Quote:
Originally Posted by z Peronówki
I could tell you the names of several DM/DM dogs which are over 10 years old (one is even 14 years old) and still walk good (compared to their age)... Unfortunately the owners do not agree...
What I can do - I will travel to visit some of them in May. I can try to take some videos of them (the videos will not show the heads but the movement)...
And it is no wonder - Wolfdogs are different in this case...
Just look - DM is not a NEW illness. It has been in the "blood" of your dogs since founding of the breed because it came from German Shepherds... The DM tests are avaible for a long time... Vets know this illness very well - many GSDs suffer from it...
Why for many years there was not even one case of person who wrote about such problems by his/her dog? Why nobody wrote that Wolfdogs can have DM?
The answer is simply: because even if there are pretty many CzWs which are "carriers" and "affected" only VERY small amount of DM/DM dogs show serious symptoms... In the 12 years I saw hundreds of Wolfdogs. But not even one which had such problems as Forrest.
Sure that DM appears by CzWs too - but it appears when the dogs are already old (8+). And the symtoms are not so good visible... It is why the illness was "hidden" for so many years: many people, even if they saw a DM/DM dog though (because of the age of the dogs) that they walk "different" because of their age... Nobody though it can be symtom of any other "illess" than the most known: old age....
Falco is not CARRIER (N/DM). HE is AFFECTED dog (DM). Carriers do not get ill...
But here you forgot one thing - Falco is brother of Forrest (the dog from the video). Both are DM/DM, both get ill in the (pretty) early age and by both dogs the illness develop very fast...
It doesn't mean it apply for all other "affected" dogs... It means only that exactly by this "family" there must be something in the genes what "activate" the illness... And exactly all breeding dogs from this line must be tested.
It doesn't mean other dogs do not need to be tested. It means only that by the dogs with similar ancestors a DM test is a must...
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I keep thinking about your post, and sorry but can shake the feeling you and i are getting smoke blown upo our ....
suddenly an 8 yr old twd is an old dog, people have known about it long, but you've never seen one, and the one, one of the few mentioned in public, is a different strain in your opinion, one that does show early. It is so unclear to me why people would test their dog to get the dm/dm result, a dog long beyond breeding age, and than keep those results under cover, even when these results would show that dm/dm dogs do indeed not have to get ill before the age of say 10.
I have only had Saarloos for 11 yrs, and have heard of both SWH and TWD with symptoms that could have been DM. (could have been, because first time i heard of it, little information was found, and the dna test is only recent)
So sorry, still don't by dogs getting old all healthy with this disease