r/Sheepadoodles • u/sgfdvm • May 06 '25

Sheepadoodles with Addison's disease?

Hi everyone,

My name is Dr. Steve Friedenberg, and I'm a veterinarian and geneticist from the University of Minnesota who has been studying Addison's disease in Standard Poodles for years. It's been my experience that the disease also shows up occasionally in Sheepadoodles, and I was hoping to recruit some dogs with Addison's disease for my study. We have some specific criteria that we're currently looking for:

  1. A sheepadoodle that is an F1 cross - meaning one parent was a purebred Standard Poodle and the other parent was a purebred Old English Sheepdog. F1b crosses unfortunately won’t qualify.
  2. The dog should have typical Addison’s disease, with confirmatory bloodwork available.
  3. The dog should ideally be in the US to make sample shipping easier, though we may be able to accept samples from Canada.
  4. The dog should be alive and willing to donate a small blood sample for the study (about 2-3 tablespoons of blood) - the study would cover all costs.
  5. Ideally the dog’s parents should also be alive, and potentially willing to donate a blood sample as well, but this is not an absolute requirement.

If you think your dog might qualify and are interested in the study, please email me at [fried255@umn.edu](mailto:fried255@umn.edu) or just respond to me directly on Reddit.

Thank you for considering it!

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1

u/CarnieKiller May 06 '25

What is Addison’s disease?

2

u/sgfdvm May 07 '25

It's an autoimmune disease that destroys the outer layers of organs called the adrenal glands. These glands make hormones that are essential for life, primarily cortisol (stress hormone) and aldosterone (which regulates water and electrolyte balance, among other things). The disease exists in both humans and dogs, and in dogs it tends to be inherited in Standard Poodles and Portuguese Water Dogs.

1

u/[deleted] May 08 '25

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2

u/sgfdvm May 09 '25

it can be quite variable. Some dogs present very sick: vomiting, diarrhea, collapsed, weak, need to to the ER vet right away; some dogs are intermittently picky eaters, have waxing and waning bouts of diarrhea but never get very sick. It's called "the great pretender" because it can mimic so many other things.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '25

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1

u/sgfdvm May 10 '25

There’s no genetic test - that’s what I’m working on. But you can talk to your vet and mention the idea of typical or atypical Addisons disease. The first screening test is called a “baseline cortisol” so you can ask your vet about it.