Minimising cancer risk / finding a reputable breeder

[moregarlic]

Hi all - I've got a slightly pathetic but necessary request upfront: can you please go gently? I am still deep in grief.

We lost our beautiful boy this year to T-cell lymphoma at just five years old. He was a golden retriever and for a million and one reasons, we're in love with the breed and, when we're ready, we'd like another one.

I understand cancer is prevalent in the breed, but five was far too young and I am still beating myself up over the fact he had maybe been poorly bred, which may have contributed.

My question is: how do I avoid this in the future, or at least minimise the cancer risk? And even with health checks, is it still a gamble? From what I can tell, there is no way to check what a dogs disposition to cancer is (beyond the obvious fact that certain breeds are more prone to certain cancers).

I would be the first to admit that I was naïve and didn't do enough research when we got our dog. The woman we got him was lovely, he'd been reared indoors with her family and children, and his parents looked healthy. But I didn't ask about health checks.

How can I learn more about all of this?

I know a lot of people recommend looking on Champdog, but there are plenty of puppies currently up on there with no wait list and I everything I read says "be prepared to wait, good breeders should have waiting lists" etc., I'm quite confused, if you can't tell!

www.champdogs.co.uk/breeds/golden-retriever/puppies

Illnesses like that are always a bit of a gamble as there’s no testing and even the healthiest lines it can just happen.

But... a good breeder should know the lines well, so should be able to tell you general health stuff good and bad about their dogs and relatives.

When you’re looking through breeders or litters... you want to look at ones bred for a reason that’s not just, felt like having puppies or to sell on. So breeders who show or do something with those dogs and have bred a litter to do that with one of the puppies - they have more reason to be breeding well and also want a healthy dog.

In general when looking for a puppy, I would check out the co-efficient of inbreeding. Anything much above 5% starts to up the odds of cancer, allergies etc. If you know the names of sire and dam, you should be able to plug these into the KC website to get the COI.

In a cancer-prone breed like GRs, I'd have long chats to the breeder and the owner of the stud about longevity and general health in their lines. If they don't want to have those conversations, or are evasive, you know what you need to do.

@tabulahrasa thank you, that's really helpful. I hadn't considered only looking at breeders who had a real motivation to breed well.

So would you suggest finding a list of breeders, rather than looking at what puppies are available, and asking to go on waitlists? Is it typical to travel far? I just don't know how it works, I feel a bit clueless.

I reached out to one local breeder via champdogs and she just reiterated the importance of only getting a well bred puppy, which while I agree with the sentiment, wasn't hugely helpful.

Also, some very good breeders don't have waiting lists. I've seen excellent litters up on ChampDogs.

I’m so sorry about your lovely dog - it’s very hard to lose one so young. Cancer is tricky as there aren’t any health tests that would indicate whether or not a dog would be more or less likely to develop it. Some breeds do seem to be more susceptible to certain forms of cancer than others (GRs and flatcoats spring to mind) but other than trying to avoid breeding lines where they’ve lost several dogs to cancer at a young age - finding out that information might be tricky - I’m not sure how much more you can do. Obviously make sure that all the recommended breed health checks and tests have been done. Good luck

@EdithStourton thank you, that's also really helpful. I had never heard of the co-efficient of inbreeding, that's really useful. It seems like speaking with breeders directly is the way forward. I am not a very assertive person and asking these questions feels a bit rude (I know it's not!) so I'll have to grow up a bit :) thanks all for your help, I really appreciate it.

@Pleasedontdothat thank you. I really appreciate your kind words. I think you're right - only so much you can do, but I suppose you can stack the deck in your favor, so to speak.

I have a Goldie and know quite a few other owners.
One of us just got her 3rd and wanted a puppy. She phoned loads of breeders and it was only on her 11th go that the breeder would actually give her the relevant health check info, the previous 10 were very evasive so be very very careful.

@Hoppinggreen that sounds very dodgy! I'm only looking on champdogs now (not pets4homes!) and they seem to be much better at putting all the health check info up in a transparent manner.

@EdithStourton that COI calculator is fascinating - most of the ones I'm looking up on champdog are over 5%!

Also, one of her other Goldies has had multiple surgeries at an early age due to severe joint issues, cost her thousands. The Breeder had given her (good) hip scores verbally but then denied it and she had nothing in writing.

Sorry if I'm going on a bit but guys, thank you. I already feel so much more in the know! I've discounted so many current litters on the COI number, and I've just found one at around 6% but I can see that they have bred their dog for three out of the last four years, which seems excessive. Now I feel like the challenge will be actually finding one 😂

I do someone who has had I think three GRs from the same breeder, no major health issues that I am aware of. The last one was about 12 when she died and the current one is about 2.

If you are interested, I could ask her and PM you details.

@EdithStourton if you could that would be really brilliant! Thank you. I am fast realising I'm happy to travel!! I've scrolled through most of the current litters available and most of them are 5%+, some shockingly so! I've found one litter that's actually really low (2% ish), so I've contacted them. The good thing I suppose is, I'm not in a massive rush and would rather get this right above all else.

Okay, I'll ask her.

Read up on COI so that if you chat to a breeder you'll some idea about it. This www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/coi-faqs-understanding-the-coefficient-of-inbreeding is a good article.

Yeah, I’d find a couple of breeders you like and wait for one of them to have a litter.

Not all breeders run waiting lists... but, the reason a current litter being advertised is regarded as a red flag is that if someone is successfully showing or working and is breeding a good litter, they’d have other people involved in that who’d want a dog from them.

That’s why the advice is that they’ll usually have a waiting list.

@EdithStourton thanks! And thanks for the article, it's very interesting and I have lots to learn. I understand it's not a perfect measure and you need to take into account amount of generations etc., too, but it does seem like a really useful measure. E.g. the litter I am looking at has: Inbreeding coefficient 1.6% (from 34 generations available of which 8 are complete), which seems much better than most.

Someone having pups available and not having a waiting list is not necessarily a red flag. Some people will only breed when they want an additional dog to keep themselves so would not maintain waitlists. I was far happier getting a dog from this sort of setup than a licensed breeder who was having a litter every year.

Our pup came from that sort of scenario, the owner of the dam and the owner of the sire both kept a pup, but it was a large litter so although they had a number of homes lined up there were a couple of pups 'spare'. Coefficient of 3, all the relevant recommended DNA tests for the breed, negative estimated breed value, good hip and elbow scores etc.

There were probably over 100 litters with one or more pups available on champdogs when I was looking. Only about 4 I would have considered, lots of partial health tests, and high COI (not advertised, I spent a lot of time cross checking things on the kc website)

@HumbleApe thanks so much, that's a really helpful reply too. I have been through lots of litters looking at COI and am shocked at how high so many are (and laughing at my indignation considering just this morning I hadn't even heard of it as a metric).

Can I just double check I'm not missing anything? So you went on champdogs, went through each relevant litter, considering:

• Coefficient
• Recommended DNA tests for breed (how do you check what these are?)
• Negative estimated breed value (this is a new one to me, just reading up on the kennel club website)
• Full health checks

Anything else I'm missing? Something I'm also considering is, like you said, avoiding people who have bred a dog year on year on year.

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On a side note, I emailed the breeder of a suitable litter and she has just replied saying that I live too far away (I'm in the UK). I feel like this is going to be a long old search!

We were looking at labradors and I think I found the recommended tests on a labrador forum. I expect you should be able to find something something similar for golden retrievers.

I also ruled out some litters based on gut feeling with how the adverts were worded, some just based on appearance of the parents and probably various other factors I can't really articulate. A couple of breeders I spoke to and just didn't get a good feeling from them.

@HumbleApe thanks really helpful, thanks. How did you learn all of this?! I grew up with dogs, but always mixed breed. This feels like a new world to me.

This happened to us at 7 yrs old. It changed out outlook on having a dog. We now rescue. We take a dog In a bad way and love it back to health and happiness for however long they are here for we know we made their life worth living. Then we do it all again

Breed clubs should also have details about recommended health checks.

In the case of recessive disorders, only one parent needs to test clear to ensure an unaffected puppy.

There is a FB group ‘sourcing reputable breeders golden retrievers uk’. You wanna join that group, not least but there’s so many photos of gorgeous retrievers.