Question about health testing

[petunia]

I am searching for a pup. I have been in contact with a breeder who has told me that they used to do heart/hip testing on all of the dogs, but do not anymore because they have been raising dogs out of this same line for 4 & 5 generations and stay in contact with alot of owners and have never heard of any of them having any genetic health issues - only a few with allergy's.
The grandmother(age 8) and greatgrandmother(age 11) of these pups are still alive and healthy.
Should this be a red flag? Is this an acceptable practice? At this point I do not know how far back in this litter's family tree the testing goes. I am looking for a companion pet pup.

 

[Kerry Jane]

To me it sounds like an excuse, and to me it would not be acceptable. The American Boxer Club recommends certain health tests for a reason (http://www.americanboxerclub.org/health-screening.html) and ideally speaking I would want any dog I got to have had all of these tests. However, with that being said, I would probably accept a dog that had not had it's hips tested or it's thyroid tested but there is no way that I would accept no heart testing. I hear of so many boxers with heart problems and this is something which kills, so I cannot concieve of breeders who are irresponsible enough not to test for this.

To me it sounds like this breeder doesn't believe in health testing, because if they did they would be testing. So, they are just giving you an excuse for not doing it. I think it is a good sign that the mom and grandmom are alive at well, but I would still run a mile, and I would make sure that the breeder knew that you aren't going to get a puppy from her because the parents were not health tested.

 

[ehayes21]

It would raise a red flag to me...I would want to see health testing documentation on the parents no matter what. You never know what might pop up, and I would think every single pup out of every single litter would have to be tested to be 100% sure.

 

[JulieM]

I wouldn't accept four or five generations as adequate 'proof' that the line doesn't have heart problems. *All* lines have heart problems, because they've all come down from the same few dogs, and/or gone through the same popular sire bottlenecks, some of which dogs, unknown at the time, had heart problems. Given the very-non-straightforward mode of inheritance of the primary Boxer genetic health concerns, it's entirely possible (and not at all uncommon) for cleared parents to produce affected puppies - so imagine how much more possible it is for parents who haven't been cleared to produce affected puppies, even if they aren't showing signs of a problem themselves. (The same could be said for hips, really, but hips are far less of a problem overall in the breed, and the worst rate of occurrence seems to be in the non-show population at this point.) As well, that ARVC is late-onset and may not show up until 5, 8, 10+ years of age - four or five generations into breeding, you may just find out you've got a big problem on your hands.

After fifteen or twenty generations of tested clear dogs (and that means autopsied, as well), then maybe a breeder could make the claim that their line does not have heart problems - but that also would have to mean that they are using only dogs of their own breeding, without ever going out to other lines, which can be problematic in and of itself.