Health: Highly Aggressive Bone Cancer (Part 2)

In yesterday’s email, we talked about how devoted the Dire Wolf Project is to open and honest health reporting.

We want all of our owners and potential owners to have all the facts regarding the genetic health of our dogs.

We are more interested in sharing truth above selling puppies.

As we learned yesterday, a prominent stud dog that sired many litters for the breed had to be put down at eight years old due to a highly aggressive form of bone cancer.

Today, I want to share my thoughts on where it potentially came from and what this means for the breed moving forward.

But first…

It is necessary to tell you the following story to shed some light on the mystery.

One day, Lois Schwarz, Dire Wolf Project founder, sold a beautiful silver wolf sable female puppy to a woman in Michigan. This Michigan woman had three German Shepherd dogs already, but wanted a calmer dog this next time around.

When her American Dirus puppy arrived in Michigan, the woman was thrilled. She named her Nadine, and she was everything Lois described and more: sweet, loving, gentle, devoted, kind, and submissive.

Within the first few months, however, one of the woman’s high-drive, working German Shepherd Dogs attacked the three month old Nadine, ripping a huge flap of skin from her neck and permanently damaging her left ear. If the Michigan woman hadn't intervened, this puppy would have been mauled to death by the dog aggressive German Shepherd Dog at her property.

Later, Lois learned that the unruly German Shepherd Dogs were regularly jumping the six-foot fence and killing the neighbor's chickens. Lois tried to help the Michigan woman as much as she could.

Months passed and Nadine, ever the silver beauty, grew into a stunning teenager.

Well, one day, the Michigan woman had a friend over with an intact male Golden Retriever. When they weren’t looking, the Golden Retriever mated with Nadine and sure enough, about a month later, Nadine began to show the tell-tale signs of puppies.

The Michigan woman once again contacted Lois for help.

Knowing the woman was way in over head and wanting to help poor Nadine who had such a difficult start to life, Lois took Nadine back.

Lois whelped the puppies, and Nadine proved to be a much devoted mother to her large brood.

But something was strange about this litter.

Instead of light golden tones or fluffy coats, these puppies were Black and Tan with harsh, short coats.

Baffled, Lois contacted the Michigan woman for more information. It was revealed that, yes, indeed, one of the Michigan lady's German Shepherd Dog males was a Black and Tan. His name was Bear. Lois instantly knew that this was the sire of the puppies from this litter.

Lois, being the person she is, took the heat for the litter of puppies when people heavily chastised her for having a surprise litter. Many crazy meddlers assumed Lois had planned the litter on purpose.

However, that was not the case.

Instead, she took the responsibility of finding the puppies good homes, despite the harsh backlash from haters.

As it turned out, one of the puppies was a good-tempered, easy-going Black and Tan female Lois named Francis.

The other puppies from the litter found great homes. But Lois, ever on the look out for improving the breed, felt that Francis had the temperament and genetic diversity to enhance her stock.

Disregarding outward appearance toward the dire wolf, Francis became the matron of a new line.

Lois knew that some of the German Shepherd Dog traits would have to be bred out as she turned the generations. But she really felt Francis's good-natured temperament and genetic diversity could add much to the breed at the time.

This all happened back in November 2011.

Fast-forward several years to 2019 and 2020.

All of sudden we received notice that four of our dogs developed cancer.

Just as we are doing now, we researched the pedigree to find out what common ancestry was the culprit.

They all led directly back to the German Shepherd Dog, Bear, through Francis's line.

This trend was confirmed earlier this year when two more dogs from the same litter came down with a highly aggressive bone cancer at 6.5 years old.

Again, all of these cases led directly back to the same German Shepherd Dog.

For the last five years, I felt strongly that the cancer was introduced into the breed through Bear.

Now… as I mentioned in yesterday’s email, Boss has succumbed to aggressive bone cancer.

But there is a fundamental difference about his case.

Boss does not have any lineage leading back to Bear.

But, can you guess what common ancestry he does have with all of those other cases?

You are right…

Nadine.

Although she never developed cancer herself… and lived a long life despite her difficult beginnings… the now seven dogs showing highly aggressive forms of cancer appear to follow back to her.

Having said that,

it is important to note that even with these three cancer cases this year, causing premature deaths to occur at 6.5 to 8 years old, we are looking at just under a 2% incidence rate for the last ten years within the breed.

That’s 11 out of 572 dogs in ten years.

Or… in other words… 98% have not developed cancer.

But…

It does appear to be a trend and is definitely worth standing up and taking notice of.

As you know, we post all reported health instances in the breed, regardless of if we feel they are genetic or not.

This is because we want to make sure we can track any health trends before they rain devastation down on our rare breed.

Take a gander at the health issues we have recorded over the years.

Here is the link to our health database:

https://direwolfproject.com/direwolf-dogs/our-health-foundation/health-database/

In tomorrow’s email, I will share my thoughts on how we move forward from here.

All living things, plants and animals, experience disease.

It is how we deal with these health issues once they arise that makes the difference between a healthy versus an unhealthy breed.

We hope you understand by now that health and longevity are the #1 priority for us here at the Dire Wolf Project.

It doesn’t matter what our dogs look like.

It doesn’t matter what our dogs act like.

If they aren’t healthy, it’s not worth bringing more of them into the world.

Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.