Dog Cleft Pallet

Dog Cleft Pallet

Other defects appear to be inherited, such as hare lips and cleft palates; but a bitch fed a borderline vitamin-A-deficient diet will produce one or more such puppies and, if fed a diet with little or no vitamin A, most, if not all, will be so afflicted. Veterinarians often have to treat dogs, cats, and other animal species having cleft pallets. The cleft pallet is a birth defect and if puppies are not taken proper care may die of starvation as they cannot suck their mother’s milk. Being a responsible dog owner if you find your pup to be having a cleft pallet and it is quite impossible for you to arrange for a feeding aid like tube feeding or bottle feeding you are recommended to take your dog to a vet clinic where it would be humanely put to sleep forever.

Dog Cleft Pallet Information

• The exact rate of pups being born with cleft palates is not properly determined as the puppies with cleft lips either die within a few days or are euthanized by the dog breeders.
• The cleft defects can be congenital or birth defects. Clefts can occur in the hard upper roof of the mouth or in the soft pallet that lies towards the back part of the mouth separating the oropharynx from the nasopharynx. Sometimes both the cleft and the hard pallet can have clefts in them.
• The abnormal cleft pallets occur during the process of fusion of the maxillary process with the medial nasal process and when the mesodermal fusions occur in the fused epithelial surfaces. If the epithelial line is not able to degenerate or the deficiency of the mesodermal connective tissue result in the formation of a cleft palate.
• The mechanism of the genetic cause of clefts is not yet been determined. The genetic dog cleft pallet abnormality is due to multifactorial recessive, polygenic, and dominant partial penetration.
• Excess intake of vitamin A results in the formation of cleft pallets. Studies have shown if an extra amount of vitamin A is given to a bitch during the 17 to 22 days of the gestation period puppies with cleft pallets have been born. Vitamin A has a controlling influence over the osteoblasts and osteoclasts of the epithelial cartilage.
• If the pregnant bitch is given to consume cortisone the fetus may develop a cleft pallet.
• The cleft pallets can also occur due to the high dosage intake of the cytotoxic drug hydroxyurea or hydroxycarbamide
• A fall from a height or road accident may often result in dog cleft pallet.
• Some breeds of dogs are quite prone to the development of cleft pallets. The dogs belonging to the Brachycephalic breeds are 30% more prone to develop cleft dogs than other breeds. The dogs of breeds German Shepherds are least attacked by such abnormality.

The affected dogs when fed the fluids especially milk comes out from their nose. The dogs are also seen to be sneezing, coughing, snuffing, improper weight gain, and retarded growth. The dogs with cleft pallets also suffer from pneumonia or the incidence of asphyxiation due to food.

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