Breeders’ responses to early puppy deaths vary. Some expend a great deal of effort, while others “let nature take its course” and stoically hope the next breeding will be more successful. Many have discovered that neonatal puppy mortality is preventable or call be reduced through scrupulous attention to prenatal and postnatal care. These breeders, who [...]

To all who are interested in the 2009 Sieger Show in Germany.      Also, a request to website owners to make it known on your pages:
Please let your “doggie” friends know that time is getting short, in regard to plans for this year’s (non-profit) Sieger Show trip. In order to make [...]

© 2006 by Fred Lanting
[Note: the original appearance of this article did not include “and Other Breeds” in its title, but since then I’ve had many reports of dogs of different breeds being similarly affected, with demodex and thyroid insufficiency at the top of the complaint list.]
The German Shepherd Dog is a very popular [...]

Teeth
It always disappoints and dismays me as a dog-show judge to examine dogs in the ring and find some of them filthy (which very seldom happens) or many with neglected teeth (which happens regularly — even in the majority of cases, in some breeds such as the GSD). Without good, home dental care, they teeth [...]

Bathing
During or following the semi-annual major hair loss, you can bathe the dog, if he still needs washing, with a good pH-balanced shampoo especially formulated for dogs. Baby shampoo will do as well, and as long as you don’t wash him too frequently, plain old hand soap is good enough. Bathing will help loosen [...]

Fred Lanting

“Show me your dog, and I will tell you what sort of man you are.” …von Stephanitz, 1932
Although it is a characteristic of the German Shepherd Dog (which I have bred and judged almost since they walked off the Ark), the double coat is not unique to this breed, and the grooming techniques I [...]

Dog breeds are grouped - often arbitrarily or erroneously - into from five to ten categories based on function, superficial appearance, or geographical origin, depending on the registry organization. Just because it may make more sense to assign them to groups based primarily on ancestry and then on historical function, does not mean that such [...]

Every year some of my GSD friends ask me to look into my crystal ball and predict the main winners of the upcoming Sieger Show. It might be fun to pretend that I’m clairvoyant, but my prognostications really are based on more mundane things: my background as an SV judge; I know the judges who [...]

Confusion Continues
 
Fred Lanting

This is a follow-up article to the one I wrote entitled “Osteochondrodysplasias” in February of 2004. While that was a rather long piece, it still did not address all that people want to know about the subject. Nor will this, but at least we can look at some other aspects, including a little [...]

Osteochondrodysplasias, Leg Deformities, and Dwarfism in the Canine
(Part 2 of a series on dwarfism)

© 2004, Fred Lanting

There has been renewed interest in the subject of “abnormal” bone lengths, joints, angles between limbs, and related phenotypic variations from what I have called “the ancestral type”. We need to establish some definitions of terms before entering into [...]