 Welcome to Pure Dog Talk, I am your host Laura Reeves and I say this all the time you guys, but I really am super excited about this conversation. We as purebred dog enthusiasts encounter a lot of pushback from the world and particularly those of us who have brachycephalic breeds run into this a lot. And so I have with us today Eddie Zook, who's the OFA cheerleader for the Boaz project that we're going to talk about. And I also have Dr. Kathleen Smiler, who's the representative from the Pug Dog Club of America. And we are going to talk about the brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome testing process that was developed at the University of Cambridge in England. And I just think this is such an amazing project so thank you guys for coming and talking to us about this. Thank you Laura. Excellent. So Eddie, I'm going to start with you because I know you have been the moving force behind, is it licensing? Is that what you did? The OFA has licensed this program, is that correct? That is correct. So talk to us about how you did that and why you did that because I feel like this is an important part of that story. So the OFA has been interested in working with the issues that surround Boaz and of course Boaz stands for the brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome. And we've been interested in working with this particular disease entity and assisting brachycephalic breeders in not only producing and breeding healthier dogs, but also trying to combat and present sort of a positive PR narrative against all the pushback that these breeds are getting that they're all unhealthy and none of them can breathe and so forth. And unquestionably there are definitely health issues in these breeds, but to suggest that all of them have breathing difficulties and all of them are unhealthy is simply not the case. So we've been looking at various different tools. What could we do to assist these breeders? So several years ago, we developed within the OFA a new database for tracheal hypoplasia. That's been implemented. That's utilized pretty widely by lots of bulldog breeders, lots of Frenchie breeders, some Boston Terrier breeders, etc. We looked for a while at trying to develop a way of seeing if we could have like a nary's database and try and evaluate whether the dogs had nice wide open nostrils or whether there was any stenosis. We had a difficult time in trying to develop any consistency in the measuring. So we sort of, you know, we had a lot of false darts and fails in that so that that kind of got sidelined. But the whole time we were aware of the efforts that were going on in the UK, specifically at the University of Cambridge, and one of the researchers there by the name of Dr. Jane Ladlow. And Dr. Ladlow worked through this issue for quite a bit of time, and the result of her efforts was what they called the respiratory function grading scheme. Right. So they had that implemented in the UK. And it was just starting to get rolling right at the the advent when when COVID hit, and we entered into into some discussions with Dr. Ladlow figuring it didn't make sense, you know, we were doing a lot of things that we were trying to do. But we weren't running into a lot of success with the exception of the tracheal hyper hyperplasia database, which is based upon a radiograph by the way. And so in our discussions with her we decided it didn't really make sense for us to reinvent the wheel. We put so much work into this and they developed this this exam protocol. And it seems like this would be something that would fit quite nicely here in North America as well. So in those early discussions we we thought we're going to get rolling and then, you know, COVID hit and that's what a sidelined everything. The Kennel Club in UK had a practice with Valic health conference scheduled, I believe that was an early 2020, then that got postponed it got rescheduled then canceled. And so again just you know the bottom line is all all this the progress got derailed for quite some time. But about a year and a half ago we were able to resurrect this. And we identified two veterinarians here in the US that we're going to be our point, our subject matter experts, and our primary point of contact to work with Dr. Now over in the UK, in order to be one of the approved examiners they have to specifically go through training by the folks at the University of Cambridge, and again because of some residual COVID issues and so forth. We knew that and because of cost as well we knew that it probably wasn't going to be terribly effective for us to send to sponsor a whole bunch of vets to go travel over to Cambridge and undergo this testing. So we did identify two veterinarians and they became our subject matter experts and primary points of contact, and they work directly with Dr. Lattlow through a long series of discussions through some video training, etc. And they became our initial approved examiners. So again you've got an exam protocol and a grading scheme already developed and in the implementation process in the UK. So we wanted to take full advantage of that. The University of Cambridge in turn was working with the Kennel Club and whenever I say the Kennel Club I'm referring to not our AKC here, but the Kennel Club is how the Brits refer to their Kennel Club over in the UK. So the Kennel Club widely also embraced this and began to roll it out. And they developed a licensing program because what they basically figured is there are going to be lots of countries besides just the United States interested in using the same exam protocol. And so they developed a licensing program where they could allow other countries to use the same grading scheme. The real, you know, the guts of that license is not that we have to pay any kind of a license fee, or that we're bound by any kind of intellectual property issues. It's more along the lines of that we agree to use the same exam protocol, the same grading matrix. And more importantly, we agreed to share all these results with this international group of collaborators and share all those results into a centralized database. So that, you know, more research can be made and more effective breeding decisions can be done. So while we here in the US in Canada will be connected collecting all this information and including it in the OFA database will also be feeding it back to the University of Cambridge and the Kennel Club, who will also be collecting results from the UK. And from all the other countries in the United Kingdom, but as well as all the countries in mainland Europe who are also participating in the licensing program. I just, I just think this is so important. And Kathleen, I'd really love to have you speak a little bit from from the pug dog club of America, in terms of why and how you became involved. I know also the French Bulldog Club of America and the Bulldog Club of America, right, are all participating in this venture here in the US. In my capacity on the health committee of the club, I try to monitor pug, pug health all over the world and keep track of testing other countries and so I interacted with the British people for a while. And so we were well aware of what was what was starting with those tests. And actually the show pugs were doing quite well, you know, I believe the only ones to take the test. And so then I wrote Eddie and I said, boy, could we do this here and he said, well, we're going to. So that's. And the more we told our club members about it the more excited they got, because the three main problems for pubs are PDE and Boas, and the publicity. So, the club was very anxious that we participate. And just to be able to have a good handle on it. I, I went to the two early meetings in St. Louis and then to Portland. Try to help. I love that. Yeah, I want to jump into it to what Dr. Smiler said and again while the OFA basically had all this on our radar and we were considering all this. We were really pushed forward in the effort in terms of prioritizing a little, a little more by those three parent clubs, all three parent clubs directly contacted the OFA. The Bulldog Club of America, the French Bulldog Club of America and the Pug Dog Club of America, all three contacted us and asked us to proactively pursue the implementation of this program here in North America. And whenever I say sort of US, I need to always, I need to mention and be clear. Sometimes I use the US and North America interchangeably. That's kind of important and it's, if I make a mistake on my part, I always mean to say North America because the Canadians have been very involved in where the Canadian Kennel Club has been very involved in this effort and so basically this is a joint thing. All the efforts that we're doing are for US dog owners as well as Canadian. And, and so, I think the outreach, the AVMA has has a post about this. I mean, how exciting is that right that we can bring positive brachycephalic news from the AVMA, the American Veterinary Medical Association is saying nice things about brachycephalic dogs. I love this. This makes me happy. Eddie and Kathleen, what do you guys jump in? How, how are we doing the training with the veterinarians? I understand this is very much a hands on and you mentioned Eddie that we started, you started working with Dr. Ludlow. How are the training processes going here in the US and North America? Yeah, so I'll share a little bit about that because that is important because out of the starting gate, there's nothing that that's that that specific or requires in depth training where so essentially any vet should be able to conduct these exams. However, we're very focused on trying to limit it and the thought process behind that is that we want to make sure that there is solid consistency and reliability of intra and inter veterinarian. So I want to be pretty comfortable and assured that if a veterinarian in Florida examines a particular dog on a day and gives it a grade zero or grade one, we want to feel assured that if that same dog traveled and had an exam done by a different examiner in Washington State as far away as you could get that that examiner in Washington State would also sign the same grade. And in order to do that, we wanted to make sure that these vets underwent some level of training to ensure that they fully understood that exam protocol, the background on how that protocol was developed, as well as the grading matrix. So we started out with those two initial veterinarians that we had identified that are each veterinary surgeons and that had a specific interest in respiratory issues and in soft tissue surgery with regards to correcting respiratory issues. So those two vets were Dr. Kathleen Ham at the University of Florida, and Dr. Kelly Thymann at Texas A&M. They worked closely with Dr. Ladlow at the University of Cambridge. And to the point where Dr. Ladlow felt more than assured that these two vets would be qualified to lead the effort here in the US. What we're doing going forward is sort of a pyramid scheme, if you will. So we had those initial vets that got approved really by Dr. Ladlow. So the OFA didn't make that initial assessment that was done by Cambridge. So we started out with those two and we went through two pilot events last year. And at those two pilot events, we had two additional veterinarians that attended and participated and under the guidance and basically shadowing under Dr. Ham and Thymann, they then became approved examiners. So we went into this Portland event, which was our first official screening event with four approved examiners. And two additional veterinarians that we trained were Dr. Elizabeth Rizanski from Tufts, and Dr. Kari Stefaniak, who was an emergency practitioner in Wisconsin. And so we attended that Portland event specifically with all four of our approved veterinarians, as well as we then invited three additional veterinarians to shadow and mentor under those four, and leave that event as trained examiners. So after Portland, we added Dr. Lanell Johnson, who's on faculty at UC Davis, and again has a very specific interest in respiratory issues. We added Dr. Allison Collier from the Ontario Veterinary College in both Canada. And she's sort of taking the lead working directly with the Canadian Kennel Club on the further rollout of the program north of the border. And finally, we have Dr. Alan Frank, who's a practitioner in Maryland, but that has owned Bulldogs, has shown Bulldogs, is a member of the Bulldog Club of America. And we'll be sort of taking a lead in sort of that mid-Atlantic region. So we now have seven approved examiners, and we intend to slowly add more and increase that pool. But we always want to maintain some level of control and keep it fairly small so that we can ensure that they can be in regular contact with each other, and that they can have a true sort of peer collegial relationship as this program rolls out a little further. Again, so that we can maintain consistency, and that as issues arise, that they can discuss them and learn from each other. So we left those two initial pilot events last year, feeling pretty secure about things, but there's no question that things with more dogs. We had a lot more dogs to work with in Portland, that there was some learning experiences that happened out of that. And we want to make sure that it's a group that's small enough that where they all know each other and have a good working relationship that as additional learning curves come to light that they can all benefit from that. Well, and Kathleen talk about, I mean, this is designed to be an objective test, but human, right, people. So talk to us about what your observations having now attended these two different three different events about how you felt that went for the dogs and for the veterinarians that were working. As far as consistency, or just the experience. The whole thing. I think the veterinarians were extremely enthusiastic cat ham and I are good friends, she's my own dogs doctor. And they were patient, they were excited, they had put together a lot of software for the recording on their own, I think. And so, and they interacted beautifully and there were never any serious disputes. And I think the, the participants were quite pleased to, you know, I told you the first one was in that snowstorm. Right. And it, we saw the consistency that as Eddie said there's a couple parts of this that a consistent person has to do them. I think I went and sat in a meet the breeds box with the pub people after the important and everybody was quite satisfied and they were getting their scores and they were coming back and waving their papers and stuff. So it was, they were very enthusiastic, you know, about having taken the test and passed it. And XOR not cast it. There were a few that didn't, but no one really complained. And then something like, like a lady wanted to be in the exam room and another lady didn't, but, but I think our club in general was very satisfied when we've done a lot of publicity to our own members, encouraging them to do this and our Facebook page there's been something from this put out something almost every week. And so they had more than enough information to be encouraged to come. Good. And, and they felt like the, the test was, they were comfortable with the tests results and how it was conducted. So that made them encourage more people. Right. I'd say across the board, the pub people. Excellent. Okay. So the big reveal now, Eddie, do we have numbers? How did, how did that go in Portland? Can we talk about that? Is that still secret? It's not secret at all. So we, we, we examined somewhere. Let's see. I think we did a, yeah, looking at those Portland totals, we examined 54 dogs. We actually did 60, but we had a couple breeds that that weren't on the like official pre-participant list yet. Okay. So we had 54 between Bulldogs, Frenchies and Pugs. And we also had a couple of Boston's and Peaks. And because there are also brackets, ballot breeds, we wanted to go ahead and do those because the owners volunteered. And we felt that that would give us sort of a baseline going forward, because the intent would be at some point in time in the future to add additional brackets to palate breeds as appropriate. So out of those 54 dogs that we did, we had overwhelmingly pretty good results. So we had 10 grade one grade zeros. So the grade zeros are basically everything was good. These dogs are good breathers. They have nice wide open nostrils. There were no, no, no sounds of turbulence or anything during the auscultation so everything was looking pretty good. We had 18 grade ones, which is also good means that in general, nothing could be heard without a stethoscope. And you could only hear some minor issues with the stethoscope, but the dogs are basically still found to be cynically unaffected by Boaz. We did have 25 grade twos and we had one lone grade three. That's actually really good. I mean, that's, that's great. Yeah. And I think that goes to prove the point. Part of this is about that PR narrative that not all bulldogs suffer breathing difficulties, not all Frenchies suffer breathing difficulties and not all pugs do either that there's a that there's a large pool in all three of those breeds where there are good healthy bulldogs that breathe fine that don't show signs of exercise and tolerance. And we can work with those dogs and breed them and hopefully breed lots of future generations of good healthy Frenchies pugs and bulldogs. Right. So, again, and Kathleen I'll send this to you. The goals for the club is to not just show that PDCA members dogs are healthy, right, but to help make more healthy dogs. Am I right? Well, right. And if we're, they were talking about scheduling the test at the national specialty for the three breeds, and the public people are set up to do it in October. And I don't know if you're going to do any more all breeds, because that was kind of successful, you know, to get the three breakey breeds in. Actually, you get more for your bang for your buck. I mean, if you don't mind, Laura, I think I want to do two things. I want to do a real quick description of what what this exam tails because we haven't really discussed that I was just headed that direction. And then we'll also jump in and talk about future clinics and what are sort of where we're thinking in terms of where this is going to go. So in terms of the exam itself it's it's completely non invasive, and it should be a non stressful experience for the dog. So the first step is basically just a short health survey that the owner is going to do regarding the dog's breathing history. Are there any negative things that have been observed? Does the dog snore? Does it make sounds? Does it have regurgitation issues after it eats and so forth. Just some a little bit of history for for the veterinarians before they actually begin the exam process. Then the dog will have a brief physical exam and the dog should be nice and calm. It should be in an area where the veterinarians are going to be able to hear clearly because the exam is going to be based upon auscultation. All right, so the examiner is going to take a step the scope and they're going to position it gently on the side of the neck over the larynx and listen for any sounds and this is going to establish a baseline. All right, that they can then compare to the post exercise auscultation. So following that baseline exam and they'll they'll make certain assessments after that. There's going to be a short exercise test that sounds a little daunting, but it shouldn't be anything that bad. So it's a short exercise test and that consists of what we call a brisk three minute walk. It's timed and the test is the exercise test is designed to expose any kind of clinical signs of the disease in an otherwise calm or asymptomatic dog. We are not there to stress the dog out to the point we're assessing cardiovascular fitness or anything like that. It's really to get that respiratory system up and working. Okay, so the brisk three minute walk it's timed. And we do have a goal where that dog should hopefully be walking approximately three to four miles per hour so that's about 1515 mile, 50 minute mile or 20 minute mile right. So it's not like a casual right walk in the park, but a brisk walk right. The speed that those dogs would go around the ring. Realistic. Pretty close. I mean, we don't really usually, I think you would think of it as a little maybe fast for a bulldog in the ring. Okay, but we certainly do see Frenchies trucking around the ring at this pace, and definitely pugs. I mean, we saw lots of pugs that just get up and go. Trust me, I showed a lot of them when they want to. Yeah, that that speeds not daunting for them at all. And then, after the exercise immediately afterwards we're going to repeat the auscultation so they come back into the exam area. Same exact process. There's a lot of stuff that's got placed over the larynx on the side of the neck, and listen for sounds listen for turbulence isn't for sturdiness of strider noises, if there are any, and then based upon that auscultation. That is the, the one that's going to lead to the actual grade. And there's, even though there are some thoughts that this is sort of subjective, it's really not that subjective I mean post exercise, you're going to do the auscultation, and you're going to either Well, you're not going to hear things right and and then based upon that there's a very specific matrix that if this than that right so if you are not hearing things that it's going to be probably a zero. If you're hearing some minor things and it's probably going to be in that one range. And if you're hearing specific types of sounds that are very audible in the stethoscope. And even without the stethoscope, then that's probably going to grade as a two or three. So that's the exam process again it should be non stressful on the dog it's not invasive. If the dog does begin to show any kind of signs of exercise and tolerance, heat intolerance, any kind of stress at all, we're ready to just shut it down. The last thing that we want to do is have a bad experience for the dog. I did mention heat intolerance so it's also very important to point out that these these exams have to be done indoors in a climate controlled environment. We did do one of the pilots last year outdoors but it was a really risk day in the, you know, in the 50s so none of the dogs were were were stressed by the heat in any way. But in terms of going forward where we do intend to sort of make that sort of an exam requirement that it is done indoors in a climate controlled environment. Just so that the, you know, there's probably some outdoor environments that would be fine but we don't want to give those owners a reason to complain if it didn't go their way. Right. Everything level everything level playing so it is going to be required that they are indoors in a climate controlled environment. So this topic that we're going to touch on that Dr. Smiley mentioned and then you you were leading into is the thought process on on future clinics. Yes. So we feel that these are probably going to go a couple different ways. There's going to be a point in time where the OFA is going to have to step aside and we're not going to get in the business of scheduling these and sponsoring them and administering them, you know, indefinitely all over the country. So I feel that we're probably going to do probably two or three more of these this year, and try and have them in geographically dispersed areas so that we can get people from different parts of the country able to participate. And we will use those opportunities to hopefully train a few more approved assessors. And we will do those using obviously the seven approved examiners that we have to date. So that's one flavor of exam that will probably happen. Again, we like to target maybe three of those this year, happening at all breed events where there is whether it's indoors climate controlled in an area where we would have large entries of all three breeds to draw from. And probably in an area that's in close proximity to one of our existing examiners to help facilitate their ability to schedule and attend. Sure. The second flavor is going to be real quick at ease. So are you going to keep up. I love this pyramid concept of training the vets. Are you going to keep trying to do that this year as you're scheduling these around. Yeah, so it's a very slow rollout. So all three of those events if we can get them scheduled the ones I sort of alluded to just now, the intent would be at all three of those to try and get at least one new examiner trained at all three of those or for those however many we do, knowing one of our primary that initial core group that one of those four would be there to conduct the training because what we don't want to do as we work our way down this pyramid is we want to keep the training component up at that top level of those those four, those four guys officially. So we don't want to go like three levels down and have the level three guys be training level four is level four is trained level five and build it that way we want to keep more consistency by having that initial core group to the training. So we're looking at hopefully three or four more all breed events this year, where we can draw upon all three breeds, then the next flavor of clinic that would happen is at all three of those breeds national specialty events. So the bulldog club, the pug dog club and the French bulldog club, all three have expressed an interest in having one of these clinics available at their specialties this fall. We've identified what the dates are we've identified publications are, and I feel 95% confident that we will be able to work with those three national specialties and making sure that we've got at least one day of clinics available at their events. So between the seven examiners that we have that are approved now, all of them have expressed agreement that it's important to attend the national specialties, and between of the seven of them, I'm pretty sure that will be able to make sure that we can find somebody that can work it into their, their calendar and their schedule. And then finally what we will do is basically, we don't have it quite ready but we will present basically a guideline document that we would give to all three parent clubs that they can filter into their regional specialty clubs for any of those clubs that are interested in hosting one of these events. So, we want to get to the point where the individual specialty clubs all around the country are going to become the primary sources of these clinics. So, you know, let's say hypothetically I don't know if there is one but the pug dog club in St. Louis, they're holding their specialty event they want to hold one of these clinics, we will assist them in the administrative work will assist them in finding one of the approved veterinarians that can work, but that'll be basically their event, their function their clinic, much like any Aubrey club or specialty club routinely at dog shows all around the country every weekend is hosting I exam clinics cardiac clinics etc. So we would want to make this basically get to the point where it becomes almost a norm for many of these Brackus, Alec breeds if they're having a health testing clinic to offer this is one of the options that are available. Excellent. And Kathleen we touched on this a little bit earlier, but speak to the pug dog club of America as the representative of who's on the call here today, your goals going forward for the breed and for this testing system. Well we're certainly very sensitive to the criticism that's been directed toward breaking symbolic breeds. I think we're fortunate we're in the US where it isn't a regulated activity, nor has the veterinary Association attacked, you know, the breeds as they did in Europe. We're going to make this information available to our members and highly encourage them. I wrote a couple articles already. I'd like to interview a couple of the people whose dogs were tested, you know, kind of a testimonial to encourage people that it was, was not a problem. And then eventually for our puppy buyers, you know, I'd love to educate the puppy buyers on what to ask her. And then if they get results from the breeder, take the results to the veterinarian their veterinarian and discuss them. And if the veterinarian is not familiar with the testing of purebred dogs, he should do a little homework. So I think it'll be very positive. Excellent. And hopefully we'll breed healthier pugs. Well, and I think that more than anything else that we have reasonably healthy pugs from what the system is showing us already. And we can get a notch higher and we can reach out to in all three of these breeds and hopefully all of the broccoli cephalic freeze would be my joy that we could reach beyond our club members, right, and get out to people who are breeding at not quite as high level, and be able to to bring up, right, the quality of puppies that are produced by kennels that never intend to show their dogs. And if we can reach to them. And this is partially the public being aware, you know, of what a good puppy is. I think that would be really important. Excellent. Excellent. Eddie, what what in closing as we're as we're finishing up here. Talk to us a little bit you mentioned just briefly earlier, peaks and Boston's and some of the other broccoli cephalic breeds that we could extend this to right that it starts with the core of the French bulldogs and the and the pugs and the bulldogs. And do you see that in like a five year span is that kind of where you're looking at that. Yeah, so you need to remember that we that we're licensing this so this is a this is a worldwide effort, not just us independently so it's not like the OFA can just unilaterally make the decision or just going to include Boston's in our in our program here. And so the part of the rationale for including those Boston's and those peaks at the at the Portland event is so that we could have some baseline data to share back with the University of Cambridge. And as they begin to work with Boston pairs and Pekines and draw additional data from all over the world and the participating countries. To make the assessment, are there any things that make these breeds, a little bit unique in in the issues that we're hearing in their in their breathing, or make them unique in their, their confirmation, which means that we should assess them slightly differently. So the starting position is okay here's here's basically in all these breeds what we're looking for, but it's fair to treat them. And that's why we wanted to include the boss in the peaks but we didn't. And we did assign them a grade, but that grade was assigned based upon the existing matrix. And as additional data is collected that would allow Cambridge to determine, are there any things that make these dogs outliers that they should be treated or examine somewhat differently. You know, it wouldn't be fair for me to comment is that is that a three year goal of five years, etc. That will be a Cambridge goal, depending upon the amount of data that they're able to collect. Excellent. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. They've started some genetics work by sponsored by the Kennel Club in England, which will be interesting and there's she's trying to separate the breeds a bit and in what anatomically is the cause of the brachycephalic obstruction. And then, in some cases, two dogs will look exactly alike and one is brachycephalic and the other isn't. And they're trying, you know, to evaluate what part of the dog needs to be hopefully modified in future. You know, fascinating, fascinating and Eddie thank you for the clarification I did not understand that it was from the from the Kennel Club from the UK. There's a Cambridge people that it was narrow to just these three breeds and not the entire galaxy of brachycephalic breeds. So that is super interesting information. Yeah, and that you know that's based upon all their early research that they were able to do and you know I don't know I'll be honest with you I don't know some of the terminology of some of this very specific equipment but Dr. And in Cambridge they actually developed another tool, which would probably be a little more specific in its findings but it involved basically a controlled chamber, you know, air control chamber where the dog was placed in. I remember reading something about that. And of course that would not be very economically efficient tool to try and roll out universally all over the world to do these dogs. So what they did is they use those baseline scores, and then did develop this exam protocol, and they were paired on all the all the same dogs in both so that they were then able to have sort of a matrix that if the dog scored this way in the chamber, and after exercise you heard the following things. This is how they match up and that's again one of the things that adds to the objectivity right of this particular exam protocol right is tied back to the chamber data. And that is super fascinating. All right, well, thank you both so incredibly much. I am have been following this with absolute fascination and really wanted to make it to Portland and by the time I had a chance I couldn't get there so I do have missed it, but I am thrilled to hear that it is going to continue through the course of the year. And listeners, find him find one get your dogs get this let's get some let's get some dogs in this program. I think this is amazing. So, thank you both very very much. All right, thanks for having slow.