Diseases with relevance to protection of animals using examples of the musculoskeletal system of dogs.

Protection of animals needs major concern in breeding programmes especially if inherited diseases occur which cause pain, suffering and/or damages for the animals. Dogs breeders and people keeping dogs as well as veterinarian s should be informed about the etiology on sequels of diseases which cause pain to the animals and from which the animals have to be protected in orde r to make them more conscious on theses problems and to achieve changes in dog breeding programmes. The information system,,Inherited Diseases of the Musculoskeletal System of Dogs" should display the already published knowle dge about etiology, pathogenesis, appearance, therapy and genetics of these diseases. This information system was built up in such a way that it can b e used by students as a learning programme to understand the basic relation ships among animal protection, diseases, and dog breeding. The user is also supplied with support for breeding decisions as well as for interpretation of breeding values and genotype probabilities. Additionally, information c an be obtained on all in the German Association for Dog Breeding (VDH) repr esented breeds and breeding clubs. Actions to reduce genetically caused dis eases required for members of dog breeding clubs are also available. The in formation system ist programmed by using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). Publication is possible on CD-ROM and on Internet. The supplied hyperlinks allow to make use of other publications on the world wide web related to d og and diseases of dogs.