Breeding ethics. Health testing.

yes somethings do weed themselves out. no matter how tough & high their pain tolerance, a dog that has to run 100+ miles a week chasing fast critters like coyote, that dog won't last long w/ HD. likewise before the invention of quickclot such dogs w/ vonwilbrands would have died in the field on bear or cat or even just hitting a barbwire fence, which is why there is none known in fox & coonhounds, because young dogs like young men are reckless. dogs w/ autoimmune diseases that couldn't fight off infection the same. so yeah, depending on the job, some things do weed themselves out.

I think every breeder should health test, regardless of whether or not the dog is a working dog. I've seen plenty of high performance dogs get tested after years of competition and found to be dysplastic. Likewise there is a correlation between "fair" hips and hip dysplasia; It's easier to make good breeding decisions when you know where your dog stands, healthwise.

All the testing in the world won't eliminate every issue but surely it does help. Being a fanatical pedigree researcher, I see a strong genetic link with hip dysplasia; It isn't easy to 'breed out' like most people think. Taking chances on an untested dog is stupid if you ask me. It's not fair to the puppies who have to be born with painful or debilitating conditions.

I've heard many BYB's brag that they don't test X because they've never produced an X problem. How do they know they never produced a problem?? This is especially true with dysplasia. You never know unless you x-ray. Dogs have a high pain threshold. They might not start to show signs of pain until their senior years, and then that is considered "normal." They don't realise that the dog may have lived with this condition it's entire life. How sad. How ignorant.

I do know on breeder who does do the tests, but does not send in to OFA. She doesn't believe in OFA because she has known of breeders to substitute dogs for x-rays. So rather than OFA, every time someone wants to use her studs, she meets them at the vet clinic and has the dog x-rayed right in front of them and gets the vet to go over the x-ray with them. Normally I don't like this idea because a typical vet isn't trained to know orthopedics like someone at OFA or OVC, but at the same time I can respect her opinion. I think her's is the only exception for me.

She gets the dog x-rayed every time he is used as a stud??? That can't be good for him

Or do you mean she goes over the already-taken x-rays?

She gets the stud x-rayed each time, but considering her opinions on OFA (and being in a breed where people feel very strongly FOR health certifying), people tend not to use her studs anyways, so I wouldn't say she's x-raying in excess amounts. In this breed a stud rarely gets used by outside breeders more than once or twice unless he's quite popular so the concept isn't a horrible one for this breed, but not one I would do personally. I like to have my dogs in a database, and I don't like exposing my dogs to radiation more than I have to.

Ah OK if it's only a couple times that's not so bad I guess, although I agree with you; I prefer the registry.