Eosinophilic granulome
(EOG) in pumi
Notice the red moisty wound in mouth. This dog has had more of these, you can see scars on both sides of the open wound. This dog (bitch) has these granulome spots mostly before and during the leap time. Wounds can come to mouth, lips, tongue, under the tongue. They can be so severe and painful that the dog needs medication (cortizone, vitamins etc) since it canīt eat or drink because of the wounds. Thereīs no permanent cure for this most likely somehow hereditary disease.
In some cases itīs the strong medication needed for the granulome that leads to the dogs death.
Youngest puppy who has got this desease was 7 months old. Oldest case I've heard of was 9 years of age when he got his first spots.
In mildest cases of EOG the owner won't even notice anything - scars come only to the mouth, and usually cure in few weeks to a month. In some cases, for reasons we don't know, dog's symproms are more severe - for example rashes, skin irritation, wounds get bigger, spread to tongue and they're not healing. In worst cases, the wounds are not healing even after medication and dog has difficulties to eat and drink. Skin symproms can be so bad dog is gnawing itself, or if rashes are in feet, walking may become painful.
Because of EOG's nature, it's difficult to spot from the dog if you don't happen to look into the mouth when the EOG is in active phase. Therefore, when people first started to ask around, no-one in the Native country, Hungary, had ever heard of the disease, and it was thought this is something that is only appearing in the isolated, inbreed population of Scandinavia. Later we have learned, that EOG is also in Hungarian lines. Few Hungarian imported dogs have found to get EOG symptoms. Also puppies of Hungarian imports seem to be not less likely to develope EOG symptoms in some point of their life. In mid 2004, the first case of EOG was noticed in Hungary. Sadly, the dog was exported from Finland. It's father was Hungarian.
At the moment, we're not sure what to call EOG. It's not a "disease", since it doesn't spread from dog to another. It's usually not even bothering the dog in any way. And yet there seems to be no connection between the dogs that get the most severe symptoms, so we're only guessing.
The dog in the picture was 4 years before the owner noticed the granulome, but the scars showed that the dog had suffered from this disease long time. Only way the EOG would've been noticed before was careful examining of the mouth once in a while through the dogs life.
At the moment, EOG is known among the Finnish and Swedish pumi population. The current stance seems to be, that it's OK to use dog for breeding as far as it's not suffering from severe EOG symptoms, and if you avoid putting together two EOG dogs. At the current, we don't have a way to detect the dogs that may later develope EOG symptoms from dogs who never will. Probably most pumis could in right circumstances have EOG spots in their mouth. By right circumstances I mean big enough stress.
So teach yourself to watch into the dogs mouth. Take care you open the mouth wide (as in the picture), pull the tongue out so you can check under it. Open the mouth regularry, and exspecially when the females have leap time or shortly after it - the stress is a trigger that makes the spots to come up. It works as well with the females as it does for males - a seven month old male puppy had heīs first spots when the bitches started leaping. Also giving birth is big stress for a dog, after bitch starts lactating it may have spots in it's mouth. Dogs witch have for example allergies and skin problems may have a bigger risk to also have granulome, so pay extra attention to them.
Look into the throat! - and if you notice something, take the dog to vet for further examination. When you know if your dog has EOG, you can see the situation for awhile, see if dog needs medication (vitamins, homeopathic treatments) or if condition will pass just like that. And if you will breed the dog or not.
photo used with permission of the photographer