Health Testing
What is health testing in relation to dog Breeding and Why is it done?
Health testing looks for and assesses diseases that are common to specific dog breeds. The American Kennel Club and the Orthopedic Foundation for animals keep logs of diseases in dog breeds and makes recommendations on what to test for based on lots of statistics.
We breed Havanese dogs and Havapoos which are a cross between a poodle and a Havanese So we test our Havanese parents for the tests recommended for Havanese and the Poodles For the Tests recommended for their breed.
We also do genetic testing because the Hip X-rays, Heart exam, Eye exam and knee (Patella) exam only give you a snapshot as to what the dog looked like right now it doesn't necessarily tell you is they carry a gene for that that could show up in their offspring.
We breed Havanese dogs and Havapoos which are a cross between a poodle and a Havanese So we test our Havanese parents for the tests recommended for Havanese and the Poodles For the Tests recommended for their breed.
We also do genetic testing because the Hip X-rays, Heart exam, Eye exam and knee (Patella) exam only give you a snapshot as to what the dog looked like right now it doesn't necessarily tell you is they carry a gene for that that could show up in their offspring.
Hip x-rays
We now do hip X-rays on all our dogs after one year of age.
Acceptable results: Excellent, Good, Fair
Acceptable results: Excellent, Good, Fair
Patella exam
Patellas are notoriously difficult to have "normal" results for in small breed dogs. Patellar laxity is judged at Normal, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3 and Grade 4. We do not keep our breeding dogs in kennels 24/7 and so they jump on and off furniture and run around in our 1/2 acre yard and so we do have the possibility of having less than perfect knees but we have weighed the consequences and have decided that it is better to have our dogs live a quality life than to have perfect knee scores so we do breed off of our Boy Dexter who does have a grade 1 in one of his knees. We are careful about that however and only will be breeding him to females who have "perfect knees" so as not to have problems arise in their offspring down the road.
Acceptable results: Normal, Grade 1
Acceptable results: Normal, Grade 1
Eye Exams
Eyes are examined by a board certified Veterinary Ophthalmologist for several different eye diseases and our dogs are all clear!!!
Acceptable results: NORMAL
Acceptable results: NORMAL
Heart Examination
Hearts are examined by a licensed Veterinarian.
Acceptable results: NORMAL
Acceptable results: NORMAL
Genetic testing
We use Embark to genetically test all our breeding dogs as soon as we get them! For most diseases a dog needs 2 copies of a gene for a specific disease so you could potentially breed two healthy dogs together and have puppies with certain diseases. We want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to produce healthy puppies! All of our dogs are all CLEAR for all genetic diseases they are not even carriers of any genes for any diseases! Special Caution would be needed when breeding a dog who is a carrier for a genetic disease that you do not breed them to another dog who carries that same gene. We are very happy to have all our dogs all Clear!
Acceptable Results: CLEAR
Acceptable Results: CLEAR
What is COI?
COI is Co-efficiency of Inbreeding. It tells you how closely the ancestors of a dog were related. When breeding pure bred dogs higher COIs are just a matter of fact that's what makes them a pure bred dog! if you want a super low COI, get a mutt! Also we are breeding crosses between our Havanese and our Poodles so those have very low COIs. Having a high COI makes for some potential problems higher incidence of allergies for instance. We aim firstly for our dogs to be healthy and secondly we would like them to be easy pets so we try to keep the COI down under 25% if possible. Our highest COI that we produce to date is 21%
Acceptable results: 25% or less
Acceptable results: 25% or less