Carol,

At 06:28 AM 4/25/99 -0400, Carol Herren wrote:
>Dean wrote:
>When I took 4 of my collies in
>to a vet ophthalmologist, ..... He had never seen
>4 normal eye collies in a row.
>
>I didn't know it was that bad. Are there any statistics out there? I would
>be interested in studies on this.

Unfortunately there are not good statistics, as far as I know, on any
of the canine diseases. I discussed this with the head on the small animal
hospital at a vet school. I thought a good grant program would be to set up
a data base to track the diseases, at least at this particular vet school.
He brushed off the idea. I asked how they could pick impacting grants if
they did not know exactly how it would impact their animal population. I got
no good answer.

The most numerical data I've seen, and there are many collie and health
books I have not seen, is Genetics of the Dog by Willis (1989). Since I'm
not up to paraphrasing I'll quote.
"In respect of incidences in the breeds Roberts (1960) felt that 25% of
Rough Collies in four prominent bloodlines were affected by CEA.
Examination of 300 dogs revealed that up to 30% of the breed was suffering
from CEA (Roberts and Dellaporta 1965). In a study of 572 Rough Collies
Donovan and Wyman (1965) found an incidence of 79.9% and in a later paper
this same group (Yakely et al 1968) diagnosed 87% CEA in over 900 dogs
examined. Donovan (1965) reported on the results of an examination of over
2500 Collies and considered over 90% to be affected. All these figures
relate to US dogs where, over the period concerned some 20-25000 Collies
were being registered annually with the AKC and the breed stood in the
first ten in popularity. By 1969 Donovan et al had examined over 7000 Rough
Collies and were still referring to an incidence in excess of 90%."

The argument is made that CERF data shows the incidence rate improving but
CERF data is only a small part of the universe. Those who are proud of
their dog's eyes get them CERFed. (FYI - You can have your dogs CERFed and
have the info in the CERF database without having CERF numbers for them).
But not all vet ophthalmologist automatically pull out the CERF form when
you ask for an eye exam. You will get the same exam but the data does not
go to CERF. If you want a CERF exam, you need to ask for a CERF exam.

So statistics are limited. If anyone has more current data or other books
on this area, I would love to hear more.

Dean Mair
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  "Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present."
      --- Albert Camus