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Midland & West of England Great Dane Club

Est. 1948

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PLEASE SEND YOUR UPDATED JUDGING CV’S TOGETHER WITH PASS CERTIFICATES to: Mrs O. Bates, Heyescroft, Northwich Road, Stanthorne, Middlewich. CW10 9JE if you would like to be included on the Great Dane Breed Council Judges List . Remember A3, B & C lists need to re-apply annually.

For application forms and updated qualification requirements click here

This is just a timely reminder for anyone who has or suspects the dreaded Kennel Cough in their home or kennels. Please consider others and don’t bring your dogs out until at least 3 weeks after they have stopped coughing.

Welcome to the official site of The Midland and West of England Great Dane Club where we will endeavour to keep you informed of events & information relating to our beautiful breed, past present & future. We realise that many of our members connect through the show ring but, for those who do not, we welcome suggestions to add items of interest.

Please scroll down the page to make sure you don’t miss any upcoming events & don’t forget to refresh your pages by clicking the reload button on your search bar 

Updated 17/5/2019

Re. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. By applying to be on a judges list, it is assumed you are giving permission for your contact details to be made available to general and breed clubs, so that they may invite you to judge at their shows. If you wish to remain on our judges list you need take no action. If however you would like to remove yourself and contact information from our list please email me HERE. Also if you do not wish to be included in the members list at the back of our next annual please email Caroline Wareing HERE

Midland and West of England Great Dane Club Annual 2020

recording events from 2019.

We rely on your ongoing support by booking pages in our clubs

annual, enabling us to continue to produce a pictorial history of our breed.

This year we really need you to have adverts ready by early November.

You may now view and check your membership status. Please click HERE to make sure your membership is up to date to receive the great benefits of being a member of the Midland & West of England GDC. Please also inform us if you change address, to receive next years annual.

DCM Research still ongoing at Liverpool University Small Animal Teaching Hospital. If you are interested in having your Dane tested there are 2 options: You can travel to the hospital and have a heart scan + bloods etc done here - if your Dane is 4yr + OR if you have a Dane aged 1yr or above we can arrange to have a holter monitor (ECG) sent to your local practice to be fitted for a 24 hour period. Please contact Joan Toohey on 0151 795 6129 Mon - Fri 8a m- 2pm for more information or to arrange an appointment.

Great Dane Dilated Cardiomyopathy has not gone away! - and we want to help!

Seeking Great Danes!

Don't give up now! - We have worked together for over a decade and

we can continue to find out more to benefit the health, quality of life

and welfare of Great Danes.

We invite any of the following Great Danes and owners:

Great Danes of 12 months of age and older can be screened either by your primary vet or at the University of Liverpool. Tests include a blood sample for cardiac biomarkers and the Holter monitor. lf you attend your own vet, the Holter unit will be shipped to the vet from the Universityof Liverpool, with full instructions for fitting the Holter and for handling and lab details for the blood sample. The total cost for these tests if paid for privately would be about £826.
Great Danes of 4 years of age and older are mainly screened at the University of Liverpool, so owners will need to attend the Small Animal Teaching Hospital. Tests include blood tests for general healthy profile, thyroid testing and cardiac biomarkers, echocardiography (heart ultrasound) and Holter testing. The total cost for these tests if paid for privately would be about £825.
The Kennel Club Charitable Trust and Great Dane Breed Council funding cover MOST of these costs,but a condition of the award from the Kennel Club Charitable Trust was that each owner should make a small contribution towards these tests (ONLY £50 for the FIRST TIME the dog is tested as a REGISTRATION FEE) to show your personal commitment to advancing the health and welfare of the breed. Any subsequent tests (we usually see Great Danes every 1-2 years of their lives) would be FREE OF CHARGE. We hope you agree that this is good value, especially after 10 years of work already into heart health in Great Danes.

lf you would like more information, or to arrange a booking for full screening or Holter screening, please contact Mrs Joan Toohey (receptionist at the Small Animal Teaching Hospital, University of Liverpool), or Professor Jo Dukes-McEwan, Professor of Veterinary Cardiology, University of Liverpool.

Small Animal Teaching Hospital, University of Liverpool, Leahurst Campus,

Chester High Road, Neston, Cheshire CH64 7TE.

Thank you for reading this! Jo Dukes-McEwan & Hannah Stephenson

Printed with kind permission from Joan Toohey

Great Dane Dilated Cardiomyopathy has not gone away ! - And we want to help !

What we know:

Kennel Club 2014 Pedigree Dog breed Survey: the leading cause of death in Great Danes was Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), accounting for nearly one quarter of all deaths (23.4%).

We have been studying DCM in Great Danesince 2008, from the LUPA project onwards. We found from health screening Great Danes of 4 years of age or older, 35.6% of all dogs screened had DCM. e also found that there was a risk of sudden death in Great Danes, even before any other signs.
You told us, in a large questionnaire including information about 710 Great Danes (Summer 2015),7.6% of all dogs had a sudden death - in most of these, they were under 6 vears old. We believe that these sudden deaths are "electrical deaths" because of abnormalities of heart rhythm. From our work over the last decade with Great Danes, we have found that Danes with abnormal heart rhythms are more likely to have a sudden death. Abnormal heart rhythm called ventricular tachycardia from a collapsed Great Dane, is shown at the top of this flier - only one ECG complex (*) is normal. After treatment, her ECG showed her heart rhythm was returned to normal (bottom ECG).
We know that early treatment of dogs with evidence of DCM on echocardiography will delay their progression and so screening dogs will help with both length and quality of life, even though we cannot stop the disease. It is also likely that specific anti-arrhythmic medication may reduce the frequency of abnormal heart rhythm.

What we do not know:

Can a simple blood test for cardiac biomarker tests be sensitive enough to identify Great Danes at risk of developing DCM or sudden death?
To investigate this, we need to take blood samples for the cardiac biomarkers from Great Danes with Echo and Holter studies.
In the future, cardiac biomarkers might be useful to focus the gold standard screening with echo Holter.
We need to know more about the risk of sudden death in Great Danes and association with DCM.
We have funding from the Kennel Club Charitable Trust and Great Dane Breed Council to investigate this further, but we need your continued support