Parent Health Clearances
| All of our breeding dogs have had their health clearances done prior to breeding. |
|
 |
The Orthopedic Foundation for Animals is currently the main genetic testing / clearance organization in the United States. They have a ton of information on their web site about what they do and why. (click on image to left) In regards to the Malinois, they currently evaluate hips, elbows, patellas, eyes, cardiac, and thyroid. The American Belgian Malinois Club (parent AKC breed club) currently requires that all dogs being bred have hips (fair or above), elbows (normal) and eyes (normal annually) checked. All of these clearances can be checked online at the OFA web site, as they have an online open database. |
 |
From the CHIC web site: "The Canine Health Information Center, also known as CHIC, is a centralized canine health database sponsored by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA)." All dogs that have met breed club health clearance requirements are registered in the CHIC database. Again there is lots of good information on their web site. |
CERF (now OFA CAER) |
The Canine Eye Registry Foundation, or CERF is now housed under OFA. They no longer publish abnormal results unless the owner has signed for release. On some OFA records you will see a dog that has a CERF result, and then an OFA - EYE result. This is because the dog was registered under CERF before the database was transferred to OFA. So both results are posted. In reference to the Malinois, they tend to have issues with cataracts, and with late onset PRA (progressive retinal atrophy). Unfortunately with late onset PRA, many dogs have been bred long before the issue shows up. While our dogs retire from breeding before this, we have all of our breeding dogs eyes checked at 10 - 12 years old, to make certain we have not had something come up. |
PennHIP |
PennHIP is a radiographic method of determining a joint laxity score in a hip joint. There is NO grade in a PennHIPP result like there is in OFA (fair, good, excellent) The PennHIP result only reports a Distraction Index, and both hips are scored individually. You cannot get a "good" or "excellent" result for PennHIP, because there is no such thing. Each breed has a particular range of distraction index that is considered acceptable. So in the results, it will state a % score for that dog in comparison to other dogs in that breed. This is called a Laxity Profile Ranking. The lower the number the better. PennHIP is currently a closed database, and results are not publicly available. The only way to know if a dog has been checked via PennHIP is to see the certificate from the breeder, or they post them for verification. OFA has now begun accepting PennHIP results if owners submit the scores. |