News from 30th January Carlisle Meetings:

Microchips Required from 1st March: There has been an important change in what you need when you take a dog to a vet (eye panellist). The British Veterinary Association (BVA) rules now require that all dogs presented for the eye examination must have permanent identification. The ISDS has agreed to this requirement with effect from 1st March 2010. While it is another, regrettable expense there are important benefits. It is recognized that microchipping of our dogs will become standard practice and it is a process that the ISDS is committed to (please note that the BVA will accept tattooing but the ISDS does not recommend it and will not accept its use for DNA test identification).

Puppy Litter Testing: The need for permanent identification only applies to dogs that are going to receive a certificate. Pups being submitted for a Litter Test do not have to be identified, but they can be if you wish. The addition of permanent identification to the certificate has, unfortunately, left the result on the Litter Test Form having a lower level of significance. Litter Testing is good, and its results may reassure you as a breeder, but the ISDS can no longer act on those results of ‘pass’ or ‘fail’. It all comes down to the confidence of attributing a result when identification is not absolutely positive and there are some underlying legal issues of liability and so on. Therefore, from 1st March 2010 the ISDS will accept and file all Litter Test Forms, but no information will be recorded against the pups, unless those pups are microchipped. Please note that this means that if a pup is a failure (CEA affected) there will no longer be a breeding restriction placed on the parent dogs. The use of litter testing has generally gone down in recent years, and no CEA affecteds have been found for a while, so this change probably has very little effect, if any.

Are You Confused? The need for microchipping is not because of the ISDS Rules, it is a BVA requirement. So there has been no change to the ISDS breeding rules this year. Last year the only big change was the removal of the ‘2 year rule’. That is, the need for the eye test to be done when the dog was over two years old, if it was now over two and had progeny about to be registered. That sounds a small change, but a lot of people seem to be confused. Some even think that removing the ‘2 year rule’ has abolished the need for any eye test at all!! Not true, and no statement has ever suggested this. There is also confusion about the ISDS accepting an eye test result for a young dog, or even a microchipped pup, and people saying “what about the PRA?”. I will give some simple statements here to anchor you down if you are at risk of floating off in the sea of confusion.
Good Advice versus the Basic ISDS Rules: When the vets or the BVA give good advice that is not the same thing as an ISDS Rule. Rules are a minimum standard.

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  The BVA advise that a dog’s eyes should be examined three times in its lifetime if you are a breeder. Firstly when a puppy, then before it is first bred from, then again when it is older. This is good advice.
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  The ISDS Rules require as a minimum one eye examination before any progeny will be registered to that dog or bitch. That test can be at any age and from 1st March all new examinations must be on microchipped dogs.
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  Question - “What is the best age for one eye examination, if you are not going to have three in its lifetime?” Answer - CEA is best detected in pups aged 5-12 weeks. So if you are going to detect CEA affecteds, and help stop those carrier parents from breeding, test them as young as possible. That is why we abolished the ‘2 year rule’.
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  Question – “But PRA is best detected in older dogs and you will then miss it!” Answer – PRA is at a very low incidence, while CEA carriers number around 25% of our dogs. The balance of benefits to our dog is best if we encourage early detection of CEA.

A Sensible Plan: You can follow the BVA advice on eye examinations, or just have the one test if you are going to breed from a dog or bitch. But the ISDS strongly encourages you to have a DNA CEA blood or swab test on any dog you are thinking of breeding from. Better still, if both its parents were DNA CEA normal you already know it is ‘inherited normal’, job done! Then, have an eye examination just before you actually breed from it, as you now know the CEA result and are looking for later onset diseases, like PRA and others.