Hereditary Clear Health Tests

[Shelby2010]

I’m at the point of starting to look for a suitable litter/breeder and reading up on all the health tests.

Looking at current litters the puppies tend to be scored as ‘hereditary clear’ for certain conditions. Fine, makes sense. However when you look at the parents, they were also both ‘hereditary clear’ and you have to go back several generations before you find a dog that has actually been tested. I’m not sure whether this is something to be concerned about.

My questions:
How is all this verified?
Does the breeder hold copies of the test done on the puppy’s great-great grandparents?
Does the KC keep check?
How do I tell that the paperwork is genuine?

Hopefully someone has more info on how this all works!

From January 2022, the Kennel Club is limiting ‘hereditary clear’ status of registered dogs to two generations, a good move I think.

Sounds more sensible. Otherwise I’m going to have to start some kind of spreadsheet to research each puppy!

Essential, I think. I think the swab system widely used for DNA testing is quite flawed really, would prefer to see bloods used - but even then, it's obviously down to trust and no husbandry errors that confuse parentage. Given that the whole concept of DNA testing is to increase the gene pool by reducing the necessity to exclude dogs, it is worrying.

(On the subject of bloods, I have known of a litter where DNA test results were not as expected from the parents - no question on parentage, so obviously either error in taking or processing the swabs. Fortunately the litter were correctly tested so although the results were frustrating, the issue won't be passed on. At least a limit on the number of generations these can be used will limit the damage.)