Health Testing

[kingfisher7151]

I am nowhere near ready to take on another dog. But in 2, 3, 4 years I will be ready to add another.

 

I know that many of the strongest working breeders only have a litter every few years, so I'm looking at being proactive. Especially since I am not a working home, I know that I likely will have a very long wait ahead of me. So, in the next year I will likely be starting to make contact with some breeders, even though Next Dog would be several years away. I'm quite fine with spending 3 years on the wait list.

 

I have become paranoid about HD. I would be really, really nervous about bringing home a dog from untested parents. But as I've been doing my research, there are a lot of highly respected working breeders who don't do health testing. (Red Top, etc.)

 

I'm curious what everyone's priorities are when purchasing a pup. Is testing important to you? If the breeder is very strong in all other ways, would you be willing to forego testing?

 

And as an aside, I've seen a great many breeders with "working homes only" programs. I always get very excited about a breeder, only to see that they wouldn't be interested in placing one in a pet home. (Even though I show cowhorses and am heavily involved in that world, I just don't have stock. Agility is likely in the near future as well.) Is that something that is likely to limit my chances at having a strong working bred dog?

 

I should note that a decent bit of my research has been through word of mouth. I have a good few friends who trial their dogs, mostly on cattle. So I'm not just looking on the internet.

[Maralynn]

I'd contact the "working homes only" places and explain your situation. You'll most likely fond someone will to work with you.

 

Re: Health testing - I'm becoming more and more of the opinion that I want to stack the deck in my favor when buying a pup. So hip xrays on the parents and BAER testing on the pups if there are any in the litter with excessive white on their heads. I might make an exception in some cases where I knew the breeder and was familiar with the dogs.

[Liz P]

I've taken a chance twice on litters with one parent hip scored, one not. In both cases, the pups were dysplastic. I don't want to go through that again.

 

I know someone who bought a pup from a similar situation, one parent scored and one not. The pup was so dysplastic that the choices were total hip replacement or euthanasia. Because he could not afford surgery, the pup was put to sleep.

 

In an ideal world, I also want DNA testing for CEA, IGS and TNS. I want a CERF exam (because there are diseases other than CEA that Border Collies get) and BAER test at 7 to 8 weeks. If the breeder doesn't do these tests, I want the option to do them immediately after purchase and get a refund if there are any issues.

[Laurelin]

After a bad situation with a (non BC) dog, I will not buy a dog without health testing behind it. If I want to gamble about those things, I will rescue.

[CptJack]

After a bad situation with a (non BC) dog, I will not buy a dog without health testing behind it. If I want to gamble about those things, I will rescue.

 

This is where I am. I mean, more or less.

 

You can either give me two health tested parents and I will be a reasonable purchase price for a well bred puppy, or you can not have health tested and I'll give you an adoption fee (by which I mean what an adoption fee would be here, which is up to maybe 100.00 but not above).

 

I am not paying hundreds to a thousand dollars for a pup without testing. I'm just... not.

[Alchemist]

Hm. I've bought puppies with parents whose hips were tested - and pups whose parents weren't. Guess which one had joint issues? The pup whose parents had good/excellent hips...

 

There are NO guarantees with live animals. Look at the OFA website and you'll see a not inconsequential % of dysplastic pups from parents with good/excellent hips.

 

That being said, I'd rather stack any decks I can - but you can't go into things with unrealistic expectations in terms of what sort of protection it "buys" you.

[Gloria Atwater]

The issue of hips is always a crap shoot. My very first border collie turned out to have bad hips, while her parents both worked into old age. Nonetheless, having experienced that heartache, I'd rather stack the deck in the direction of better luck by going with parents who have good or excellent hips.

As for CEA and other genetic tests, the science exists and is accessible, so there's no reason for a breeder to not, at the very least, check for CEA so that I know the status of both parents. It's worth my peace of mind, anyhow.

~ Gloria

[Laurelin]

For me it is not really the issue that I think a dog with tested parents will be defect free. It is that I want to support breeders that are doing everything they can to breed healthy dogs and I believe that health testing is a very important part of that. I understand that sometimes good dogs will produce bad hips (or knees or what have you) but I still feel like testing for a breed's potential health problems gives you a part of the picture that you wouldn't see otherwise. It also shows me that a breeder is utilizing the tools they have to try to make the best decisions they can.