Ive got to have a moan ive been looking into the kc accredited breeeders scheme and basicly i Wanted to know if the KC reccomended any other health tests for my breed than the hips and eyes so I emailed them asking what pre breeding tests they reccomended for my breed,expecting to get a detailed reply back saying which conditions we should be testing for heres what i got-

"we reccomend you test hips and eyes -thankyou for your enquirey"
as you can see very detailed :(i mean for the novice how do you test hips and eyes look at them and say yes shes got hips and eyes so lets go a head and breed! ;)

To be an accredited breeder, I would assume you would know about basics such as health etc.. Pet owners breeding a one off litter are probably not going to be interested in this scheme. Hopefully the bitch owner if they are the "pet owner" will find a good stud dog with the help of the breeder of their bitch. So the breeder of their bitch and/or the stud dog owner would, if responsible breeders worthy of accreditation, guide them to getting their bitches essential health tests done. Once the potential breeder knows about this, if they were interested they could then choose to go for accreditation themselves with the knowledge they had gained.
I understood it to mean the breeder concerned was knowledgeable about their breed, as well as following the ethical guidelines set out by the KC on the information they gave me with the application form.

I'm with Kao Kate actually, I would assume that if they are going to insist that dogs are tested for the relevant breed defects, they should be defining what these are. 

I was wondering about it - would they insist on hip scoring for Rough Collies to be eligible for scheme?  I do hip score my bitches - not perfect, but at least I know where I am and what I need to work towards - but limiting myself to hip scored studs would be completely unfeasible in our breed at the moment.

You would also assume they'd be specifying things like BAER testing in Dalmatian pups, vWD in Dobes, etc. etc.

M.

On the application form, there is a list of current breed specific health tests which are required for participation in the scheme - no mention of Dalmations but Dobes are required to be eye-tested & vWD tested (but not hip-scored) & Rough Collies are required to be eye tested only (no mention of hip scoring). For my own breed (Cockers), only eye-testing is required although quite a few breeders are now hip-scoring. I would think most good breeders probably do far more than these minimum required health-tests for the Accredited Breeder Scheme. I tend to agree with Polly that the scheme is aimed more at the experienced breeder with the assumption that these breeders will already know what conditions affect their breed & the tests available.

My point being  I beive the KC has a duty to provide comprehensive information about the health tests reccomended by them not nessasaryly REQUIRED by them!
we all know our breeds  and what the KC reccomended tests are ,in my breed they are not on schedule 1 for any eye tests!  so does that mean we shouldnt test! most well known breeders in my breed dont!
If the KC dont encourage established and new breeders to test before the problem arises! and be more forthcoming with information then more problems will arise and the accredited breeder scheme isnt going to do its job. after knowledge of a breed is learnt we are not born knowing about them!
And surley we should be encouraging the person who just breeds one litter to work towards being a accreddited breeder! personally i 0wn six members of my breed all of which I work,show ect.. last year I had one litter and this year I will also only have one litter.

surley the KC should be telling us about the other tests which should be desirable in order to prevent future problems.

Wouldn't the breed club be the first point of call? I would have thought it would be difficult for the KC to keep a database that is  easily accesible which would cover ALL breeds of dogs and their differing requirements?

I don't intend to breed Malamutes, but if I did...I would find out from the AMCUK exactly what tests were required after getting the general outline from the KC