Anyone do health testing on their stock?

Hello all, was wondering what everyone's opinions on health tests for dogs being bred are?

I've seen a lot of people on here breeding some very, very nice dogs, but I've only heard mention of eye, hip, joint, etc. testing a couple of times. Do the majority of [real] APBT breeders just not deal with health testing, or what? Sorry if this is a stupid question. Not to say that a person who doesn't health test is at all a 'bad' breeder', but if I had a yard of my own, I'd probably check hips and eyes before breeding any dog.

I know these tests can also be costly, and not everyone is rich; perhaps people are doing some other health tests, besides OFA? Information would be appreciated. I know OFA testing is probably a lot more common with the "pet bull" crowd of the UKC.

-Blau

 

i look at it like a hound dog there working dogs, they performing work, not shows,

hip problems you'd probably test for if your dogs threw dogs with bad hips in there young(shepherds...) ex. if there was cause for concern,

but everyone raises there dogs different i guess?

Before breeding any dog you'd look to see if its fit for breeding anyway,

then you also have dogs with Bowwed legs & feet, but still perform okay, certain traits can be overlooked, but kept in mind, when the young are breed later....

????good question!:confused:

 

my opinion is - show dog breeders seem more concerned w/ health testing. working dog breeders know their stock in and out, generation after generation (not all but the good ones) so they don't necessarily feel they have the need for health testing......the issues don't seem as severe w/ working dogs.

there's a member here who i don't think posts anymore and he has solid apbts but he does health testing anywho.....better safe than sorry i guess. that and if someone is dropping a pretty penny on a promising pup or prospect it probably helps put them at ease.

that's my logic, but it's been called flawed before

 

Honestly working dogs are the dogs who would benefit most from health testing - show dogs don't have much need for perfect hips and elbows - so it kind of irks me when someone says "it is just for show dogs" because the only benefit a show dog will get from the tests are "bragging rights" for their owners - a working dog on the other hand uses and abuses his body and joints daily, so I think this testing would be far more beneficial to a dog actually out working hard every single day than a show dog.

Yes, a working breeder knows his stock in and out, but there is value to having proven medical documentation to have record and proof of just how sound your dogs are.
Just because this bred has not yet been turned into a genetic disaster, doesn't mean it won't happen in the future. Show lines of German Sheps. are a great example, maybe if people were actually doing health testing along the way with their working stock they would have noticed quickly that the new traits that were being introduced into the working stock to create a what has become the "show stock" look were detrimental and maybe the breed wouldn't be in the state it is today in regards to hips....

Nothing wrong with preventative medicine in my eyes, maybe such a thing could help catch an issue that has the potential to create larger issues later on down the line, but might be at the point right now where it is just starting to show up and is insignifigant enough that even a talented working dog owner might not be able to pick it out without xrays...

 

show bred roached were purposely bred for that, it wasnt an untested accident.

 

You totally missed the point of what I said, like it flew 10,000 feet over your head.

The roached back, low slung hips was developed from dogs that once upon a time, did not have those issues. Perhaps if the people who started to breed for this "look" intentionally had done health testing along the way, they would have seen that the look they were trying to make was detrimental to the working function of the dog. Instead you hear bullshit about how that look is because of the working function (ie. "it is so they can push off of run better" and other bullshit lies). The people breeding these dogs have convinced themselves that this look has "working" and "historical" merit, and do not feel the dogs are a wreck. Maybe if the fool who first starting breeding for the more exagerrated look had been health testing the in the first place, they would have seen a great difference in the soundness of the original confirmation of the breed and the exagerrated show look of today. There would have been a baseline of "Dog X from way back when was healthy, but look, as soon as we started to exagerrate the hips soundness began to fail - oh shit maybe we should do something about this!" rather than the bullshit you hear today of "oh their hips are like that because of x, y, or z bullshit made up story about working history" - same shit goes for English Bulldogs, these folks have actually convinced themselves that the shortened snout on their dogs helped "the dogs breathe while holding a bull".

All I am saying is these folks started with working stock and good intentions, and then it all went to hell, and they are wound up in believing that their shit doesn't stink and the exagerrated looks of their dog breeds actually has some historical working merit. Maybe if testing was done along the history of the breed it would have been realized that the new looks people were trying to create were detrimental to soundness. Instead now you have people trying to health test something that is already broken.... maybe they would have stopped along the way if they realized it was screwing up the breed so much. It is ignorant to say that the same couldn't happen to any other breed over time, and I think preventative testing helps open people's eyes to the true effects that a certain "look" can really have on the underlying anatomy.

 

dont really hear about it as much with gamedogs as other breeds but its one of the healthier breeds. Any decent breeder simply wont breed a dog with major health issues and will figure out where they issues in the line came from. There are some breeders who stud and sell dogs with health issues. Im not gonna say any names but if you do the research before purchasing 99 out of 100 times you will find that out. Plus i would want some type of health guarantee anyways...

 

Thanks for the responses!
Yeah, after I posted this I kind of thought that a working dog breeder doesn't NEED health testing as much as conformation; IE with the APBT, a dog with hip or joint problems would obviously not be able to be conditioned as well [or hunt as well] as a healthy dog. So it'd be easier to tell which dog is unfit to be bred. Still, better to be safe than sorry. I haven't owned many dogs [just one 5 year old GSD] so I wouldn't know how 'fast' it takes for a dog affected with some joint or eye problems to show that they DO have problems. Does it show as pups? Does it not show until they're older?

Not to mention a lot of people have fairly good sized yards, and it would be extremely expensive to health test every single dog... Unless of course, you aren't breeding EVERY dog, and some are just for working purposes alone. Which makes perfect sense. But you have a great point Adivina, which brings me back to "how long does it take to tell if a dog is sick"? A dog can't be OFA tested until it's at least 2 years old [I think]

Also, on the topic of GSD's, American bred dogs have sloped croups [look at any dog handled by James Moses in the AKC], whereas most West German dogs are roach backed. They walk better, but still are an eyesore to anyone who respects the true working GSD. Now, I'm not sure HOW many DDR [East German] dogs have won a Sieger title, don't know how many of you guys are into GSD's, but it seems like West German dogs win a lot more. Then again, I don't know if the SVeV is all across Germany, or just certain parts.

 

I'll be honest with ya, I'm a fan of how many home country does their "flavor" of GSD. I know it isn't in line with the topic of bulldogs here, but the Czechs put out some fantastic working beasts.

(For those curious, I do live in America, but my great grandfather came over from the "old country" of Czechslovakia)

 

I certainly agree it may not be as needed in the working world as the "duds" or inferior dogs will weed themselves out, but like I said before I see nothing wrong with a little preventative medicine. Who knows if half these silly "show counterparts" to working breeds would even exist if health testing had been pushed so the people manipulating the animals could have noticed they were becoming less and less sound over time.

 

I had actually planned on having Scarling fully health tested but we only made it to the vonWillebrands before she started to display some pretty crappy temperment so she'll more than likely be getting euthed instead of health tested. :mad: Not that I had planned on breeding her, but I thought it would be good information to have just as far as it being info available for other people looking at dogs related to her when researching peds.

 

i personal think having health test done on ur original breeding stock is a good idea, more for the breeder than the buyers. You can be certain you are starting out with healthy dogs.

 

good point slim
adivina is also point. look at what exaggeration has done to so many breeds. Bullies and the old english bulldog

 

I agree, Slim. I knew of someone who had a goal of breeding Afghans - but not "show world" Afghans, he purchased his dogs based on the original standard for an Afghan (much like how we here hold on to the original true standard for the APBT). His dogs did great in field work, but when it came to the confirmation show ring he had such a hard time getting his dogs placed because they were not over exagerated show hounds, they were bred to look like the original dogs from the country of Afghan and able to run and work their butts off - but none of that mattered because as Slim said - the show ring had moved into the world of subjective views of the standard, so suddenly his true to type, historically and functionally correct dog was simply not good enough because it did not fit in with the whims and fancies of what the breed should be this particular season.

 

Show dogs started the need for health testing. Before that, when dogs served a purpose, any dogs with health problems weeded themselves out naturally. A flat faced bulldog who can't breathe is gonna catch the horns of the bull when he gets tired. And a shepherd with poor hips isn't going to be able to tend to his flock... See what I mean? Dogs were originally domesticated because they were useful to man. A dog who didn't pull his own weight was just another mouth to feed, so people kept and bred only those dogs who did their jobs well. Dogs with health defects couldn't compete with a healthy specimen.

 

Still, with working dogs, you'd be able to breed even better dogs with health testing of studs and brood bitches. Say you weeded out the dogs that didn't work [or hunt] as well by looks and working ability alone. You started with ten dogs, and now have five healthy, working able dogs to work with. But if you were to health test those five dogs, you could weed out another three that were susseptible to hip or eye problems; so you've two perfectly healthy, very good working dogs to have in your breeding program. Now obviously most people don't have the money to buy ten puppies, feed them until they're two years old, start working them, AND pay for their health tests all at the same time, but do you see what I'm getting at?

 

As far as bad health issues showing up in a dog's working ability, not all the time, IMO. Dogs with higher pain tolerance may never show signs of any problems until they're much older. a year ago, you would have never known how crappy my boerboel's joints just by watching her move, run, jump, wrestle, hike, load up, pull, and chase. she has SEVERE HD and really bad ED radiographically. I had her hips x-rayed at 3 years old just out of curiosity. they were horrible then, but she showed absolutely no signs of it. she was just as athletic as a normal dog and held up to whatever I asked her to do. only within the past year (she's 6 years old now) has she begun to slow down, and even then it's because of her elbows, not her hips.

so yeah, i think working dogs should be subjected to health testing as well. there are things you just can't always see from the outside. and yeah, you can't OFA a dog's hips until age 2, but you shouldn't be breeding a dog younger than 2 years anyway, IMO.