So you believe not health testing at all is worse than testing and then making an informed decision on varying matters including the results of various tests. Interesting.

Well you are welcome to jump to all the conclusions you like that is your prerogative.

If that is what you wish to infer from my post, that is up to you.

I have just stated the FACTS that comprehensive testing is available and conducted in various countries on various breeds.

HTH

Absolutely. It is impossible to produce absolute perfection in any animal - however hard one might try.

I think that is a very good point, where breeds that are numerically very small, informed decisions need to be made, but even then, health screening is important, so the informed decision has the correct ones.

In larger numerical breeds there is no excuse to use defected dogs in a breeding pool

I agree, no one, is ever going to produce a dog (animal) that is 100% guaranteed from ever suffering any ailments... I don't think anyone would ever dispute that.

BUT, you have to be realistic, and if you can eliminate hereditary problems by testing for A.B.C, then you are at least going a good way to ensure your "lines", future dogs will be free from A.B.C, what environment throws at you you cant do much about, but at least you can say , I have lessoned the risks of producing unhealthy dogs.

There are grey areas, where numerically small gene pools occur, breeds that sit in the endangered camp, but even them, I am sure when making informed decisions on what dog to breed from, they would still not double up on a problem.

But for the most part, when breeding from breeds that have large gene pools, WHY would anyone use the argument, that keeping a defective dog in a gene pool, is good for the breed.

Labs, Boxers, GSD, Staffies, and so many more, do not need any dog that suffers with bad hips, hearts, eyes or any other genetic ailment kept in a gene pool.

WHY??? because its a nice specimen (plenty of them) . its got a good temperament , (plenty of them too), so whats your excuse to breed from said dog.


When someone ignores health results and use the excuse that the dog has a lot to offer, what does it have to offer other than a bad health result and a nice temperament.

Why not look for a dog that has a good health result and a nice temperament, its not rocket science,

No one is suggesting that breeders can guarantee to produce puppies that are totally healthy.

I understand the argument for breeds where numbers are small, but is it right to consider in-breeding or breeding from dogs with health problems just to keep the breed or raise the numbers? What would be the point of producing larger numbers if those numbers are not healthy themselves and go on to produce even more numbers on unhealthy dogs?

Moobli the post was posted June 2011 not 5 years ago. Not got much time on my hands and it only took me 5 minutes to find that info and more. Research via Web is a good way to find info when someone posts different opinions

ahh but even if there is a large NUMBER of dogs you also need to know how much genetic variability there is as well, if you dont look at that as well you might find that the dogs you are breeding from become less and less deverse
You need the whole picture - and if excluding one dog would make a big difference to the breed as a whole then sometimes you might have to add that to the equation
I very much agree with informed decisions, everything needs to be looked at and balanced
To be honest at the moment the way things are being done I dont see any benifit of the methods the 'expert' breeders are doing and the more natural way that people breed their pets putting them to dogs they like in the area - I am not seeing super healthy 'wel bred' dogs and horribly ill 'badly bred mutts'


It all depnds imo on how unhealthy we thing dogs are just now
I am not talking about breeding from every single dog regardless
I am just saying instead of attempting to take the top 10% and heavilly breeding them take the top 50%
So that surly shouldnt be a problem for breeders - dogs are not that unhealthy just now are they?
Of course it wouldnt work because people will argue about what the criteria for the top 50% are and will of course bias it to the things that will win them the most acclaim (some not all of course)

But yes I do agree as well, it is possible that some breeds are past the point where they are no longer sustainable as individual breeds
and to an extent I think a big part of the problem we are having just now is that we wanted to stick a pin in breeds and have them fixed instead of as had been natural for all the time dogs had been with us, breeds adapting and evolving to fit the roles most useful to us at the time

Having seperate breeds breeding to exact type is a very new idea in the great big scheme of thigns, Im not sure we should be putting so much importance on it

The incidence of genetic conditions in the BSD is not any lower than the GSD. Epilepsy is becoming a problem in BSD I know of a litter with several dogs that have epilepsy in it, bred from a breed champion & by one of the top kennels in the breed-my friend who owns one of the litter thought it was rare in the breed, but having researched the condition finds it is sadly far more common, but like with many breeds it is kept secret

Yep - epilepsy is indeed the biggest problem we face in my breed - ...and it has been so for many years -far from keeping it a secret breeders have been working with geneticists to develop a DNA test for Epilepsy and this has recently been achieved
http://www.bsdaofgb.co.uk/epilepsyinthebsd.htm