Just reading a request for a Jack Russell stud dog, and I wondered if people who breed, shall we call them non KC recognized breeds * eg: JR, Patterdales,Lurchers etc, go to the trouble of hipscoring and eye testing their breeding stock?

Just curious :D

* Sorry, couldn't think of another 'collective' name for them.

The short answer is yes. Whether a breed is recognised or not all breeding stock should be as healthy as they can be and that means testing.

Bec are you saying yes they do or yes they should. I think they should but I bet not many do. The scheme that most of us use would not be open to the breeders of *others* as Leigh puts it (how about reconised X's) would it? So although they could have their eyes tested by a member of the pannel the hips could not be scored, and we all know how much weight we can put on the average vets opinion of a hip x-ray. Jackie H

I totally agree that they should be scored Bec. But whether they are is another matter, hence my enquiry :-)

With responsible lurcher/longdog breeders (and there are some who would put most pedigree people to shame), the answer is "maybe". It really depends on what is going into the mix, and what problems it has. Greyhounds, deerhounds and salukis are not usually tested for eyes/hips as problems are almost unknown, but if a breed with an eye/hip/other problem is being added, then the good ones will test.

Yes of course first crosses can be scored, must engage brain. JH

Hi Jackie, well, your brain has to sleep sometimes :)

Thank you for your reply Sharon. Very interesting :-)

There are various breeds and types registered in the Obedience and Working trials record and these appear in the hip scoring scheme.

Just out of curosity does this section appear in all the BRS or only the working section?

Christine

It's in the gundog section too, so I assume it will be in all of them :-)

I'm saying yes they should! Unfortunately I don't think they are! This would apply to anyone who has a breed yet to be recognised (new import) or someone attempting to create their own breed. If a 'new' breed then all resulting offspring should be tested for all the problems associated with the parent breeds. I thought the Lucas Terrier people had an eyetesting scheme but I may be wrong in that.

As far as testing crosses goes, we get quite few come to our eye testing sessions, be they "working sheepdogs", or other working crosses. Working is how we describe them. As another poster has stated, there are no known problems in greyhounds and other sight hounds, recognised as yet. A lot of the deep chested hounds really cannot take anesthetic so don't hip score, not that they have a problem anyway.