The above X-ray is of Merry-Belle's hips at age six months. Only Preliminary xrays can be taken at this age to help give a dog owner or breeder an idea of how their dogs' hips are progressing. Many people assume that hip dysplasia is genetic. This is completely erroneous. Hip dysplasia is very difficult to determine whether its environmental, genetic or trauma related when a dog comes down with this dreadful disease. Canine laboratories still, to this day, do not know why some dogs get it and some dogs don't. Also x-rays only determine the individual dog that has been studied. It bares no relevance to offspring one hundred percent. It's 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. OFA states that x-rays and certification is only valid for one year from the date of rating/testing. 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 perspective. Because we do not own any of Merry-Belle's ancestors, we are merely going through the motions of pedigree/lineage research with her as we originally did with our Poodles and Golden Retrievers. Our Poodles have over 400 OFA good, champion ancestors down through their lineage. The chances of our Goldendoodles having hip dysplasia, with this type of impressive family history of excellent hips, down through multiple generations, is extremely low. Because we know the over all quality of health for our Poodles lineage, we know that our Goldendoodles will also have a similar impressive quality of health, over all. We have been 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 enough dogs down through her pedigree of having an OFA rating one way or other. 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 of her hips and of course, physical health. Merry-Belle turned one year of age in August of 2009. So far, we are very impressed with her high level of intelligence; Her love for retrieving as well as her sharp ability to focus. She continues to be a very energetic, outgoing, fun, happy and very loving companion. I'm very impressed with her. Merry-Belle's hip x-rays will be submitted to the OFA board for a rating in September of 2011. 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 any future offspring she may have. I don't think that anyone should put all of their 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 ask this, they use the tests as a false sense of security that they will purchase a puppy who will never have HD or any other genetic disorders down the road. Please let me stress that even Veterinarians themselves who have every test known to dogs and those who are breeders themselves have produced dysplastic offspring 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/s over the years 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 Goldendoodles, over all. We intend to create a new type of doodle for the active family who want a highly intelligent doodle with a keen sense of smell.
