# BEWARE...



## MEGAR (Jun 30, 2021)

Hello All !
I bought a shepherd about 14 years ago . I adored my shepherd . He was an Awesome dog with a great personality. At four years of age he developed hip dysplasia. Moderate on one side , mild on the other . I had no choice but to have the moderate side fixed. It was over 6,000 dollars . It was a horrific surgery as well . My shepherd also developed pannus in his eyes at 7 . He passed at the age of 12 . I miss him every single day . It was absolutely heartbreaking to have to go through the surgery and it affected him for the rest of his life.
INSIST ON SEEING BOTH PARENTS OFA HIP CERTIFICATIONS . If a breeder can’t produce it look elsewhere.


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## Dunkirk (May 7, 2015)

Genetics are a lottery, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. My dog had surgery for elbow dysplasia, both parents were clear. My dog's breeder had never had it in a litter before, she (obviously) hadn't bred for it, and we became good friends as she supported me through his surgery recovery. 12 years is a good age to reach for a german shepherd, I know how you feel, I'm sorry for your loss.


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## K9WolfAlpha (Aug 9, 2020)

MEGAR said:


> Hello All !
> I bought a shepherd about 14 years ago . I adored my shepherd . He was an Awesome dog with a great personality. At four years of age he developed hip dysplasia. Moderate on one side , mild on the other . I had no choice but to have the moderate side fixed. It was over 6,000 dollars . It was a horrific surgery as well . I fell for this breeders BS! My shepherd also developed pannus in his eyes at 7 . He passed at the age of 12 . I miss him every single day . It was absolutely heartbreaking to have to go through the surgery and it affected him for the rest of his life.
> INSIST ON SEEING BOTH PARENTS OFA HIP CERTIFICATIONS . If a breeder can’t produce it look elsewhere. This breeder also goes by {removed}


 When you're considering a pup from a reputable breeder you need to ask what grade their male/female had from their hip xrays. . One shouldn't judge a puppy's joints by seeing the parents. You need to see the test results.


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## Sunflowers (Feb 17, 2012)

When you say you had no choice, can you describe the symptoms?


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## Galathiel (Nov 30, 2012)

My dog has HD in one hip and DJD in one elbow. His sire was OFA Good ... his dam was OFA excellent _shrug_


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## Bearshandler (Aug 29, 2019)

It’s always a gamble with hips and elbows. What you do is hedge your bets by choosing healthier lines and health tested parents, etc. You can still come up bust. I’m saying this to support this breeder, just clearing up some misinformation.


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## Sunflowers (Feb 17, 2012)

I did all my due diligence and still got a dog with hip dysplasia, elbow arthritis, pannus, and plenty of other problems.
You can try and stack the odds in your favor, but ultimately it is still a crapshoot.


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## Sunsilver (Apr 8, 2014)

The dog I just had PTS at 14 years old was diagnosed with mild dysplasia in one hip at 2 years old. She had 5 generations of good hips on both sides of her pedigree.

The dysplasia was so mild it never caused a problem but I still went ahead and had her spayed.

Yeah, it's a crapshoot...


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## MEGAR (Jun 30, 2021)

Sunflowers said:


> When you say you had no choice, can you describe the symptoms?


Yes. We were walking one day when he was just four years old . He started limping . A huge bump on his side /back appeared . He was very uncomfortable. All he wanted to do was lay down . Very sudden .


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

MEGAR said:


> Hello All !
> I bought a shepherd about 14 years ago . I adored my shepherd . He was an Awesome dog with a great personality. At four years of age he developed hip dysplasia. Moderate on one side , mild on the other . I had no choice but to have the moderate side fixed. It was over 6,000 dollars . It was a horrific surgery as well . I fell for this breeders BS! My shepherd also developed pannus in his eyes at 7 . He passed at the age of 12 . I miss him every single day . It was absolutely heartbreaking to have to go through the surgery and it affected him for the rest of his life.
> INSIST ON SEEING BOTH PARENTS OFA HIP CERTIFICATIONS . If a breeder can’t produce it look elsewhere. This breeder also goes by {removed}


Before I was born, at least before I was interested in dogs' lifespans, GSDs generally lived 12-14 years. For most of my life (I'm 52), it's been 10-12. Now the AKC is listing them as 8 to 10 years. I am not certain of this, but perhaps when Dallas (Kinsmet's Sight for Sore Eyes) is in so many "well-bred" American Line German Shepherd Dogs, and he croaked at 9 years, maybe that is a factor. Don't know. Is it the number and frequency of vaccinations, or preventatives that work for 4-6 weeks in the blood stream of pets? Is it the food that claims to be better than ever, but dogs are dying sooner than before? Is it aggressive veterinary care? I don't have that answer. 

But your dog lived to be 12. You had to pay for a surgery. That sucks, but it is also something that you should've understood was a possibility when you purchased a living creature as a pet. They don't live forever. They get illnesses, they get injured, they get diseases that may cause a joint to wear out earlier than we would hope. That is part of what you bought. You bought a living creature in a fallen world. It had some issues. I've never dealt with pannus. I have dealt with some bad hips. Joy, at 2 had the worst hips I have ever seen on x-ray. She never had surgery. She was never bred. I put her down at 11. Her mother who was OFA good died at just under 13. Her sire was x-rayed free of dysplasia both in Germany with a-normal hips and OFA good here in the states. Hepsi has bad hips. Sire and dam were both OFA good. She's 9, and is doing fine with out surgery. It happens. I would rather deal with HD than with ME, or EPI. I would rather deal with HD than with bloat or bowel torsion. There are so many issues in our breed that a lot of people are looking at other breeds for that reason. Some of us love this breed though. And other breeds are subjected to many of the same problems. 

There is only so much you can do to prevent disease and keep them healthy for as long as possible. There are nutrition and environmental things you can do, and your breeder can do prior to you getting your pup. We watch all things that come through, all articles. There is an article out there about providing them a whelping area that will provide support to the puppies, in a more natural way than a flat box on a hard surface with papers. But I don't know how we can incorporate this with the pig rails that prevent a puppy from suffocating if the dam lays on a pup. We are constantly trying to reduce the incidences of the stuff we know is at least somewhat genetic, and we are somewhat successful. But we are not God.


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## Sunsilver (Apr 8, 2014)

Selzer, longevity has been found to be very heritable! You can get a long-lived dog by selecting one that comes from long-lived grandparents and great-grandparents. (It's a bit hard to tell if the parents are going to be long lived when selecting a puppy!)

I've been very lucky with my shepherds. Three of them have made it to 14 years. And I think Eska will too - she has two close female relatives that made it to 15! 😁

Star (who made it to 14) was a Dallas/Ursus grand-daughter. Dallas died at 9, but some of his close up relatives were still siring puppies at a ripe old age, and I know Ursus had a good long life, though I'm not exactly sure how old he was when he died.

Her mother, OTOH, was put to sleep at age 8 due to bone cancer. Dodged a bullet there...  That's a cancer that tends to run in certain lines and breeds. (Boxers, especially.)

Geneticists have done research to try to figure out why large breeds have shorter lifespans than small breeds. All they were able to determine was the short lifespan is genetic (hereditary) So, if breeders start selecting for great Danes and wolfhounds that can live to 10 years or older, eventually that should become the standard for the breed!


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## wolfstraum (May 2, 2003)

HD is really not predictable....and there are worse things than a mildly dysplastic dog.....I have seen litters with an OFA Excellent, a bunch of OFA Goods and 1 that fails....has happened to me, The dog that failed never had any issues, and really, my vet disagreed - the dog lived an active life and lived to be 13. 

IMO -there are very common dogs - which I think of as "red flags" - who seem to push poor hips through in a small percentage of their descendants - you can have a litter of 8 pups and only 1 will be bad...you can't throw out every dog who has a red flag for hips or any other negative in their pedigree - they are too widespread through the gene pool......

As far as life span - Csabre lived to be 14 years, 3 months.....I bred her to a male who passed at nearly 15....the litter was born in 2011....of the 7 pups in that litter - 2 have had cancer already and are gone, and a 3rd has bone cancer and has had a leg amputated.....4 are doing well with no issues. Every litter gets a spread of genetics, and you just have to hope the pup you get did not get any of the negatives.

Lee


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

And this is part of why I keep my breeding dogs. I want to know how old they pass. I really like that Babsy was almost 14 and Jenna was almost 13, and Odessa is almost 14. Heidi was over 13. Not all their babies are going to live that long, but there is that chance. At the same time, I wouldn't complain if my dogs reach 12 and die in their 12th year, that is kind of what you expect.


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## Sunsilver (Apr 8, 2014)

selzer said:


> I am not certain of this, but perhaps when Dallas (Kinsmet's Sight for Sore Eyes) is in so many "well-bred" American Line German Shepherd Dogs, and he croaked at 9 years, maybe that is a factor.


As Dallas was Star's grandsire, I was interested in finding out why he died at 9. I was told it was very sudden - he was perfectly healthy one day, and I think Jimmy Moses was still doing herding with him - and gone the next. Died in his sleep. Owners were devastated - he was their house dog.

When it happens suddenly like that it's probably bloat or a heart arrhythmia. When I was involved with the ISSR Shiloh Shepherd folk, it was found some Shilohs suffered from intermittent ventricular arrhythmia which would cause a previously healthy dog to drop dead very suddenly for no apparent reason. This deadly arrhythmia is also present in the American showlines, which form about 98% of the Shiloh bloodline. The ONLY way to detect this is to have the puppy wear a 24-hour Holter monitor. The problem is almost impossible to detect once the pup reaches maturity - until one day it drops dead at your feet, or passes in its sleep.

A lot of these genetic issues are caused by linebreeding too closely on the same dogs, over and over. Never mind Dallas - just TRY to find an ASL dog without Lance of Fran-Jo in the pedigree multiple times!

Many well-known German show lines have also passed at a rather young age, and you rarely hear anything about the cause. The breeders don't want you to know...$$$$$$


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Hemangio can take a dog pretty suddenly. And at nine why wouldn't you still work with a dog? I liked Dallas, and Lance was a great dog. But yeah, those dogs and in the German Show lines, you have Uran von Wildsteigerland, and pretty much any of the seigers and some other VA dogs that are used all over and over, well after all, what is the purpose of conformation showing but to choose the best genes to carry on with? It's always trying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. If you take out all the lines that have something like HD in it, then whatever is left will be so inbred that every other recessive hiding will come out in the progeny and we would more likely do more damage than good.


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