Pure Bred Dogs
There has been a lot of debate lately about health issues in purebred dogs. We feel that with the right intention, a healthy dog, a purebred dog is your safest bet. Most important is that parents of any dog are health tested to the breeder’s best knowledge of diseases occurring in the breed(s) involved. This is impossible to do in dogs with unknown ancestors and fact is most people who randomly breed a litter are not knowledgeable or don’t care about this. Before breeding a litter of puppies extensive research needs to be done. This includes both DNA testing as health testing by veterinarians and veterinary specialists. There are some crossbreeds that have set up their own breed clubs with rules and regulations, that require health testing. Always check if a breeder has done health tests and do research to know what health issues are involved.
Healthy Dog = Happy Dog
As for the Bolognese, we are happy to tell you it is a quite healthy breed. There are a few issues that occur now and then. There is a genetic eye issue called prcd-PRA. There is a simple method to make sure a puppy can never develop this issue, testing its parents! Any serious breeder of Bolognese should have their breeding dogs tested. There are some other forms of eye diseases that can not be detected with a DNA test. Therefore breeding dogs should be tested by an ECVO/CERF certified ophthalmologist on a regular base (recommended once a year) and should be done until a dog is 8 years old. Next to this, small dogs are prone to luxating patella’s. We can try to prevent this by testing parents and only breed with dogs that do not suffer from this issue. However there are also environmental issues that lead to luxating patella’s. Do not let your puppy run up the stairs, jump off of the couch, run for an extensive time on the beach, don’t do agility for the first year of their lives.
A Healthy Puppy
Before our puppies leave our house, they always visit the veterinarian who does a thorough health check and gives them their first vaccine. Depending on where our puppies find their new homes, we visit the vet regularly for vaccinations and health checks. Of course, next to this we deworm them every two weeks.
