Question on health testing

I'm not too familiar with breeders and was going to see if you guys could answer something for me.

I get not putting all info online for privacy and sometimes you are paying to have people make the sure and more stuff means more money. But is it normal to not post health stuff? The breeder says they health test and the results are open to anyone that visits. But I don't know if I'd be able to understand what they were saying so I'd kinda rather see online so I could look up stuff as I look at it.

What sort of health testing?

If it's OFA then you can just look it up yourself on their online database, assuming you know the dog's registered name.

But there are a lot of health tests out there...so it just depends on which ones are being claimed.

This. It really just depends. Many heath tests are recorded in a public, online database. You can look it up with the dog's registered name.

Like, my mom's English Cocker is from health tested parents, but the breeder doesn't post the specifics on her site. She just advertises that she believes in the health testing and specifically names OFA recordable tests. So before we even contacted her, I snooped on OFA to see if her dogs were listed and sure enough they were.

http://www.redbudcavaliers.com/health.html

They say its submitted to OFA but I really didn't know what to search with and wasn't able to find much there.

I looked up all of their dogs in OFA. None of the females showed up for anything. Three males (Ryder, Cappie, and, Joey) showed that they've had their hips tested.

If you really want to get to the bottom of it you'd have to talk to them directly. It's possible they have not submitted the tests to OFA for some reason, or choose only to submit hips even though their dogs have been tested for everything else. It's also possible all of their current females have not been bred so don't need to be tested yet. But on a first glance it doesn't look good, you'd need to chat with them.

The deal with OFA is with certain tests, the results are determined when the test is performed, others are not.

Any vet can do OFA xrays, but the xrays must be sent to OFA and graded by their team or else the dog is not considered to be OFA'ed for hips.

If you go to a CERF clinic, the dog's eyes are dilated and evaluated and the paperwork is filled out right there. You pay the Opthamologist $20 or whatever they charge, and then if you want OFA to record the results of the exam you must send in the paperwork the opthamologist gave you and $10 and then it will be psoted online in OFA's database. The dog is considered CERF'ed as soon as the opthamologist gives you a grade on your paperwork, but it will not show up on OFA's website until you send it to them. Some breeders choose to just file the test results away and make copies to send with puppy buyers or stud dog owners as needed.

I just got my dog's OFA cardiac test done. It isn't required by the breed club, but I was at a show that offered it, so I took advantage. He's cardiac clear, but I haven't sent the papers to OFA yet, so you won't find it listed in their database. If I choose to never send it to OFA it will never be searchable, but he wil lstill be cardiac clear, and I would be able to show proof of that.

So something like this shouldn't be an instant write off but do go ahead and try looking at the stuff he has?

I've never seen one are they hard to read?

I've found breeders who don't submit, but do do health testing.. and those who lie. You won't know till you visit them, or ask for scanned copies if they do or don't. Some cocker breeders I looked at that bragged about the most health testing couldn't prove anything when pushed.

Yeah especiakly in the case of OFA...I mean it's generally $150+ to get the x-rays done...and only $30 or $40 to submit them...so if someone is claiming OFA and they aren't listed or some dogs are listed and others aren't, I would definitely be asking questions. Bear in mind also that submitter can check the little box that says OFA cannot publish the results if they are abnormal.

There coukd be a good explanation. More likely, there isn't. But it doesn't hurt to ask.

Here is a list of all the CKCS dogs on the OFFA data base that begin with "redbud"

http://www.offa.org/results.html?nu...r=&rptdte_end_month=&rptdte_end_year=&rptdte=

Ok I looked at those. If I get a copy from them will it just say 'good' or does it give specifics?

I am trying to find an example for you, if I remember from ones I've seen it does, somewhere on the page, clearly state that the result is "good", 'normal", "fair", etc.

Oh here's one from google, it's for hearing



You can see on the bottom it states the final result:

Oh ok that doesn't look anywhere as near confusing as I thought it would be.

Depends upon what it being tested

Patellas, you want to see normal.. hips at least good. Since MVD is a concern if they do cardiac testing.. hopefully a cardiologist rated the dog normal. Eyes can have a bunch of issues some of which are less of a concern.. you can look up each eye code problem though if you run into that..

Lol ok I was worried it would list just a ton of stuff and I'd have to mentally calculate it myself XD

If you are specifically interested in a breeding the breeder should be willing to scan you proof on at least those parents. There should be nothing to hide. Site looks good.. Lot of their dogs hips are on the OFA.. but or the amount of health testing they brag about.. there isn't as many published results as I'd expect.. but they my have done the testing.. and not published the results..

Well really I'm just super interested in the breed. I really like medium dogs but have been thinking of maybe looking into a smaller breed dog next. It's something at least two years down the line and was wanting to talk to a breeder about the breed and to kind of get feelers out there.

Also since I have trouble talking to people sometimes I kind of want to get to know a few breeders now so when puppy time comes around I'm comfortable enough with the person that I'm not stressing every step of the way.

I noticed there's no mention of Syringomyelia and Chiari-like malformation at all which to me would be a huge concern if I were interested in the breed. You might want to check out http://www.cavalierhealth.org/syringomyelia.htm. It is a horrible, horrible disease which the UK's KC has been addressing but the US parent club doesn't seem to want to acknowledge it as a real problem even though it really is.

It frustrates me when people make the effort to do health testing and then do not send them in to the OFA. I have been lied to in the past and if I don't have verifiable proof, then I assume the testing was never done or the tests were done and the person has something to hide.

Yup. Especially with subjective things like hips. OFA helps to standardize, at least to some extent, the subjectivity of it. So if you xray your dog's hips and the vet says they look "fine", what does that mean, exactly? Fine "fair"? Fine "excellent"?

Steve's neutered and I still sent his xrays to OFA. They're just prelims as they were just for my knowledge, but I wanted that information to be available for people looking at his lines.

I also wish that PennHip had a searchable online database.