Member Spotlight: Teri Turner

Getting to know long-time club member, volunteer and breeder Teri Turner.

When did you get your first spinone and what was his/her name? What has your subsequent history with Spinoni brought?

Around 1987 Risky Business Hanna came to live with us. Since then, we’ve had 13 total Spinoni, including imports from England, Canada, Scotland, and Italy and 6 home bred Spinoni.

Did you do show or hunting? What got you started?

Both. Getting a Spinone introduced me to the hunting aspect of the breed. Because this was as yet a non recognized breed I wanted to help bring the breed into the AKC. I had only dabbled in Obedience before, not conformation.

When did you first start breeding?

Some where around 1992 I think.

What should we practice as a methodology regarding health of Spinoni?
Do you consider anything other than our usual CHIC tests for investigation prior to breeding?

Since I’ve been breeding, we’ve done a pretty good job of checking for the usual with the CHIC tests. When my second Spinine was about two, the Cerebellar Ataxia (CA) issue first came about. She was from CA lines. Since there was no test at that time, we immediately had her spayed. We have come a long way with it, but we can’t just think it’s been taken care of so continued testing is important.

Also in the last four years, von Willebrands Disease Type 2 (vWD2) has shown up. Some of our dogs have had their Embark test come back as a vWD2 carrier - initially, we basically ignored it because the disease wasn’t really heard of in Spinoni yet. We now know that in fact it is in our Spinoni. I have had two affected and my understanding is that some of the dogs who have died after major surgeries from bleeding quite possibly could have been due to vWD2. It is a recessive gene much like CA and much like CA if we don’t begin testing for it before breeding, we could very easily have a similar situation as CA.

So, I would adamantly suggest testing for vWD2. Continue testing for CA at least every other generation. I would also like to see a bit more emphasis on testing for thyroid disease. I would be happy to talk to anyone interested in knowing more about these diseases and carrier testing.