (Corcoran & Olivry) or published significant articles by them in our newsletter and on our website (Giger) for the benefit of people unable to attend the seminar itself so we’re connecting with many more people than the one hundred or so attendees.

In summary, this demonstrates that we are listening to what Westie owners are saying are their greatest Westie health concerns and investing our financial resources into both research and education projects in those key areas to significantly enhance the knowledge base for owners and breeders and to make progress in improving diagnosis and treatment of those diseases and, hopefully, eventually eradicating them from our breed.