Defiabulls French

Bulldogs

Health Testing the French Bulldog

What is health testing?

CHIC Registry

CHIC stands for Canine Health Information Center. CHIC works with parent clubs of each breed to maintain a database of important health tests that should be completed for each breed. When all CHIC required tests are completed, CHIC will give your dog a CHIC number and add it into their database. Please see attached link for the list of CHIC requirements for our breed.

http://www.caninehealthinfo.org/brdreqs.html?breed=FBU

OFA Health Testing

OFA is the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals. OFA manages a database of health testing results for each breed of dog. On the OFA website, a series of applications are available to take to your veterinarian in order to have heath tests completed. OFA offers breed rankings for each testable health issue as well as percentages of pass and fail results within each breed for each health test. Each OFA health tested dog is given an OFA number and added into their database. Please click on this link to be redirected to the OFA website.

https://www.ofa.org

Genetic Health Testing

Genetic health tests are breed specific tests that check your dogs individual DNA for gene mutations that can cause certain diseases. Several labs complete these DNA tests, and, depending which lab you use, results can be accepted by the OFA and added into their database for your dog. Please see attached links for french bulldog genetic health testing offered by 3 reputable labs that are recognized by the OFA.

http://www.animalgenetics.us/Canine/Genetic_Disease/Disease_Index.asp

http://www.vetgen.com/ordertests.aspx?id=French%20Bulldog

http://research.vet.upenn.edu/Default.aspx?alias=research.vet.upenn.edu/penngen

Heath testing is the process of completing a series of tests, designed to detect certain health issues that have been found in your breed of dog, in an attempt to produce healthier examples of your breed. In order to breed to improve any breed of dog, care must be taken to not only produce fine examples of the breed standard, but healthy ones as well.

Eye Certification

Congenital cardiac exams will check for cardiovascular disease in your dog. This test can be performed by auscultation (listening via stethoscope) or echocardiogram. A practitioner, specialist or cardiologist can complete this exam. You must bring the OFA form to the vet to complete in order to mail it in and receive an OFA number. A separate cardiac database, termed the advanced cardiac database, is available to screen for adult onset cardiac disease. Your dog must be 12 months of age at the time of the exam to qualify for an OFA number.

Here are some explainations and processes for health testing that OFA offers. If the health test requires a form from the OFA website to be printed for your vet, the image will link you to the appropriate form.

Orthopedic Foundation For Animals

Cardiac Disease

All eye exams are done by a board certified opthamologist who will apply drops to your dogs eyes, wait for pupil dilation and thoroughly examine each eye. Eye exams are done annually to check for any diseses of the eye. If no diseases are noted at the time of exam, you will receive an OFA certification for one year past the date of the exam. Eye exams must be maintained annually. To receive your OFA certification for a normal eye exam, you will mail OFA the CERF/CAER form given to you at the time of the exam. There is no need to print a form from the OFA website for this test. Your dog must be over 12 weeks of age at the time of this exam to qualify for an OFA number.

Patellar Luxation

The patella, or kneecap, is part of the stifle joint (knee). In patellar luxation, the kneecap luxates, or pops out of place, either in a medial or lateral position. To health test the patellas, you will print the patellar luxation form from the OFA website. Your vet will manually inspect each patella and assign each a grade of normal or luxating degree 1-4. If each patella is graded with no luxation, you dog has normal patellas. You will then mail the completed form to OFA to receive a certificate and OFA number. Your dog must be 12 months old at the time of this exam to qualify for an OFA number.

This test is done by sending a blood sample from your dog to an OFA approved lab to test for hypothyroidism. With Hypothyroidism, the thyroid gland is not making enough of a hormone called thyroxine that controls metabolism (the process of turning food into fuel). Your dog must be 12 months old at the time of testing to qualify for an OFA number and it is recommended to redo testing every 2 years. You must bring the OFA form to your vet at the time of the serum collection.

Thyroid

This test is done by taking a set of radiographs of the elbow joints in your dog to determine stability of these joints. You must bring the OFA elbow form to your vet at the time of the exam. Your vet will then subit the form and the radiographs to OFA, where board certified radiologists will review the xrays and assign either a score of 'normal' or grade 1-3 dysplastic. Your dog must be 2 years old at the time of the exam to qualify for an OFA number, but dogs between the ages of 1-2 can receive a preliminary score if desired.

Elbow Dysplasia

Hip Dysplasia

Like elbow dysplasia, this test is done by taking a set of radiographs of the hip joints of your dog to determine their stability. As you can see in the images, a dog with good hips has a ball at the femoral head that fits firmly into the socket with minimal space between. In addition, the socket should have near 50% coverage of the ball. There should not be wearing of the bone of the femoral head, which would indicate subpar tightness of the hip joint. Wearing can be seen on the xray as darker spots on the bone. You must bring the OFA hip form to your vet at the time of the exam. Your vet will then subit the form and the radiographs to OFA, where board certified radiologists will review the xrays and assign a score. Normal hip scores are excellent, good and fair. Abnormal hip scores are borderline, mild hip dysplasia, moderate hi dysplasia and severe hip dysplasia. Your dog must be 2 years old at the time of the exam to qualify for an OFA number, but dogs between the ages of 1-2 can receive a preliminary score if desired.

Penn Hip

Penn Hip is an alternate for the OFA when health testing hips. Penn Hip takes a more multi faceted, scientific approach to hip screening and can be done in dogs as young as 16 weeks old. CHIC accepts Penn Hip as an alternate to OFA hip screening. To read more about Penn Hip, visit their website:

http://info.antechimagingservices.com/pennhip/navigation/general/what-is-PennHIP.html

Genetic Health Testing

Genetic testing can be completed for our breed for the inheritable diseases hyperuricosuria(HU), degenerative myelopathy(DM), cystinuria type 3, canine multifocal retinopathy 1(CMR1) and juvenile hereditary cataracts(JHC). All of these conditions are autosomal recessive, meaning the dog must inherit one mutated gene from each parent to develop the disease. Screening for these inheritable diseases is a great tool to make better breeding decisions. If a dog is found to carry a mutated gene, simply breed the dog to a dog who is clear for that same gene mutation. It is never necessary to remove a dog from a breeding program due to a carrier result on any of these genetic tests. Vet gen and animal genetics can test for DM, JHC, CMR1 and HU. PennGen and Vet Gen can test for cystinuria type 3. OFA will accept all results from these labs and submit them to their database for a fee of 7.50 per test.

This is a bladder stone disease. Cystinuria in dogs is indicated by the presence of cystine stones in the kidney, bladder or ureter. Failure by the kidneys to reabsorb amino acids results in the formation of cystine crystals and sometimes stones in the urine which can lead to blockage of the urethra.

This is a bladder stone disease where the dog has too much uric acid in their urine, predisposing them to develop stones in their bladder or kidneys.

Hyperuricosuria

Cystinuria Type 3

This is an eye disease. Juvenile Hereditary Cataracts are a clouding of the lens of the eye caused by a breakdown of tissue in the eye. This condition generally results in an inability to see clearly and can cause total blindness.

This is a progressive, painless spinal cord disease that can cause paralysis of the hind limbs. It can only be diagnosed during necropsy.

This is an eye disorder. The mutation causes raised lesions to form on the retina which alters the appearance of the eye but usually does not affect sight. The lesions may disappear, or may result in minor retinal folding.

Degenerative Myelopathy

Canine Multifocal Retinopathy 1

Juvenile Hereditary Cataracts

To Complete
Genetic Testing:

Choose which lab you would like to use for your testing. Print their submission form from their website, which are all included at the top of this page, and fill one form out per dog. If you are using Vet gen for all 5 tests, you only need one submission form. If you are using Animal Genetics, you only need one form for the French Bulldog Panel. For Penn Gen, you must create an online profile for each of your dogs. The link to do so is also provided above. Once your dogs profiles are created, the website will prompt you to print a submission form. Note that genetic testing can be done at any age from birth.

Genetic testing samples can be submitted via blood or cheek cells. To collect blood, you can simply cut a nail back to the quick and collect small drops of blood onto 2 separate q-tips. These biological samples should be placed into an unsealed paper bag. To collect cheek cells, purchase moderate to wide interdental gum brushes from Walgreens, CVS, etc. Use 3 brushes per dog, rubbing them in a circular motion in the dogs cheek area inside the mouth. Do not let your dog eat for a couple hours prior to cell collection. Quickly air dry the brushes and place the caps back on. For Penn Gen, you cannot use the q-tip blood collection method.

I always recommend mailing each dogs submission form and DNA in a separate envelope. Make sure your submission form is correctly filled out, noting that you would like submission to OFA upon completion if you would like. If you would like to submit to OFA, make sure you have used your dogs full AKC registered name on the submission form as well as the correct color or pattern AKC has on file for your dog, as well as the dogs AKC number. For faster results, choose the results by e-mail option. You should mail DNA submissions at the post office to ensure delivery as envelopes will not be completely flat.