My female GSD produced 9 puppies. 2 of those pups are reported to have Demodectic Mange. Would you stop breeding that female? Would you ever replace a pup with Demodectic Mange?

Full Question:

I will keep this short and sweet as I am sure you are like me and do not have time for many words. I have a varied background in training from police K9 hanlder to sport to SAR, etc. I am however still learning a lot as a breeder. I am a past customer of yours several times and consider you a very experienced breeder. There are few in this nation with the GSD world that have bred as many litters as you have. So I am coming to you for some advice.

Situation: I have an IPO1 and breed surveyed female with A hips and good pedigree that was bred almost a year ago. She has never shown any symptamatic problems of any form of mange. She whelped 9 puppies (6 female, 3 Male). Two of the female pups have been reported with demodectic mange that was noticed during their first heat cycle. I have heard no reports of this from the other 7 puppy owners.

Question 1:
Would you discontinue breeding this female after only 2 reports of mange? Do you consider Demodectic mange on the same level as breeding a dysplastic dog?

Question 2:
Would you even consider replacing a puppy for Demodectic mange? I have never faced this question before so I need outside advice to help both protect myself and to continue in good faith that I have done the right thing.

Thanks for the advice.

Sincerely,
Will

Cindy's Answer:

Very nice to hear from you. You bring up an excellent question which I will post to my webs site.

But first to the short answer:

1- Demodectic mange is no-where near being in the same category as dysplaysia -

2- I would NEVER replace a dog for having Demodectic mange. I recently had a litter in which pups developed Demodectic mange after going to the new owners. With this said let me explain what I feel happened in my case. The litter got sick with coccidia. This was hard on them - we did not loose any but they required 24/7 treatment with IV fluids and medication. We kept the litter for an extra 7 to 10 days longer than we normally keep pups because we wanted to be 110% sure the pups were over the medical problems.

When we sent the litter we advised the new owners not to vaccinate these pups right away. This advise was ignored on the pups that developed mange. They took the pups to their Vets who immediately examined the pup and then vaccinated them. Those pups got Demodectic mange

We also had a female who was imported from Germany - she was bred in Germany and whelped here. Those pups all got mange. We feel it was from the stress on the mother. The bitch had 3 more litters after that and not one pup got mange. So there is a stress factor to Demodectic Mange.

Vets are quick (too quick) to blame the bitch and blame genetics. These vets need a little more training and experience.

88% (30 out of 34)

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