Health testing

I have had one or two people express surprise/concern about the fact that the dog that Dollar will be visiting is not hip/eye tested and suggesting that I should, perhaps, have not publicised this fact. I have always tried to be open and honest about my dogs and my plans for them so I feel that perhaps I need to expand on my reasons for doing so.

I am very much in favour of health testing when breeding, I have been hip scoring my dogs from the time I started breeding them (nearly 25 years) when VERY few std poodle breeders bothered with hip scores, I have eye tested for the last 10 years, SA tested occasionally for the last 6 years and am currently hoping to DNA test my stds (toys are DNA eye tested as well as the annual  BVA test) for various conditions over the next few months. I have also had 2 of my girls DLA Haplotyped, for which I am currently awaiting results.

But health testing is not the be all and end all when it comes to breeding, it is no good having a dog with fantastic hips if it is so nervous it never comes out from under the chair, or having a dog with clear eyes if it is so inbred it is unlikely to survive to an old age or quite simply just does not resemble the dog described in the KC breed standard. You need to look at the whole package, this is what I have tried to do in selecting the dog that I plan to use on Dollar. I have looked at his pedigree and, so far as I can tell, there are very few problems in his line. His pedigree ties in with Dollars without being too close, hopefully this will help to produce pups that are true to type but still have a low COI (inbreeding coefficient)

. I have also looked at the Wycliffe% on both dogs with an a view to keep it reasonably low. Physically the boy I plan to use is still sound at 8 years old (a good indication that his hips are ok), he is a smaller dog, another thing that to my mind compliments Dollars large and slightly rangy shape, his head and eye are lovely, as are Dollars. His colour will also give pups of the colour I am aiming for. His temperament is lovely, he is forward going without being over the top. He is not perfect, no dog is, but he is, in my view, a dog who has qualities worth passing on.

It has also been suggested that I repeat a previous mating from Dollar, several of these pups have been health tested now, all have good hips and clear eyes, so on the surface this sounds like a good suggestion, but this will do nothing to increase the very small genetic gene pool that we have for silver poodles in the UK. Time after time I see a dog that I like the look of, and time and time again, when I look up its pedigree it will be very closely related to Dollar or her previous offspring. Not only do I want to breed good quality pups, I want to help the breed, this is why I went to the trouble and considerable expense of importing my Swedish boy, Cash.

I will be keeping a puppy from this mating as I believe they will be worth it, if I thought there was a significant risk of problems from this union I would not be keeping one. Breeding will always carry a risk element, health testing, to a certain extent, helps stack the chips in your favour, but sometimes you have to take a calculated risk to try to make things better.  

Spirits proposed mate is health tested :-)