Rewarding your dog when they do well is a must.  I always have treats handy for this reason.  When they follow my commands I give them a treat so they know they must have done something right and most importantly they pleased their master.

Your dog also needs to know who the leader is and that’s you.  You don’t want your dog thinking that he’s the pack leader, that scenario could turn out very bad.  Keep a stern voice and mean what you say when you give commands.  Physical punishment is never a good idea with any animal so I reccommend you find other ways to discipline your dog. 

Every dog needs an exercise routine so you need to introduce your dog to a leash as a puppy so you can have pleasant walks on a daily basis.  I like to walk my dogs with them on my left side so they are always protected by me when walking down the street.  Training them to walk on one side helps keep them in control and it makes for a less stressful experience.

Usually, malignant melanomas are discovered during a routine physical exam when the mouth is inspected or during dental procedures. Some dogs display eating or breathing problems if the tumor obstructs the oral cavity or the larynx. Less commonly, these tumors grow in the Doberman’s toenail bed and appear as darkly pigmented, often black, masses. Malignant melanomas usually occur in dogs over the age of 6 years old.

“Definitive diagnosis for melanoma is made through biopsy of the affected tissues,” says Michelle Ritt, D.V.M., of Animal Hospital Center in Highlands Ranch, Colo. Chest X-rays and sampling regional lymph nodes for evidence of cancer cells can help determine if the cancer has spread to other areas.
Malignant melanomas are almost always incurable; treatment is geared toward extending the dog’s quality of life via surgical removal of the bulk of the mass and follow-up radiation therapy. “Even when treated aggressively with surgery and radiation therapy, malignant melanomas still usually end the dog’s life within 6 to 24 months, depending on how big the tumor is when it is first diagnosed and whether there is evidence of metastasis — the spreading of cancer cells to other locations such as the lungs. Metastatic cancer has a worse prognosis,” Ritt says.

Dog Breed predisposition for melanomas suggests a genetic basis. “This cancer is suspected to be caused, at least in part, by defective tumor suppressor genes due to inherited mutations,” Ritt says. “We suspect this because certain dog breeds have a very high prevalence of certain cancers.”

Tumor suppressor genes are the genes that tell cells when to stop dividing or growing, and constrain renegade cells; mutations can disable these genes in cancer cells, contributing to the development and progression of cancer. “Cells divide in order to maintain our normal state of being,” explains researcher Jaime Modiano, V.M.D., Ph.D. “We need to replace blood cells, cells from the intestine, cells from the skin, and so forth on a continuous basis. In the normal state, this is tightly controlled, so you get signals to induce cells to undergo that division, and then other signals that make cells stop growing at the appropriate time. The signals that make them stop are largely mediated by tumor suppressor genes precisely for the reason that they make cells stop growing.

“In the last 15 years or so, we’ve learned that these particular genes are somehow disabled in many tumors. This is one of the reasons —not the only reason, but one important reason — that cells become cancerous. The mechanisms that normally tell them to stop growing are somehow functionally disabled, and so they start dividing and nothing tells them to stop.”

Modiano is studying the frequency of the important tumor suppressor genes in canine melanoma with partial funding provided by the DPFA. “We’re trying to determine what their precise roles are,” he says. “Then, we want to find out whether there are certain groups or families or pedigrees that have a predisposition to cancer due to mutations in these particular genes. If we find a correlation between mutations of these genes and the types of tumors we’re looking at, we can then develop a test to identify potential carriers.”

In the Doberman, CVI generally occurs during middle age, about 4 to 6 years of age. Clinical signs vary. “The dog may exhibit pain, have a wobbly gait, carry its neck stiffly or hold it down,” says Amy Kapatkin, D.V.M., assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. “Sometimes they’ll be a little worse in the rear legs than the front legs. In severe cases, they can even become partially paralyzed, where they can’t move or walk at all.”

Diagnosis is made via history, clinical signs, radiography to check on vertebral malformation, and myelography to identify the area and amount of compression. Computed tomography scans may also be used to assess compression to the spinal cord.
Treatment options depend on the severity of the clinical signs. “With some dogs, even the paralyzed ones, if you give them some rest, over time they’ll get back up because the spinal cord compression was not a permanent compression but instead an acute insult to the spinal cord. In dogs where the symptoms are very mild, where they only get a little clumsy periodically or they hurt for a week here and there, we often don’t do anything other than recommending non-steroidal anti-inflammatories for pain relief,” says Kapatkin. In those kinds of cases, restricted activity and crate rest may be required for up to a month. They should never again wear neck leashes, which can put pressure on the neck, but instead wear harnesses when walked. “If the dog is chronically in pain or has neurologic deficits that do not resolve very quickly,” says Kapatkin, “we need to do surgical intervention to decompress, or stabilize, the spinal cord.” This surgical procedure fuses the space between two sections of the spinal cord.

The prognosis for surgical treatment depends on the location and the number of lesions. “The number of lesions is important because if the problem is instability, it is not possible to fuse more than two spaces on the spinal cord,” Kapatkin says. “In those cases, we need to do a large dorsal laminectomy over many spaces, which often clinically helps but is not the most indicated surgery for the presenting lesions.

Each vertebra (segment) on the spinal cord is numbered c1, c2 and so on. Location may be a factor only because it is difficult to repair the space between vertebra c6 and c7, but certainly possible. CVI occurs between c2 and c7 in the Doberman, more commonly between c5 and c7.

“In the Doberman, CVI tends to be a middle-age disease, and sometimes if you fix one spot, there seems to be a domino effect that causes other spots to collapse down the road,” Kapatkin warns. “When the disease occurs in a very young dog, with surgery, these dogs often do well for the rest of their lives. This is because they usually have stenotic spinal canals and early decompression may make them clinically normal. So prognosis is variable, depending on age.” The recovery period ranges from one week to several months.

Dog Breeders may be able to reduce incidences in their lines by selecting away from dogs in which CVI shows up in the family, Kapatkin says. Owners themselves may help prevent the disease, too, by not overfeeding young dogs and causing fast, enormous growth rates. Experts at the University of Illinois recommend a well-balanced diet without supplementing minerals and switching large breed, fast-growing dogs to an adult food at 6 months of age.

Researchers are also studying the disease. Nick Sharp, D.V.M., Ph.D., is investigating the role of CT scans in confirming the diagnosis of CVI and evaluating the dog’s suitability for surgery. The DPFA is helping to underwrite this project.