Health Tests

As breeders which are members of the assured breeder scheme, we do health testing required for our breeds of dogs.  But in 2020 we had covid 19.  This put a stop to most health testing.  I contacted the Kennel club and asked what we could do.  We were told to go ahead and breed the dogs if the parents of the breeding dog had good results, and then when testing restarts we have up to September to get the tests done.  But they expected an extension up to the end of the year.  So we won't get into any trouble by not health testing a dog.  The reason being no vets were doing the tests. No vets were checking the tests.  This has now caused a huge back log of paperwork for vets to start plugging through.  Luckily for us our dogs were health tested which we going to be bred summer 2020. 


A vet for example takes an X-ray, charges the money for the X-ray. Then they get submitted to the BVA and we pay the BVA to score them. I understand the BVA are now starting to go through hip score results from February/March.   We are also waiting for BOAS to start again as their is only one vet in our area which is an hours drive from us that will do it.  

We are committed to the health tests when we can have them done.  But their are back logs and we can only get in the queue. 

Just remember their were no health tests required for many dogs breeds for years.  So this is all new.  Even today many breeders choose not to do the tests. It doesn't mean they have bad dogs, its just they haven't caught up with all the relevant information.   But we would only advise buying a Vizsla from hip scored parents as this test has been around for a long time, unlike new dna tests which are so new that a lot of breeders haven't decided to do them. 

With our Vizsla we know the generations are clear, because we have owned the breed for years, so this puts us in good stead for having clear dogs. 
 
With Pugs the only test required is BOAS, but we have lots of health tests which you can see from our individual dog pages.  Same with Frenchies only HC and DM is required, but we have done extra ones.
Their is no law to say you have to do these health tests, but we are committed to improving the health of dog breeds and this is why we do them.  As the years go by another test becomes available.  

All the tests we do are costly, and it involves a whole day away from home doing the tests.  So when your looking at a health tested parents to a puppy, the breeder has spent already a lot of money in doing the health tests.  This is what increases the price of puppies.   We have noted that food has gone up, veterinary has gone up, the BVA has gone up since we last had a dog hip scored and so on.  We can only hold prices for a certain amount of time,  then we have to increase costs of the puppy to cover the costs of the treatments. 

The Animal health trust who did our Glaucoma testing and DNA for CA in vizsla have gone bust.  So we are having to seek out other places which are much further away to travel too. 

I hope all the vets and labs, and BVA is back to normal by October time.  That would be great, but at this time, we are just waiting waiting for things to get done.