Recommendations Regarding Health Care
The American Belgian Tervuren Club, Inc. recommends that in addition to the normal and ordinary veterinary care given to your Belgian Tervuren, the following veterinary services be obtained on each Tervuren:
- That each Belgian Tervuren, regardless of its breeding status, have a hip x-ray and elbow x-ray done at two years of age and the x-rays be sent for certification/registration to the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals.
- That each year, regardless of age and breeding status, a veterinary ophthalmologist examine the eyes of your Belgian Tervuren and submit the results of the examination of the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals Companion Animal Eye Registry (CAER)
For more information, go to the OFA website www.ofa.org. Download the necessary forms and instructions at www.ofa.org/application-forms
2020 Belgian Tervuren Health Study
Hosted by the OFA, this study was designed by the ABTC Health Education Committee to help identiy significant health concerns and collect general information in the Belgian Tervuren breed. All owners are asked to fill out this survey for each Tervuren you have owned since 2014. Go to https://www.ofa.org/about/educational-resources/health-surveys then scroll to “Belgian Tervuren 2020” and click on that link to participate in the survey.
Stomach Cancer Study
If you or your club would like to make a monetary donation to the study, you can do so by sending a check with a brief note indicating you would like the funds to support the gastric cancer research. Checks should be made out to:
Baker Institute for Animal Health. Please include “Evans/gastric cancer research” in the memo line.
Mail checks to the following address:
Cornell University
Baker Institute for Animal Health
PO Box 37334
Boone, IA 50037-4334
Donors can include a note if they wish to remain anonymous from any public communications that would highlight their giving.
December 2021…..Dr. Jacquelyn Evans has accepted a faculty position at Cornell University and will continue to lead the Belgian Gastric Cancer from that institution with the international collaborators at NIH (Dr. Elaine Ostrander), UC Davis (Dr. Anita Oberbauer), and Utrecht (Drs. Peter Leegwater and Paul Mandigers). Blood and tissue samples should now be sent to
Dr. Jacquelyn Evans
Baker Institute for Animal Health
235 Hungerford Hill Rd
Ithaca, NY 14853
Owners writing about sample submission should use this email address: caninegenetics.evanslab@gmail.com
Dr. Elaine Ostrander at the National Human Genome Research Institute Dog Genome Project has taken on the study to determine the cause of stomach cancer in breeds that have an increased risk. The study was initiated by Dr. Elizabeth McNiel who has turned over the study to Dr. Ostrander.
We are interested in collecting blood samples and pedigrees from Belgian Tervuren who have stomach cancer or who have no signs of stomach cancer and are at least 8 years old. Although special tubes obtained from the Ostrander lab are preferred for submission of blood, EDTA tubes can also be used. Please follow the remainder of the Instructions for Sending Blood Samples to the Ostrander Lab for submission of blood in EDTA tubes. Also, please complete the Consent for Blood Sample Donation form and send it with the samples.”
Contact the Ostrander Lab for more information:
NHGRI/NIH
Phone: (301) 451-9390
Fax: (301) 594-0023
Email: dog_genome@mail.nih.gov
Stomach Cancer Project Blood Draw Instructions
Consent for Blood Sample Donation form
In addition to blood samples, tissue samples of the cancer are also valuable. The samples would need to be fresh frozen and sent to the Ostrander lab or placed immediately in RNAlater—a solution that the Ostrander lab can provide—and then shipped to the lab. Please contact the Ostrander lab directly if you think that you could provide a tissue sample.
Epilepsy
The epilepsy study is current and ongoing.