Thought I would put some of what's going on down on "paper", so why not mud?
Anyone who has seen my posts in the pet section might know we have/have had 3 GSD's (German Shepherd Dogs).
All 3 came from the same breeder. They breed amazing temperament dogs and have excellent certification for hips/elbows. Just amazing. Absolutely.
However.....
Our oldest (my wife shares with her ex) is now 11. She was originally chosen to breed by the breeder, but when old enough to radiograph found a mild problem with an elbow - so the breeder removed her from the breeding pool. My wife got that pup just a bit before she was a year old.
Our next oldest was not quite 6 years old when she passed in February 2018. Similar situation - breeder kept 2 pups from a litter for future breeding. At just over 2 years old, my wife got our 2nd GSD. When my wife got that dog, the dog was quite skinny and had an extremely large open/infected cyst on her shoulder (about the size of a quarter). The breeder had no idea. This pup passed, at our decision, due to multiple tumors in her rectum - something that has extremely low success rates and, when successful, short lifespans due to very high rate of reoccurence. This pup almost died after her spay (health wise she was "fragile") and she had crazy allergies to both fleas and most foods - so with the exception of protein (like steak/chicken as a treat) she only ate Natures Domain Sweat Potato and Salmon food (at the direction of the vet - the dark blue bag from Costco). The only meds, that were consistent, she had was comfortis.
Our recent puppy we got sooner than we anticipated. The other female the breeder kept (sister of our 2nd pup) had a littler that was born the day after our 2nd pup passed away. It was her first litter. We felt we had to get one due to the connection to our 2nd pup. We performed all vet visits, all shots/vaccines, and the only meds she was given was trifexis.
That puppy passed away recently completely at random and zero indication something would happen. We took her body to the vet to perform a necropsy (which apparently is rare, most owners don't do this - they didn't recommend it, but understood why we wanted one due to such a strange thing happening). The vet noticed 2 things - once was that there wasn't 'vacuum' in the chest cavity, and deemed cause of death was a tension pneumothorax. That is - a hole in the lungs allows air to enter the chest cavity, reducing the lungs capacity, and the tension portion could have also blocked her airway (which also goes with the coloration of her gums/tongue). There was no simple underlying cause of the pneumothorax (like trauma, foreign object, etc). The other thing found was spots on the small intestine - something not always normal, but if for some reason her immune system was constantly working can cause.
I have to leave - and will follow up with discussions with the breeder, follow up discussions with our vet, and what we are thinking. I do have a family member who has been part of agility training/shows in the area for 3 decades (though different dog breeds - she does have GSD experience just not in depth like she does with Shelties/shetlands), but any thoughts on this so far would be great.
Anyone who has seen my posts in the pet section might know we have/have had 3 GSD's (German Shepherd Dogs).
All 3 came from the same breeder. They breed amazing temperament dogs and have excellent certification for hips/elbows. Just amazing. Absolutely.
However.....
Our oldest (my wife shares with her ex) is now 11. She was originally chosen to breed by the breeder, but when old enough to radiograph found a mild problem with an elbow - so the breeder removed her from the breeding pool. My wife got that pup just a bit before she was a year old.
Our next oldest was not quite 6 years old when she passed in February 2018. Similar situation - breeder kept 2 pups from a litter for future breeding. At just over 2 years old, my wife got our 2nd GSD. When my wife got that dog, the dog was quite skinny and had an extremely large open/infected cyst on her shoulder (about the size of a quarter). The breeder had no idea. This pup passed, at our decision, due to multiple tumors in her rectum - something that has extremely low success rates and, when successful, short lifespans due to very high rate of reoccurence. This pup almost died after her spay (health wise she was "fragile") and she had crazy allergies to both fleas and most foods - so with the exception of protein (like steak/chicken as a treat) she only ate Natures Domain Sweat Potato and Salmon food (at the direction of the vet - the dark blue bag from Costco). The only meds, that were consistent, she had was comfortis.
Our recent puppy we got sooner than we anticipated. The other female the breeder kept (sister of our 2nd pup) had a littler that was born the day after our 2nd pup passed away. It was her first litter. We felt we had to get one due to the connection to our 2nd pup. We performed all vet visits, all shots/vaccines, and the only meds she was given was trifexis.
That puppy passed away recently completely at random and zero indication something would happen. We took her body to the vet to perform a necropsy (which apparently is rare, most owners don't do this - they didn't recommend it, but understood why we wanted one due to such a strange thing happening). The vet noticed 2 things - once was that there wasn't 'vacuum' in the chest cavity, and deemed cause of death was a tension pneumothorax. That is - a hole in the lungs allows air to enter the chest cavity, reducing the lungs capacity, and the tension portion could have also blocked her airway (which also goes with the coloration of her gums/tongue). There was no simple underlying cause of the pneumothorax (like trauma, foreign object, etc). The other thing found was spots on the small intestine - something not always normal, but if for some reason her immune system was constantly working can cause.
I have to leave - and will follow up with discussions with the breeder, follow up discussions with our vet, and what we are thinking. I do have a family member who has been part of agility training/shows in the area for 3 decades (though different dog breeds - she does have GSD experience just not in depth like she does with Shelties/shetlands), but any thoughts on this so far would be great.