Staging Degenerative Myelopathy

I like to divide DM into five stages. This helps when tracking how the disease is progressing and allows my clients to set objective benchmarks to use in making quality-of-life decisions . None of the stages is exact, as every patient is different and will progress...

Diagnosing Degenerative Myelopathy

When it comes to testing for degenerative myelopathy, candidates are divided into three classes:

1. At-risk (A/A homozygotes)
2. Carrier (A/N heterozygous)
3. Clear (N/N genotype)

I helped develop the two tables below to assist my clients in making breeding decisions...

Canine degenerative myelopathy (DM) has been recognized for over 35 years. It’s a spontaneously occurring, adult-onset, spinal-cord disorder affecting dogs. Degenerative myelopathy, which is also known as chronic degenerative radiculomyelopathy (CDRM), is characterized by clinical signs of...