I am seriously looking at a pup with dm in the lines. Any advice on this one way or the other would be great.
Thanks

Utah Chessie.....

I have a pup, who is a grandson to Tiger....(Tiger has DM)....I did not know about the DM until after I got my pup...and I would not ever consider changing my mind now, if I had the choice! Tiger is an IMPRESSIVE animal and INCREDIBLE producer of proven field stock....

With that in mind.....I would be concerned about buying a pup that was the result of a line-breeding of known cases of DM within the first 3 or 4 gens of the pedigree...I would not be concerned too much if the DM was only on one side of the pedigree, as long as the pup was 2 or more gens away from the disease (grandson/daughter, at a minimum)...

There is no way to stay away from this issue in our field dogs. Well, at least not much - there are lines w/out 'suspected' DM of course, but they are not many...We can only go on what 'recent' history has to tell us...and that history is pretty much right now - maybe going back 10 yrs.

If people only bought pups from 'non-DM' lines, our gene pool would shrink so fast we would probably see other health issues begin cropping up......We would be foolish to ignore the issue completely and equally as ignorant if we let these lines completely vanish from our breeding stock....


THis is why we need so much to get the research for DM funded...so that hopefully a test can be implemented for our breeding stock.

Juli

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Juli,