Orthopedic Foundation for Animals

take and have a judge look at my dog and do confirmation.

So as far as OFA testing, pen hip testing, doing the genetic screenings, looking at temperament testing, the truth is shows you do see some temperament in the ring, but they're in there so short.

All of us as breeders, When I was a purebred breeder, I still had to rank my own dogs.

I had to monitor their personality over time.

So I think we all have to be careful and we just all need to be aware of how to bring the best out of our dogs and cats.

And I guess for functionality now, my repro vet is a big support instead of a judge in that I really lean on the repro vets that I work with.

And if they ever tell me that anything, and honestly, mostly it's OFA testing and things, but if they ever bring up anything that they're like, hey, this is a concern, then obviously I listen.

And so when we met previously, we talked about the coefficient of inbreeding.

And even that, you know, even that's subjective.

You know, that's why we have the OFA.

That's why when you turn in your hips and elbows, it's not just one vet looking at it.

It's several.

Show me.

And here's, I would like to take that a step further.

It's not just, you know, a letter from your vet, right? If it's not on that OFA board, it does not exist, in my opinion.

You're talking some smack if you can't back it up with the OFA board.

They were sound in structure, beautiful dogs moving, and they had wonderful temperaments.

And so their joints, they were OFA certified and, you know, they were, had all the criteria that we wanted to breed to our bitches because they We made the effort to make sure that our two...

It was very important that my caballo's Contessa and Cappy's...

Tucker Hills, Angelique, had all the credentials to being a good dog to use for breeding.

In other words, they were sound in structure.

They were both champions.

They had all the medical things, OFA certifications, and they came from dogs that lived a long time, which was really important to us because I think that one of the saddest things in my life that ever happened is when I lost Contessa.

I had no idea that I was so naive about the fact that she was only gonna live to be 13 years old.

If they are doing health testing, most of those dogs are gonna have microchips so that you can verify that those have been the ones that are done.

Most of the responsible breeders are doing all the health screenings on the parents, and if you go to the parent club website or you go to the OFA website, and then there's a sub-website of that called CHIC, Canine Health Information Center, you can click on that link and it'll take you to the whole list of breeds.

It's got, like, 350 breeds listed, far more than AKC has breeds.

So you can go in there, look at what the recommendations of the breed club are for testing.

So Sandra Barker, Gerald Bell, Eddie Zook, John Hamill, Joan Hendricks, Linda Lord, Colleen O'Keeffe, Patty Olson, Elaine Ostrander, and Fran Smith.

So these are people who run OFA, they're canine scientists, they're old time and highly reputable breeders and judges.

Right.

So that was who was on this this Canine Health and Welfare Advisory Committee.

If they don't have a website, you know, "I want a list of all your dogs.

Can you please show me your dogs and the registered numbers and their names so I can look them up, cross reference on the OFA?" And I'm having more people do that with me, and I freaking love it.

I mean, this is how you should be going about if that's important to you.

Mm-hmm.

This isn't just the Keeshond.

Mm-hmm.

Every breed has a, a, a list of, uh, testing through the OFA that they should have to get their CHIC number.

You know, this is across the, I don't care whether you're buying a retriever or a shepherd or a Keeshond or Dane, it doesn't matter.

Mm.

So we'll be using him shortly whenever the OFA's come back.

[laughs]

Nice.