Health Testing

In order to be in compliance with GRCA (Golden Retriever Club of America) and breed to appropriate standards, our dogs all must be :

OFA or PennHip Hips

OFA Elbow

OFA Eye

OFA Cardiac

Recessive Genetic Diseases*

Read below to learn about how these tests are done and what scores they can get.

423147446_925721335745240_1801353597082541139_n (1).jpg

OFA Descriptions

OFA HIP

Hip Scores

OFA classifies hip results into 7 different categories noted below: (view photos on the OFA website)

Excellent: Superior conformation
Good: Slightly less than superior but a well-formed congruent hip joint is visualized.
Fair: Minor irregularities; the hip joint is wider than a good hip.

Excellent, Good, and Fair are accepted within the normal limits as "passing" and given an OFA number.

Borderline: Not clear.
Mild: Significant subluxation present where the ball is partially out of the socket causing an increased joint space.
Moderate: The ball is barely seated into a shallow socket.
Severe: Marked evidence of dysplasia exists.

Borderline, Mild, Moderate, and Severely dysplastic are documented as "not passing" with abnormal results." (OFA.org).

OFA Elbows

OFA Elbows are either scored as "normal" or Grade 1-3 dysplastic.

Elbow dysplasia is a general term used to identify an inherited polygenic disease in the elbow. Three specific etiologies make up this disease and they can occur independently or in conjunction with one another. These etiologies include:

Pathology involving the medial coronoid of the ulna (FCP)
Osteochondritis of the medial humeral condyle in the elbow joint (OCD)
Ununited anconeal process (UAP)

The dog is placed on their side with their leg flexed and bent at the elbow.

OFA Eye

OFA Eyes are done by a canine ophthalmologist and scored as

"normal" : no eye diseases present
"breeders option": meaning they can be bred at the discretion of the breeder because the disease that they may have is not a specific fault for the breed
"suspect inherited with a *disease*": meaning they have an eye disease and should not be bred.

The purpose of the OFA Companion Animal Eye Registry (CAER) is to provide breeders with information regarding canine eye diseases so that they may make informed breeding decisions in an effort to produce healthier dogs. CAER certifications will be performed by board certified (ACVO) veterinary ophthalmologists. Regardless of whether owners submit their CAER exam forms to the OFA for “certification,” all CAER exam data is collected for aggregate statistical purposes to provide information on trends in eye disease and breed susceptibility.

OFA Cardiac

OFA Cardiac is done by a cardiologist.

They can be done as just a basic auscultation (vet listens to the heart) or an advanced Echo (vet completes an ultrasound on the heart)

Purpose: To gather data regarding heart diseases in dogs, and to identify dogs which are phenotypically normal prior to use in a breeding program. For the purposes of the registry, a phenotypically normal dog is defined as:

One without a cardiac murmur.
One with an innocent heart murmur that is found to be otherwise normal by virtue of an echocardiographic examination which includes Doppler studies. The OFA maintains two separate and distinct cardiac databases: The Basic Cardiac Database and the Advanced Cardiac Database

Genetic Recessive Diseases

It is very important to test for genetic diseases that can potentially be present in Golden Retrievers. We use animalgenetics.com to test our golden retrievers. We use the golden retriever panel which includes: (click on each name to learn more about them)

Degenerative Myelopathy Aliases: Canine degenerative myelopathy, DM

Ichthyosis (Golden Retriever Type) 1 & 2

Progressive Retinal Atrophy, Golden Retriever 1 Aliases: GR-PRA1, GR1-PRA

Progressive Retinal Atrophy, Golden Retriever 2 Aliases: GR-PRA2, GR2-PRA

Progressive Retinal Atrophy, Progressive Rod-Cone Degeneration Aliases: PRA-PRCD, PRCD

Neuronal ceroid-lipofuscinoses Aliases: NCLs

Genetic Results

Results for genetic testing can come back with three results: (http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article/file?type=supplementary&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004635.s001)

-Clear (n/n)- A clear dog means that a dog does not carry the disease that it was tested for. Instead, it carries two copies of the normal gene.

-Carrier (n/d) - A carrier dog means that it carries one copy of the normal gene and one copy of the mutated gene that was tested for. Carriers will pass down the gene to 50% of their offspring.

-Affected (d/d) - An affected dog means that it carries two copies of the mutated gene that it was tested for and it does not carry the normal gene. Affected dogs will pass down one copy to all of their offspring.

Examples:

* Clear (N/N) x Clear (N/N) = 100% Clear (N/N)

* Clear (N/N) x Carrier (D/N) = 50% Clear (N/N), 50% Carrier (D/N) (This is an average, individual litters may see anywhere from 100% Clear to 100% Carrier)

* Clear (N/N) x Affected (D/D) = 100% Carrier (D/N)

* Carrier (D/N) x Carrier (D/N) = 25% Clear (N/N), 50% Carrier (D/N), 25% Affected (D/D) (This is an average, individual litters may see more or less of any result)

* Carrier (D/N) x Affected (D/D) = 50% Carrier (D/N), 50% Affected (D/D) (This is an average, individual litters may see anything from 100% Carrier to 100% Affected)

* Affected (D/D) x Affected (D/D) = 100% Affected (D/D)