TheRedQueen wrote:I ran across a breeder the other day that doesn't do health testing. At all. Not a bully breed...but I was shocked. They do a lot with their pups and dogs...and each puppy that goes home is clicker trained and well mannered and socialized. But they don't spend the $$$ on health testing...because there is no test that is 100%...blah blah blah. So I don't get it...you're spending the time to get these pups well-trained/socialized, but not healthy?
There are two types of health testing, "paper tests" and "working tests".
Paper tests are just that. They are pieces of paper that certify that the dog met a certain criteria that is supposed to correlate with proper structure, health, working ability, etc.
Working tests are ongoing evaluations of the dog's real world abilities. They never end, as long as the dog is doing the actual work and the assessment is objective and fair.
If a breeder never certifies hips, but their dogs all work in weight pull, agility, bite work, whatever, well into old age, I don't have a problem. Hip certs don't get the dog over the obstacle, their *actual* hips do. However, a lot of breeders who opt to not "paper test" do so because it's expensive and can illustrate problems in their dogs that should disqualify them from breeding (no puppy $$$$ as a result).
Obviously the ideal is a breeder who not only paper tests/certifies everything imaginable, but who also proves their dogs with actual work, constantly assessing the dogs over the course of their entire working career and retirement. However, I personally value the working test over the paper one.
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