Happy 15th birthday Nemo! - Page 1

Nemo Aka Mr. Nemo, Prince Nemo, Nemo von der Minime and Nemo Schafermeister turned 15 today.
http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=557479-nemo 
I bless God that he is in good health and spirits. He celebrated with a breakfast of raw beef heart followed by a fishicle ( frozen smelt or fish popsicle hence fishicle).

He has brightened this world each and every day. I thank Julia Priest who raised him for his first 6 years for having the grace to let him come live with me 9 years ago when he decided I needed someone to take care of me. My mom had died a few weeks before and I had been her caretaker for several years. I was tired - physically and emotionally. Julia had asked me to take care of Nemo and Cora while she was in Europe for the FCI Tracking Championship. When she came back, I took the dogs home and stayed the weekend, On Monday, I was packing the car to leave and who climbs in but Mr. Nemo  and says I'm going with her. He has the wonderful correct aloof GSD temperament but he's an empath and can spot people that I call the soul weary and with them he's totally different. Over he goes to say hey is everything ok, I'm here you can talk to me. He settles in by them and just keeps them company. A bright piece of the universe.

Nemo also makes a cautionary tale for those who want to throw out of our ever more restrictive gene pool any dog whose progeny have some sort of defect. The reality in GSD is we have to choose our poison. I would choose dwarfism over epi, epilepsy, mesaesophagus, etc etc.. His sire Lasso produced dwarfs. However he also lived to a healthy 15 and obviously passed that gene on to some of his progeny - a gene we could desperately use in our breed. He produced great beauty and beautiful movement ( Mr. Nemo gaiting across a field showed he also inherited that but that was when he was not hanging onto a tail  of a full size GSD and going for a ride). Lasso also produced impeccable character and temperament and finally strong herding drives. Nemo loved to herd and had great power and presence. We would get to the pasture gate and the sheep would be in the far corner , facing out, stamping their feet - their message that the wolf is at the door. I find it sad to see so few dogs today who go back to his sire and suspect that is in a large part to the stigma of producing a very visible defect - dwarfism.

Our birthday wish to you is that you and your dog may celebrate many happy birthdays together.

Nemo sounds a great dog in any size package !  Congrats on
getting him to 'normal' old age;  I heard of so many dwarves
which didn't make it past about 5 yrs.

HAPPY 15th , NEMO  !!!   

Some pictures from last Christmas.



I hate it!



Oh Well Ok


I do look good!

Fine, Merry Christmas Already!

Happy Birthday Nemo!

Hundmutter,

Thank you for the good wishes but I have to point out that 15 unfortunately is not a "normal" old age any longer. I have been lucky in the past to have several dogs who lived until a healthy 14 - because I had started to deliberately choose for longevity back in 1978- but even 14 is very unusual today in our breed. Most consider the life expectancy for a GSD to be between 10-12. If they die from hemangiosarcoma (which seems to have a strong genetic component as well as being related to early spay/neuter) cut that down to 7 to 9.

I do know some dwarfs die young. My suspicion is that they are the very small ones and quite possibly also had heart defects. Nemo is 32 pounds which suggests he may have made at least some growth hormone. He was never treated with HGH tho I did supplement him with small amounts of DHEA which is a precursor to many enzymes.

There have been other long lived dwarfs - one in England if memory serves. I'll have to check back in the archives to see if I can find his name. I think he was at least 14. We joke that he and Nemo forgot to read the memo about dwarfs not living to 'normal' old age..

My hope for all our dogs is a healthy, active old age.

I know, TIG, but it's still fairly 'normal' for me;  my last bitch
was a week short of 14 when I had to have her p.t.s., and
my current boy is 10.5 yrs and still going strong.  I've had
many other GSDs under my care or well known to me (though
never a dwarf) who have gone into double figures, anything
between 11 and 16 years, as long as they were healthy and
nothing horrible struck them down earlier.  Yes, we've lost 
too many around 7, 8 as well.  Breed 'norm' has 4ever been
around 10 to 12, along with other breeds of commensurate
size & weight - although there's always been quite a few gave the
lie to that average;  but yes, it has seemed we see more and
more lines where they don't last that long, sadly.

I remember Nemo, I have a photo of him hanging on the tail of another GSD, I'll see if I can post it.

Margaret N-J

I was wondering how Nemo was doing, but was afraid to ask! His coat looks terrific for a dwarf!

Great to hear he's still alive and kicking!

I had one GSD live to 14 1/2, and currently own another that is 11, and still healthy, except for some arthritis in the spine. I am firmly convinced that we have cut our dog's lives short by doing too much inbreeding. It will be interesting to see what happens with Star, as she's my first GSD whose pedigree I know. She is also a total outcross, though her father's lines were rather heavily inbred.

Checks the linebreeding on Nemo's ped....well that kind of shoots my theory all to hell!    But how come large animals of other species are longer lived, while small ones tend to be shorter lived? Elephants live for 60 years or more, while mice are gone in 2 years. Parrots live for a hundred years, hummingbirds 5 or less.

Genetics and man's meddling, has to figure in there somewhere!