Longevity list - Page 4

FYI for those interested: It looks to me like the dog has to have an AKC number to register in the GSDCA 13 club. So, it is helpful as a supplemental tool for researching longevity in European bloodline dogs that are in America (if their owners register them) 

I think you are right.  I'm a member, I'll try to find out.

BSZS Herding Siegerin V1 Faye vom Kirschental HGH (12x), KKL1a LBZ, A-Stamp Normal ED + HD - ZW 74

"Funny" is 12.5 years old.

I think this thread is also a good place to give another plug for entering our dogs into  the German Shepherd Dig Breed Betterment Registry, the health database established many years ago and still maintained by Marjorie Zimmerman--there is no good reason, IMO, for anyone to refrain from registering their dogs into this repository of information...it doesn't cost anything to do it, it's open-access as far as being able to view the information [but has sufficient security to prevent someone from making unauthorized entries into the registry] and is searchable on many levels.

Register yours dog, folks. It's the right thing to do if we ever hope to get ahead of some of the problems we encounter in this breed--share factual information about health issues with each other for the purpose of bettering the GSD, regardless of which type within the breed is your preference.

My Ronaldo von Arlett will be 11 on May 10th. He is in excellent condition and was even helping ring train youngsters recenly besides his daily romps, hanging with his 2 year old "brother", escorting neighborhood kids saftly to and from bus stop, hikes, and ball chasing. 

I think it's a great idea.
For quite some years now I've had this niggling 'feeling' that too many dogs are dying too young in the breed, and 8 seems to be a frequently recurring age..  But that's just it, you seem to hear it a lot, but it's unquantified.

IMO unless a GSD makes it into it's 13th year of life, it dies too  young. A leading canine cancer authority published a book about treatments, etc. He incuded a list of the average life span of many breeds based on his research and ages of his terminal patients. It was 10 years 4 months for GSD's. I've had one that made it exactly that long, 2 others were 7 1/2 and 8 1/2 all dying for some form of cancer, one due to a misdiagnosis and delayed treatment that could probably could have saved her. Good vets can also help extend the lives of our dogs. In theory all dogs should be living longer today - better nutrition, better medical options, more emphasis on the importance of preventative medicine and exercise, more sophisicated treatments for serious diseases, DNA to identify carriers of certain conditions so the carriers can be eliminated from a breeding program. Some GSD breeders are using all those DNA tests, some are not.

Hopefully my current dog, now only 5+, will be eligible for the 13 year club.

Key words "in theory." 

They lived longer 40 years ago, it seems like. Now we over-medicate, over-vaccinate, over-protect, fail to cull the weak, are lazy and feed crap in a bag, not to mention environmental triggers for cancers and other auto-immune diseases and we wonder why we get excited when a dog makes 13. Pretty sad, really. 

Exactly!
 

Jenni posted her own theory. Exactly!