OBJECTIVES The age-dependence of the development of ventricular arrhythmias was studied in German shepherd dogs with inherited ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death. BACKGROUND A colony of German shepherd dogs has been established that exhibit inherited ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death. The incidence of arrhythmias increases with age. Because ventricular tachycardia is associated w...

1. Hip dysplasia in German Shepherd Dogs, half of which could be expected to develop detectable hip dysplasia by 1 yr of age, was not observed at birth. This was based on the disection and gross examination of the pelves of eighty-seven neonatal pups. Minor ligamentous changes which may suggest beginning hip dysplasia were seen in three pelves from pups 30 days old. The round ligament seems to ...

Earlier studies have shown variation among experimental attempts to establish whether human monozygotic twins that are genetically identical also have identical individual scents. In none of the cases were the dogs able to distinguish all the individual scents of monozygotic twins living in the same environment if the scents were presented to them separately. Ten specially trained police German...

Breeding practices were analysed for 32 registered dog breeds representing very small registries (120 Central Asian shepherd dogs) through to very large registries (252,521 German shepherd dogs) in Australia. The vast majority (91%) of registered kennels in Australia that were sampled did not regularly employ either close breeding or popular sire usage in their kennels and the weighted mean inb...

In an epidemiological study based on insurance data we described a breed-specific pattern of diseases in German Shepherd dogs (GSD) and confirmed that this breed is predisposed to immune-related disorders. A prospective study was performed in order to further investigate immunological changes in the GSD using a large number of dogs, 30 bitches and their litters, from the same kennel under well ...

A loss of genetic diversity may lead to increased disease risks in subpopulations of dogs. The canine breed structure has contributed to relatively small effective population size in many breeds and can limit the options for selective breeding strategies to maintain diversity. With the completion of the canine genome sequencing project, and the subsequent reduction in the cost of genotyping on ...

There are many indications and much practical knowledge about the different tasks which various breeds of dogs are selected for. Correspondingly these different breeds are known to possess different physical and mental abilities. We hypothesized that commonly kept breeds will show differences in their problem solving ability in a detour task around a V-shaped fence, and also, that breed differe...

BACKGROUND There are no peer reviewed data on dog control records from an official agency in Ireland. In order to address this, a total of 2,669 official dog control service records generated during 2007 by Cork County Council dog control service were reviewed. RESULTS Over 70 percent of records related to unwanted dogs and dogs not under their owners control. Stray dogs were collected by the...

The aim of the study was to estimate prevalence of tricuspid dysplasia (TD) in dogs with respect to breed, age, sex, clinical signs, and echocardiographic findings and to compare this data with literature. TD was found in 15 dogs (6.5% of congenital cardiac disease) of 215 dogs with congenital heart defects. All dogs had right heart enlargement on thoracic radiographs, echocardiography, and ele...