Hope that you never have a litter with cleft palates. But if you do, this may explain the cause of at least some cases. Let’s start at the beginning, with a short review of the birds and the bees. The sperm cell, with half the chromosomes needed for a new pup …
[note: this first appeared as “Cryptorchidism in the German Shepherd Dog,” but is applicable to all breeds.] The most common congenital* anomaly of the scrotum and testicles is the apparent absence of one or both gonads. I use the word “apparent” because the missing testicle(s) usually are actually present inside the body cavity of the …
The following outline will hopefully make the protection phase for the Working Class dogs in the show more consistent and allow handlers to know exactly what is expected. Melanie Rupp and I have discussed this exercise at length. Thanks Melanie. We would like your input and ideas. Please feel free to contact Melanie or myself …
Unlike most dog events, working dog competitions are not so much a test of how well a dog can do a particular exercise, but a more fundamental examination of the dog’s temperament. Whether it is Schutzhund, Ring Sport, herding or service dog trials, the points may be determined by how well a dog does each …
New more invasive strains of streptococci have recently appeared, resulting in frightening new diseases in both humans and dogs. Both humans and dogs can develop streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, with the rapid development of symptoms of shock, high fever (104 to 107 degrees Fahrenheit), cough, abnormalities of coagulation and rapid death. In humans, the mortality …
Breeders often talk about inbreeding and outcrossing as though they were the only possibilities — and generally with negative comments about the latter. There are other possibilities, and I have long been a proponent of assortative mating. It is not a theoretical concept that doesn’t work in practice; I …
I recently led a tour of Europe for a small group of people from all over the U.S. and even one from Germany. The center of focus was the German Bundessiegerzuchtschau (“Bunde” can refer to a German club, you know that “Sieger” means “winner”, and “zucht” means breed or, in …
What is a Canine Breed? What is a breed? To put the question more precisely, what are the necessary conditions that enable us to say with conviction, “this group of animals constitutes a distinct breed?” In the cynological world, three separate approaches combine to constitute canine breeds. Dogs are distinguished first by ancestry, all of …
Continued from Page 1 Genetic Load The difference between the fittest genotype of a population and the average fitness of that population is known as genetic load. [Muller, 1950] It is, of course, caused by the presence of lethal, sublethal and subvital alleles. The more such alleles found in a population, the greater the …
Drawing from our backgrounds in competitive running and conditioning, we have developed a program for preparing dogs to pass the AD in excellent condition. Using this program, we have trained a number of dogs for the AD and all have easily passed. We believe a thorough conditioning program is the key to training a dog …