Dog's Pedigree - Page 1

Oh yeah, and my dog's name is Zappa Malachious. No, I didn't name him. My ex-husband is an idiot.

ROTFLMAO!!

Sorry, couldn't help myself. And he can't spell, either. It should be 'malicious'

ma⋅li⋅cious  /məˈlɪʃəs/  [muh-lish-uhs] 

–adjective 1. full of, characterized by, or showing malice; malevolent; spiteful: malicious gossip.
2. Law. vicious, wanton, or mischievous in motivation or purpose

Okay, although your boy's pedigree smacks of back yard breeding (no titles on any of the American dogs) it's not as bad as it could be. Yes, there is some inbreeding several generations back, but if you look at the front page of his pedigree, you will notice it says 'no common ancestry in 5 generations'.  So, because the inbreeding was so far back, there has been a chance for the harm it may have caused to be reduced by being diluted with new genes from the more recent ancestors.

However, back yard breeders are well-known for breeding one animal to another without carefully analysing their individual strengths and weaknesses. They also do not usually bother with health testing for faults such as hip dysplasia. So, of course, there is no guarantee that he won't inherit some problems.

You say you're taking him to the vet. What problems are you concerned about?
 

So, it isn't supposed to be malicious.  It's the name Malachi with an ous on the end to make it Malachious.  Like I said, he is an idiot.  But I won custody of my boy in the divorce so it all works out.  I can live with the bad name.

Zappa has suffered from chronic diarreah and vomiting since the age of 1.5 yrs.  He is a large dog who was at 94 lbs (a very healthy weight for him, not overweight at all)  and is now down to 71.3 lbs.  He goes back to the vet today (my vet is open for a half day on Sundays) and will get reweighed which we have to do biweekly.  His last weigh in he went from 74.6 or 8 to 71.3 in 2 weeks.  He was tested for EPI with the cTLI test.  His result was 7.2, with normal range between 5.7 and 45.2.  He was in the low normal range so the vet wants to retest in a few months.  He has had more CBC and electrolyte tests than I could count.  His serum pH level was 7.48 which as I understand it, that is very high.  His last Lipase level was 1726 which is extremely high.  His kidneys look great.  It's all GI.  His last tests that came back are his cobalamine and folate show a normal cobalamine level with a high folate which is indicitive for SIBO. Also, the vet feels he has IBD due to the fact that even though he has a diet switch and has done better, his stools come out green ar light tan and he still suffers from vomiting of greenish-brownish bile

We have done numerous trips to the e-vet for his GI issues (they always like to flare up when his normal vet is closed).  He has been given fluids, parvo tests, clavimox, flagyl, stool samples, blood draws, etc.  We would always walk out with the diagnosis of pancreatitis when it wasn't, it was GI.

So, now we are finally on the track to treating him properly and getting some weight back on him.  Hopefully, no more bloated belly and massive gas and diarreah.

And yes, he was definately from a backyard breeder.  I was young (22) and knew I wanted a Shepherd for my son (I was 5 months pregnant).  He does have hip displaysia (diagnosed around age 3, definately genetic) which he gets glucosamine for as well as his GI issues.  I'm lucky he doesn't have worse things, though.  It could be much worse.  His parents had shitty temperments (not approachable at all).  But I chose him because out of a litter of 12, 11 of them ignored me and he crawled in my lap and fell asleep.

Does his distant ancestry look OK though?  I think he has a lot more German blood than the American.  He's a beautiful dog with a great temperment, wonderful with my kids.  He did have a great drive in him until his GI issues started getting worse.