Health testing - How important is it?

As the GSD thread appears to have been taken over by discussion about various health tests, I decided to open a new thread on the general section for people's views on the various health test.

Does health testing produce healthier dogs?
If so, why are so many pedigree dogs still unhealthy?

Are your dogs from health tested parents, gparents, ggparents etc? Have your dogs got any genetic health issues?

yes it does produce healthier dogs ,and to the second part... not everyone tests and nature likes to throw curveballs on occasion

If i'm brutally honest, if a dog I was looking at buying didnt come from health tested parents then i'm not sure if it would put me off.

I know both of Flynn's parents were hip scored and that's as far as it went. Dont know about Jessie as she's a rescue and Jed was from a BYB so I know nothing about his family history at all.

I am a believer that all dogs who are to be bred from should have a full compliment of health tests and the results should be satisfactory before they are allowed to reproduce. But as a puppy buyer and knowing that in the real world it's not going to happen, health tests wouldnt be at the top of my priority list.

Yes, I know, it's hypocritical.

IMO It can produce healthier dogs but nothing is foolproof when breeding. I have Cresteds and they are tested for PRA and PLL. If I did not test I could have put a carrier to a carrier.

I personally think it's important as it gives us an idea of the health of a breed and certain lines - however, it's taken too far in some cases, and a hip scored dog will be used despite having a poor temperament, sticking out elbows, untypical head, terrible movement etc. because on paper he looks like a good dog.

In my breed hip scoring is done by some and not by others. I'd like to see it done routinely, but I do think the scores should be looked at as part of the picture, not the be all and end all. I used an unscored male on my bitch because I couldn't find a hip scored male that fit the bill. The boy I used is sound and comes from a line of sound dogs that are fit into old age. I could have used a hip scored dog but would have been compromising on temperament and type.

A hip scored male won't necessarily produce sound or low scoring progeny. I think you need to look at several generations of one line before you have a true representation of the hip status of that line. This is something I hope to accomplish within my own line - dogs which throw low scoring progeny. These things take time however, and many people in the breed would like to see only very low scoring dogs used. I think an above average scoring dog could be used on a low scoring bitch, provided he was a very good example of the breed.

ETA: I've only ever had ONE person ask about hip scoring when enquiring about puppies, out of maybe 20 ish. Most people have never heard of it.

First of all the reason why so many pedigree dogs are unhealthy is because not ALL breeders breed from health tested stock.

So that is one reason

However if we are questioning whether or not health tests produce healthier dogs lets us examine some statistics.

For example.

In Labrador Retrievers, the 5 year rolling mean hip socre has reduced from 16.5 in 1996 to 11.6 in 2011.

I would consider that this is an improvment.

In the German Shepherd the 5 year rolling mean hip score over the same period has reduced from 19.3 to 15.7 in 2011

In fact in the 21 major breeds only one has INCREASED and that is of the Japanese Akita. This is probably because they are more numerous than in 1996

CLAD has practically been eradicated by the introduction of the test and the refusal of the KC to register an Irish Setters from parents which have not tested clear .

ETA and of course that is only ONE factor in choosing either to breed or to purchase, the others are

breed standard
temperament
fit for function

Health testing is an excellent tool, among many, to help prevent breeding unhealthy dogs. Other tools include breeding for correct and unexaggerated conformation, breeding to include working instinct and breeding to lower coi. Health testing can help to give a clearer picture of what may lie hidden within the dogs genetics, so why risk not testing and therefore not knowing?

Knowledge is paramount to breeding healthy dogs, so why would a good breeder deny themselves an opportunity to increase their knowledge base? A breeder who declares they have nothing more to learn about the genetics behind their breeding stock is heading dangerously towards severe kennel blindness imo.

If we look at elbow scoring.

82% of dogs scored resulted in 0 score in 2011 compared with 66.6 in 98

10.9 v 17.8 with a score of 1
5.0 v 8 with a score of 2
2.2 v 7.6 with a score of 3

So again we can see that there has been a year on year increase in better scores for elbows.

Health testing is vitally important if you want to produce health dogs.

It also helps collect data to ensure "lines" are free from genetic disease,

Knowing (and not guessing) you are free from A.B.C can only be a good thing for any breed of dog.

Health testing is important; it helps good breeder/owners make informed decisions.

If a dog comes back with really bad hips, then you know you shouldn’t breed from that dog.

If a dog scores come back really good, then you know you could possibly breed from that dog.

In the case of the GSD, there are so many of them that there is unlikely to be any genetic bottle necks, so a dog with bad hips shouldn’t be breed from.

Some breeds don’t have the genetic numbers to be able to make those clear choices; at that point a grey area may occur.