I cannot say it enough, do not buy a z-factored Doberman. They are not rare, they are not acceptable for health reasons, and they are not bred by responsible breeders. The biggest problem is the z-factored Doberman is not always white. They can be black, red, blue or fawns and they can be AKC registered. The problem with z-factored Dobermans is they are full blooded Dobermans, but they are not desirable.
Here is the exact wording from the Doberman Pinscher Club of America:
"ALBINISM - "white coated" and "white factored" Dobermans should NOT be bred. These dogs are *TYROSINASE POSITIVE ALBINOS*. In 1996, the AKC established a tracking system (the letter "Z" will be part of the registration number) allowing breeders to identify the normal colored Dobermans which may carry the albinistic gene. A list with all dogs tracing back to Shebah's (the first Albino Doberman registered) parents is available here. All breeders should require an AKC certified pedigree with colors to check that "white coated" and "white factored" dogs are not present in the pedigree of the dog or bitch to be bred."
Unfortunately, we know people who thought, it wasn't that big of a deal if their beautiful Dobie was z-factored. Or they were not aware of z-factored Dobies when they started looking for a Doberman. Here are their words, and their stories:
Abby ~
"We finally got Abby's AKC papers from the horrid breeder that we rescued her from and finally after 5 weeks things are starting to look a little better with her health..."
The following is Abby's story as told by her owner Meggan:
What it has been like to raise a Z-factored puppy.
In January of 2011 I began my search for a Doberman puppy. I have always been in love with the breed, look and loyalty that comes from a Dobie. I had recently had a bought with pre-cancerous lesions all over my cervix and a year after my last surgery; I was left feeling pretty worthless. I was struggling with Clinical depression and general anxiety disorder, making every day a battle to get up and continue on. I lacked passion for my life, passion that I felt could only be brought on by me becoming a mother. With the surgeries that I have had, and the possibility that cancer will return, there is a very slim chance that I can ever bear children of my own, I had come to terms with that and decided I still needed to be a mommy, so I set out in search of my future child, a Doberman Pinscher puppy. I looked online for a few weeks, “window shopping” getting an idea of pricing and options and then I ran across The Moyer Doberman Domicile website. I loved the layout of her site, all the information that she gave, and of course I instantly fell in love with her Dobies pictures. I emailed Traci, never having owned a Dobie before; I knew I couldn’t go through the process alone. Traci emailed me back very quickly answering some of my questions, eager to share her knowledge and love of the breed. We chatted back and forth for about a month about options and trying to find a breeder that had a litter of pups when I was ready, I was looking to get my little bundle of joy in March and Traci didn’t have any pups. The first week of February, a friend of mine, told me about an ad for Registered Doberman puppies. Doberman pups are hard to find where I am from, and I felt like it was a sign that I needed to meet these babies, even though it was a little earlier than I planned. Without hesitation, I went and met with the breeder, who seemed to be lovely, met the mom, and the four puppies she had left. She had 2 red males, 1 fawn male and a teeny tiny black female. The males were large and in charge, romping around playing and biting each other, while the female was so tiny and shy, hiding next to the couch under a coffee table. She finally decided to venture out and meet us. My friend was with me and she went right to him and plopped down in his lap, he handed her to me and she looked up at me and started talking. I was in love! I knew I could not leave that house without my precious daughter. So I bundled Abigail up, paid the breeder and went on my way with her. I got home and called Traci, so excited to tell her the good news, only to hear that my puppy was Z-factored. To me, this didn’t really mean much; I thought oh well, nothing will happen to my precious girl, and oh how wrong I was. Within the first week I was having trouble with Abby constantly urinating, and eventually urinating blood. Traci was just as heart broken as I was and this is one of the main reasons that Traci NEVER breeds a Z-factor. I called the vet, got her in and she had a Urinary Tract Infection along with a Bladder infection and had terrible crystals in her urine. While we were at the vet, we found that she also had a double ear infection and all three types of worms, along with a major Staph bump problem. The staph bumps weren’t a major concern because I learned that a lot of puppies get them and eventually grow out of it. I contacted the breeder, as I was very upset for one, she didn’t tell me that Abby was Z-factored and two, she was so sick. The breeder told me, that I hadn’t asked whether or not she was Z-factored so she didn’t tell me, and that I could bring Abby back and she would refund my money. I was already madly in love with my little girl and told her that there was no way that I was giving her up. So, I ventured on hoping that once these issues were cleared up we would be ok and I would have a healthy baby girl. Unfortunately that was not the case, she was on antibiotics for 4 weeks and we were still having problems with the pH level in her urine and her ears were so bad they were on the verge of bleeding. We decided to go see Dr. Hildebrand at the New Palestine Vet Clinic and his advice was to crop her ears, he thought if we didn’t we would forever battle ear infections because they were holding so much heat and moisture in her ears that the infection couldn’t clear out. Once he learned she was Z-factored we had to go through a series of blood tests to make sure it was even a possibility to put her under anesthesia. Everything came back fairly normal on her blood work so we set the date for surgery. In the mean time, we had another problem with the crystals returning in her urine and another round of antibiotics and worms, so we had to push her surgery back another week, putting us over the 13 week mark, which brought the concern of whether her ears would ever actually stand because she had developed very large creases in her ears. But we soldiered on, eventually getting her ears cropped. The stitches from the crop irritated her skin so badly that she was ripping stitches out left and right. We had to go back early to have the stitches taken out and she was in a cone for another 2 weeks because they hadn’t healed properly. Finally we reached the posting stage and got her to Dr H to post. Only after having them posted for about 3 days, we realized that her ears were seeping and bleeding under the tape. She is allergic to adhesive. We tried posting for shorter periods of time with no luck, because the tape would get full of puss and stop adhering to the ear not to mention the terrible pain it caused Abby, I finally had enough of putting her through that and decided to leave her ears alone to just lay flopped around all the time. It did however; take care of the infection problem so I was fine with the only problem being cosmetic at this point. We were feeding Blue Buffalo Puppy food and having terrible problems with diarrhea flares, we put her on a raw diet for a period, which only made things worse. She was going through so much stress the vet thought it was possible that it was causing Irritable Bowel Syndrome and not to really worry with it because we were supplementing electrolytes with Pedialyte. This entire time, Abby was never alone for more than a couple of hours at a time, her constant urination problems, ear problems and everything else, we had a puppy sitter for her during the days when I couldn’t take her to work with me. Right around the 6 month period, I get the dreaded phone call from the puppy sitter telling me something has happened to Abby. I rush to the sitter’s house to find Abby lying on the floor writhing in pain and see an extremely disfigured wrist. She had fallen on her wrist while running and dislocated the growth plate and broke three phalanges. During x-rays it showed that there were fairly large gaps in her joints where her bones weren’t keeping up with her growth rate, the vet recommended we take her off puppy food and start her on adult food to slow the growth rate. They anesthetized her, reset her wrist, put a splint on it, with tape mind you, and sent us on our way. Not even four days after the splint being on we could see her allergies kicking in from the adhesive. We rushed her back to the vet and found that her forearm was covered in open sores. She got a shot of antibiotics; we wrapped the whole leg in gauze and tried the splint again. Another four days go by and we notice the staining of the tape, got her back and the vet decided that the wrist hadn’t healed fully but we couldn’t take the chance of her losing the entire leg for a dislocation. He left the splint off and we hoped that eventually she would regain function in that leg and would learn to use it despite the problems. For weeks, she wouldn’t use that front leg, but finally she started putting small amounts of pressure on it and we began working on strengthening it. We were still having mild problems with diarrhea and decided to try the Limited Ingredient formula by Blue Buffalo and it seemed to work and was really helping with her staph bumps, she has been happy and healthy ever since but it was a long and hard road to make it to her first birthday. We still battle the occasional pH level, but it is quickly cleared up with a few doses of cranberry. She pops up with a giant staph bump about once a month; it pops and eventually goes away. She is still fairly clumsy due to her front leg that you can see is still crooked, which has caused one incident, needing six stitches in her chest, but I have convinced myself that is just a clumsy kid problem. I am not writing this to deter anyone from rescuing a puppy in need. If I had it all to do over again, knowing what I know now, I would still have brought her home that night. I hear horror stories all the time of people getting a Z-factor pup and learning that they have slight problems and turning them over to a shelter or having them euthanized. My intent in writing this is to show people, that even though it is a cloudy path, it can come out bright on the other side, if you have the patience, love and funds to fight right along their side. In 6 months of having Abby, I spent $3200 in vet bills alone, not including all the trips to Dr. H (He is four hours roundtrip from me) all the types of food we tried, supplements, vitamins, and shampoos that we hoped would alleviate some of her discomfort. She has truly become my daughter and I love her more than anything in the world, but if you can’t truly devote your entire life to a Z-factored dobe then be sure, up front, before you even visit, that the dobies you are looking at are NOT Z-factored. Like I said before, Traci does NOT breed Z-factored Dobermans, so if you are looking at one of her pups you are safe, but keep in mind if you look somewhere else, make sure the first question you ask is “Are your pups Z-factored” and ask to see both parents’ registration. If they are Z-factored they’re registration number will have a Z in the very beginning of the number. If you decide to go ahead and get a Z-factored pup…here are my pleas, don’t give up on them. Abby has a sense of appreciation that I have never seen in another dog, she knows I saved her life and her fate would have been so different had I not rescued her when I did. They truly know that you are their savior and reward you with the most amazing love and devotion you can ever find. Please have the pup spayed or neutered. Don’t continue to bring sick babies into this world, your Z-factored pup may never have problems, but are you willing to risk it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is the exact wording from the Doberman Pinscher Club of America:
"ALBINISM - "white coated" and "white factored" Dobermans should NOT be bred. These dogs are *TYROSINASE POSITIVE ALBINOS*. In 1996, the AKC established a tracking system (the letter "Z" will be part of the registration number) allowing breeders to identify the normal colored Dobermans which may carry the albinistic gene. A list with all dogs tracing back to Shebah's (the first Albino Doberman registered) parents is available here. All breeders should require an AKC certified pedigree with colors to check that "white coated" and "white factored" dogs are not present in the pedigree of the dog or bitch to be bred."
Unfortunately, we know people who thought, it wasn't that big of a deal if their beautiful Dobie was z-factored. Or they were not aware of z-factored Dobies when they started looking for a Doberman. Here are their words, and their stories:
Abby ~
"We finally got Abby's AKC papers from the horrid breeder that we rescued her from and finally after 5 weeks things are starting to look a little better with her health..."
The following is Abby's story as told by her owner Meggan:
What it has been like to raise a Z-factored puppy.
In January of 2011 I began my search for a Doberman puppy. I have always been in love with the breed, look and loyalty that comes from a Dobie. I had recently had a bought with pre-cancerous lesions all over my cervix and a year after my last surgery; I was left feeling pretty worthless. I was struggling with Clinical depression and general anxiety disorder, making every day a battle to get up and continue on. I lacked passion for my life, passion that I felt could only be brought on by me becoming a mother. With the surgeries that I have had, and the possibility that cancer will return, there is a very slim chance that I can ever bear children of my own, I had come to terms with that and decided I still needed to be a mommy, so I set out in search of my future child, a Doberman Pinscher puppy. I looked online for a few weeks, “window shopping” getting an idea of pricing and options and then I ran across The Moyer Doberman Domicile website. I loved the layout of her site, all the information that she gave, and of course I instantly fell in love with her Dobies pictures. I emailed Traci, never having owned a Dobie before; I knew I couldn’t go through the process alone. Traci emailed me back very quickly answering some of my questions, eager to share her knowledge and love of the breed. We chatted back and forth for about a month about options and trying to find a breeder that had a litter of pups when I was ready, I was looking to get my little bundle of joy in March and Traci didn’t have any pups. The first week of February, a friend of mine, told me about an ad for Registered Doberman puppies. Doberman pups are hard to find where I am from, and I felt like it was a sign that I needed to meet these babies, even though it was a little earlier than I planned. Without hesitation, I went and met with the breeder, who seemed to be lovely, met the mom, and the four puppies she had left. She had 2 red males, 1 fawn male and a teeny tiny black female. The males were large and in charge, romping around playing and biting each other, while the female was so tiny and shy, hiding next to the couch under a coffee table. She finally decided to venture out and meet us. My friend was with me and she went right to him and plopped down in his lap, he handed her to me and she looked up at me and started talking. I was in love! I knew I could not leave that house without my precious daughter. So I bundled Abigail up, paid the breeder and went on my way with her. I got home and called Traci, so excited to tell her the good news, only to hear that my puppy was Z-factored. To me, this didn’t really mean much; I thought oh well, nothing will happen to my precious girl, and oh how wrong I was. Within the first week I was having trouble with Abby constantly urinating, and eventually urinating blood. Traci was just as heart broken as I was and this is one of the main reasons that Traci NEVER breeds a Z-factor. I called the vet, got her in and she had a Urinary Tract Infection along with a Bladder infection and had terrible crystals in her urine. While we were at the vet, we found that she also had a double ear infection and all three types of worms, along with a major Staph bump problem. The staph bumps weren’t a major concern because I learned that a lot of puppies get them and eventually grow out of it. I contacted the breeder, as I was very upset for one, she didn’t tell me that Abby was Z-factored and two, she was so sick. The breeder told me, that I hadn’t asked whether or not she was Z-factored so she didn’t tell me, and that I could bring Abby back and she would refund my money. I was already madly in love with my little girl and told her that there was no way that I was giving her up. So, I ventured on hoping that once these issues were cleared up we would be ok and I would have a healthy baby girl. Unfortunately that was not the case, she was on antibiotics for 4 weeks and we were still having problems with the pH level in her urine and her ears were so bad they were on the verge of bleeding. We decided to go see Dr. Hildebrand at the New Palestine Vet Clinic and his advice was to crop her ears, he thought if we didn’t we would forever battle ear infections because they were holding so much heat and moisture in her ears that the infection couldn’t clear out. Once he learned she was Z-factored we had to go through a series of blood tests to make sure it was even a possibility to put her under anesthesia. Everything came back fairly normal on her blood work so we set the date for surgery. In the mean time, we had another problem with the crystals returning in her urine and another round of antibiotics and worms, so we had to push her surgery back another week, putting us over the 13 week mark, which brought the concern of whether her ears would ever actually stand because she had developed very large creases in her ears. But we soldiered on, eventually getting her ears cropped. The stitches from the crop irritated her skin so badly that she was ripping stitches out left and right. We had to go back early to have the stitches taken out and she was in a cone for another 2 weeks because they hadn’t healed properly. Finally we reached the posting stage and got her to Dr H to post. Only after having them posted for about 3 days, we realized that her ears were seeping and bleeding under the tape. She is allergic to adhesive. We tried posting for shorter periods of time with no luck, because the tape would get full of puss and stop adhering to the ear not to mention the terrible pain it caused Abby, I finally had enough of putting her through that and decided to leave her ears alone to just lay flopped around all the time. It did however; take care of the infection problem so I was fine with the only problem being cosmetic at this point. We were feeding Blue Buffalo Puppy food and having terrible problems with diarrhea flares, we put her on a raw diet for a period, which only made things worse. She was going through so much stress the vet thought it was possible that it was causing Irritable Bowel Syndrome and not to really worry with it because we were supplementing electrolytes with Pedialyte. This entire time, Abby was never alone for more than a couple of hours at a time, her constant urination problems, ear problems and everything else, we had a puppy sitter for her during the days when I couldn’t take her to work with me. Right around the 6 month period, I get the dreaded phone call from the puppy sitter telling me something has happened to Abby. I rush to the sitter’s house to find Abby lying on the floor writhing in pain and see an extremely disfigured wrist. She had fallen on her wrist while running and dislocated the growth plate and broke three phalanges. During x-rays it showed that there were fairly large gaps in her joints where her bones weren’t keeping up with her growth rate, the vet recommended we take her off puppy food and start her on adult food to slow the growth rate. They anesthetized her, reset her wrist, put a splint on it, with tape mind you, and sent us on our way. Not even four days after the splint being on we could see her allergies kicking in from the adhesive. We rushed her back to the vet and found that her forearm was covered in open sores. She got a shot of antibiotics; we wrapped the whole leg in gauze and tried the splint again. Another four days go by and we notice the staining of the tape, got her back and the vet decided that the wrist hadn’t healed fully but we couldn’t take the chance of her losing the entire leg for a dislocation. He left the splint off and we hoped that eventually she would regain function in that leg and would learn to use it despite the problems. For weeks, she wouldn’t use that front leg, but finally she started putting small amounts of pressure on it and we began working on strengthening it. We were still having mild problems with diarrhea and decided to try the Limited Ingredient formula by Blue Buffalo and it seemed to work and was really helping with her staph bumps, she has been happy and healthy ever since but it was a long and hard road to make it to her first birthday. We still battle the occasional pH level, but it is quickly cleared up with a few doses of cranberry. She pops up with a giant staph bump about once a month; it pops and eventually goes away. She is still fairly clumsy due to her front leg that you can see is still crooked, which has caused one incident, needing six stitches in her chest, but I have convinced myself that is just a clumsy kid problem. I am not writing this to deter anyone from rescuing a puppy in need. If I had it all to do over again, knowing what I know now, I would still have brought her home that night. I hear horror stories all the time of people getting a Z-factor pup and learning that they have slight problems and turning them over to a shelter or having them euthanized. My intent in writing this is to show people, that even though it is a cloudy path, it can come out bright on the other side, if you have the patience, love and funds to fight right along their side. In 6 months of having Abby, I spent $3200 in vet bills alone, not including all the trips to Dr. H (He is four hours roundtrip from me) all the types of food we tried, supplements, vitamins, and shampoos that we hoped would alleviate some of her discomfort. She has truly become my daughter and I love her more than anything in the world, but if you can’t truly devote your entire life to a Z-factored dobe then be sure, up front, before you even visit, that the dobies you are looking at are NOT Z-factored. Like I said before, Traci does NOT breed Z-factored Dobermans, so if you are looking at one of her pups you are safe, but keep in mind if you look somewhere else, make sure the first question you ask is “Are your pups Z-factored” and ask to see both parents’ registration. If they are Z-factored they’re registration number will have a Z in the very beginning of the number. If you decide to go ahead and get a Z-factored pup…here are my pleas, don’t give up on them. Abby has a sense of appreciation that I have never seen in another dog, she knows I saved her life and her fate would have been so different had I not rescued her when I did. They truly know that you are their savior and reward you with the most amazing love and devotion you can ever find. Please have the pup spayed or neutered. Don’t continue to bring sick babies into this world, your Z-factored pup may never have problems, but are you willing to risk it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~