As soon as I can get the photo off of the CD that we were given, I will place the second xray photo on Merry-Belle's page. These xrays are just preliminary studies but looking good thus far. Preliminary xrays can be taken at the age of six months to help give the breeder an idea of how their dogs' hips are progressing. Many people assume that hip dysplasia is genetic. I disagree with this notion. Hip dysplasia is very difficult to determine whether its environmental, genetic or trauma related when a dog comes down with this dreadful disease. It's also important to understand that dogs can have perfect or excellent hips during one series of xrays and later not have perfect or excellent hips during xrays later down the road. Because hip dysplasia is a difficult disease to understand, I do not buy into the notion that good hips in the parents will result in good hips for offspring. Observing the overall health and quality of a potential breeding dog over the years is really the best way to know, from the breeder's side, of whether or not the dog will produce quality/healthy offspring. We are merely going through the motions of pedigree/lineage research with Merry-Belle like we have done with all of our dogs. Because we counted over 400 OFA good, titled dogs through out the lineage/pedigree/history of our Poodles, we did not see any point in going through the motions of xrays. The chances of a canine having hip dysplasia if they have an impressive family history of excellent hips, down through multiple generations, is extremely low...which is why we didn't see any point in doing the xrays for our Poodles. We are in the process of researching the pedigree/history/lineage of Merry-Belle...a German Shorthaired Pointer and have learned thus far that she, herself, has a very impressive family tree. However, we have not seen so far enough dogs through out her family lineage of having an OFA rating one way or another and this is why we are going through the xray motions with her. It is for our own piece of mind of knowing her overall, quality and of course, physical health. Merry-Belle will be 1 year of age in August and so far, we are very impressed with her high level of intelligence and her love for retrieving as well as her sharp ability to focus on objects. She continues to be a very energetic, outgoing, fun, happy and very loving companion. I'm very impressed with her. We will submit xrays of her hips when she turns 2 years of age with the OFA board for a rating. We will be taking her to a canine ophthalmologist for her CERF exam in the near future. This testing will be submitted to the registry for a documented rating. CERF testing and rating documentation shows that she herself is free from genetic eye diseases and again, we stress that all of the testing we are going through the motions with Merry-Belle are for her and our own piece of mind. The tests and ratings have no bearing on her future offspring. I don't think that anyone should put faith in such tests and ratings for produced offspring and I think it is quite silly when potential customers ask breeders, "Are the parents hip tested...blah, blah, blah". I think its silly for the simple reason that when people who do this, they use the tests as a false sense of security that they will purchase a puppy who will never have HD or other genetic disorders. Please let me stress that even Veterinarians themselves who have every test known to dogs, available to them for free....and they are breeders themselves...have had dysplastic offspring come from their tested breeding dogs. This is why I myself do NOT put 100% faith in these tests. I think a breeder should use common sense by observing the overall quality of the dog....it's over all health as time goes by and spend as long as it takes to research the dogs' lengthy pedigree/history/family tree. I personally spent 2 years researching the family history of my Poodles. I research all of my dogs' family tree with due diligence and I do trace their family tree as far back as I can possibly go. I've been a breeder since 1996 and thus far, I know for a fact that we've had a very impressive record of producing quality, extremely healthy doodles. We expect the same impresssive results from Merry-Belle.
