BACKGROUND Lumbosacral transitional vertebra (LTV) is a common congenital and hereditary anomaly in many dog breeds. It predisposes to premature degeneration of the lumbosacral junction, and is a frequent cause of cauda equina syndrome, especially in German shepherd dogs. Ventrodorsal hip radiographs are most often used in diagnosis of LTV in screening programs. In this study, value of laterola...

In an epidemiological study based on insurance data we described a breed-specific pattern of diseases in German Shepherd dogs (GSD) and confirmed that this breed is predisposed to immune-related disorders. A prospective study was performed in order to further investigate immunological changes in the GSD using a large number of dogs, 30 bitches and their litters, from the same kennel under well ...

A loss of genetic diversity may lead to increased disease risks in subpopulations of dogs. The canine breed structure has contributed to relatively small effective population size in many breeds and can limit the options for selective breeding strategies to maintain diversity. With the completion of the canine genome sequencing project, and the subsequent reduction in the cost of genotyping on ...

The rapid expansion of “social network research” is an exciting and unique phenomenon taking place in the last decade. Networks, from their essential definition, serve as an infrastructure for communication — either explicit (e.g. phone calls or emails), implicit (e.g. social signals), or a combination thereof (e.g. online social service such as Facebook or Flicker). As such, a fundamental aspe...

We investigated effectiveness and potential use of early diagnosis of hip joint dysplasia in German Shepherd dogs by X-ray examination comparing the conventional extension position I with compression-distraction method. In addition to that we also used Ortolani palpation technique and X-ray examination of the hip joint in order to obtain view of its dorsal acetabular rim (DAR) and dorsal acetab...

Attending to the perception of others may help individuals gaining information from conspecifics, or help in competitive situations. Dogs (Canis familiaris) are attentive to humans' signals and their attentional state. We investigated whether dogs of different breed groups differ in their ability to pay attention to human's perception, first according to the genetic relatedness between dog bree...

The main results obtained from investigation of individual differences in exploratory activity of dogs placed in a new environment (empty room) are presented in this paper. Using correlation-analysis it could be demonstrated that the selected indicators of individual excitability levels (frequency of exploratory reactions per unit of time), as well as indicators of the strength of inhibitory pr...

The study has focused on the retrospective analysis of cases of coexisting congenital aortic stenosis (AS) and pulmonary artery stenosis (PS) in dogs. The research included 5463 dogs which were referred for cardiological examination (including clinical examination, ECG and echocardiography) between 2004 and 2014. Aortic stenosis and PS stenosis were detected in 31 dogs. This complex defect was ...

Additional characterization of von Willebrand's disease (VWD) in a family of German shepherd dogs is presented. Genetic studies of three generations of affected dogs indicate that about 50% of the progeny are affected if one parent has VWD and about 60% if both parents have the defect. Some of these progeny manifested an incomplete form of VWD, suggesting autosomal dominant inheritance with var...

Canine parvovirus 2 (CPV-2) is the causative agent of acute hemorrhagic enteritis and myocarditis in dogs. A nested polymerase chain reaction (n-PCR) was developed using published pCPV-2ab as external primer set and self designed and custom synthesized pCPV-2N as internal primer set for the detection of canine parvovirus in faecal samples of dogs. Out of 52 faecal samples, 27 and 31 were tested...