A 6-month-old Irish Setter with a history of recurrent infections and elevated WBC count likely suffers from which condition?

The condition that is most consistent with the symptoms presented—a 6-month-old Irish Setter experiencing recurrent infections and an elevated white blood cell (WBC) count—is Canine leukocyte adhesion deficiency (CD18).

In this disorder, dogs have a defect in the expression of the CD18 molecule on leukocytes, which is essential for leukocyte adhesion and migration to sites of infection. As a result, affected dogs struggle to mount an effective inflammatory response. They often present with recurrent infections because their immune cells cannot travel to areas of infection or inflammation properly. The elevated WBC count is typically seen as the body attempts to combat these repeated infections, but it is not effective due to the impaired functionality of the leukocytes themselves.

Other conditions like bone marrow suppression, canine parvovirus infection, or septicemia may lead to an elevation of WBCs or recurrent infections, but they do not explain the specific adhesion defect seen in this case. In bone marrow suppression, for instance, you would expect decreased production of various blood cells, and in canine parvovirus infection, young animals typically show a low white blood cell count as a result of bone marrow depletion. Septicemia could cause elevated WBC counts, but it does not inherently explain the recurrent