DCM is in the breed, not just in a specific bloodline

[Elaine]

Just got off the phone with a guy who bought a dog from the House of Hoyt… he told me that the dog died of DCM at 7 years of age. One lesson here is that DCM is in the breed, not in a particular pedigree or bloodline. Here is a photo of the House of Hoyt dog... he was the beloved companion of his owner... but I think we can all see, based simply on his phenotype, he is not related to any dog in any of our pedigrees.

http://i394.photobucket.com/albums/pp21/logresfarm/sc0075f140.jpg

[Elaine]

For idiots advocating that we not breed from the pedigrees of dogs that have transmitted or died of DCM (i.e. Eddie or Thunder)… that makes no sense at all… especially when some of the most famous dogs who have died of DCM have offspring and littermates that live to 10-11 years. Why do these dogs not develop DCM?

We need science to understand why some dogs do not develop DCM and others do. Until we have a way to identify which dogs will not develop or transmit DCM we are fooling ourselves with the tests we are doing. And we are especially fooling ourselves with all these claims of, “I don’t have it in my line because my dog died of some other cause.”

There are those who feel that Kafka died of DCM... who knows, he may have... but he produced some of the most valued bloodlines the breed has ever known, including his sons, grand sons and great grand sons like Simbad, Cosmo, Eddie and Dagger. The valuable influence of these dogs can not be denied, they are in the pedigree of almost every show dog in this country.

Simply because a dig dies of infection, accident, cancer etc. does not mean they would not have died of DCM if they had lived longer and it does not mean they did not transmit DCM. It is clear that the House of Hoyt doesn’t use any of our commonly used top show lines… and yet they purportedly have DCM in their dogs. DCM is in the breed, not in a particular line.