It’s sad that dogs - especially larger breeds - don’t live long. Mostly because of exactly this issue.
Since our dogs tend to live maybe beyond just 10 years, show people (in particular) are in a rush to breed what they have (especially females). Regardless of what may be known about their genetic background, and without knowledge that the dog will have the condition in question himself. So our dogs are bred at the age of 2 or even less, and when those dogs become 6, they develop a bad condition. Now it’s KNOWN that those dogs are bad, but it’s already in the gene pool Even if they had the ethics to stop breeding the dogs who are sick, they’ve already started, so the genetic downturn continues.
At least horses and others live so much longer (even if they can be bred very early) that we can find out these problems faster. But really, any animal with a questionable genetic inheritance should not be bred.
A famous judge of Dobermanns was once asked if he’d use a particular stud, given the chance, knowing full well the dog was throwing DCM positive pups like mad and he said *yes*.
They only have to live long enough to get a title, hit the specialties, get ‘famous’ and start breeding.
The DCM test results are online for everyone to see and 99% of the positive dogs, if you trace their pedigree, have one or both of the studs I mentioned.
The owners of the stored ‘pupsicles’ know this and still send it out for $1000 a straw..and up.
For 37 years I’ve watched this great breed slide to hell.
It breaks my heart that I can not even slow down the descent.
[ironically, now they’re importing Euro Dobes to “fix” the health issues and are even considering breeding back in the old, once nearly extinct German Pinscher which was one of the foundation breeds]
Sure took ‘em long enough.
:-\
[and you *know* my opinion of the ‘modern’ GSD]