What is the Health Standard?

The Health Standard promotes breed-specific health testing and is a clear evidence-based guide for breeders, of all levels of experience, about health testing priorities within their breed. It represents a crucial step towards The Kennel Club’s strategic aim to safeguard the future health and well-being of pedigree dogs.

The Health Standard uses a consistent and rigorous process to prioritise and categorise health tests based on scientific evidence collated from The Kennel Club’s Breed Health & Conservation Plans (BHCPs). The standard takes into account published literature, prevalence data and – in a first - genetic diversity, in order to categorise and prioritise health tests within every Kennel Club registered breed.

Within the Health Standard, whilst we strongly encourage breeders to undertake all the health tests listed for their breed, each test has been categorised into ‘essential’, ‘advisable’, or ‘other’. This breed-centric categorisation reflects the priority of the tests for the entire breed. These categories highlight which are the most important tests puppy buyers should be looking for and to advise breeders how to prioritise tests when making breeding decisions. 

Here’s a brief overview of each category:

· Essential tests: 

These are tests that breeders are strongly encouraged to undertake prior to breeding, as there is strong evidence that the condition being tested for is a significant concern in the breed, for example, it may be increasing in prevalence. Essential tests are not mandatory for registration but have been termed as such to strongly signal the importance of these tests. 

· Advisable tests: 

These tests are that breeders should consider to be of importance and are advisable to use prior to breeding – being for conditions which are still known and relevant in a breed. However, they have been categorised as advisable either due to having a lower prevalence than those in the essential category, or due to other considerations within the breed, including the need to balance health test results against genetic diversity. 

· Other tests: We don’t yet have sufficient data to assess the importance of these tests, however breeders/ puppy buyers should be aware of them and check their lines before breeding or purchasing a puppy. 

How has the Health Standard been developed?

A rigorous process has been undertaken on a breed-by-breed basis, to establish where each test should sit for each breed. The criteria to determine this includes: 

· Trends in a condition over time (i.e. prevalence, breed averages, frequency of genetic mutations etc.).

· Published evidence in scientific journals to support the accuracy of a test.

· Population of a breed and whether the breed has limited genetic diversity.

The Kennel Club will collect and publish health results from all three categories.

It’s important to note that the Health Standard includes all testable health conditions, including both genetic (DNA tests) and screening tests such as hip scoring or eye testing. This list is not exhaustive and, at present, only health tests that have been officially recognised by The Kennel Club have been incorporated into the Health Standard. However, the Health Standard will be regularly reviewed and is subject to change as new tests, further data, and published evidence becomes available.

Something we have not done before is incorporate the prioritisation of genetic diversity alongside health testing, and the Health Standard has been built alongside our newly revised population analyses, which have been undertaken for every registered breed.

Inbreeding concerns have been listed as a priority for several breeds, which may be due to historical breeding practices or due to small population numbers. Breeders of these breeds must follow best breeding practices and prioritise genetic diversity, in order to maintain genetic diversity within the breed. More information about the population analysis will be provided to BHCs over the next couple of months.

At present the only formal guidance we give on breed specific health testing is via our Assured Breeders Scheme’s recommendations and requirements. This process has been reviewed during the development of the Health Standard, which will replace this existing Assured Breeders Scheme guidance. The Health Standard will give clear direction to all breeders registering puppies with The Kennel Club, at all levels of experience, and is a crucial step in The Kennel Club achieving the strategic aim to safeguard the future of pedigree dogs by addressing breed-associated health issues.  

There will be a transition over to the Health Standard, to ensure that we have one clear set of advice for breeders relating to health testing prior to breeding, however the timeframes for when this transition will take place for Assured Breeders is still to be decided. We will ensure we share an update at the earliest opportunity.

What this means for your breed

Currently, your breed is listed under the Assured Breeders Scheme for the following tests:

Requirements

· Hip scoring, elbow grading

Recommendations

· Eye screening

The Health Standard will have a shift for your breed with respect to health testing, and under this your breed's health tests will be as follows:

Essential

· Minimising inbreeding

Advisable

· Hip scoring, elbow grading

The Kennel Club has added the following recommendation  to Kennel Club Assured breeders regarding the Coefficient of inbreeding of new litters.

Coefficients of Inbreeding

All Assured Breeders should refer to inbreeding coefficient calculators to assist them in making balanced breeding decisions. Breeders can use the Kennel Club’s Mate Select, or, if available, another database which contains more pedigree information. The inbreeding coefficient of the potential litter should

be considered, rather than that of each individual parent. Current guidance is that, where possible, breeders should breed at or below the breed average inbreeding coefficient. Breeders should always take into consideration the number of generations used to produce the calculation and the number of offspring already sired by the male.

The Club can help with this as the Kennel Club's Mate Select programme can significantly understate the value of COIs when compared with even standardised 10 generation calculations

Some of you may well have IWS with epilepsy and this paper on the effects of diet may be of interest.

Click on this   

Research Paper

 https://www.bva.co.uk/news-and-blog/news-article/bva-statement-on-pet-vaccinations-during-the-covid-19-lockdown/?fbclid=IwAR3JaDUsXyCOsquNo80ParatIx7RygE2MMUYQ1_mF3eFw286sinGa3DWTJI 

The Kennel Club:   Health testing & screening during Covid-19  26 March 2020

News from breed health coordinator Sue Hempstead

As Breed Health Coordinator for the Irish Water Spaniel I am pleased to inform you that health teams from both the Sporting Irish Water Spaniel Club and the Irish Water Spaniel Association met with the Kennel Club on December 9th 2019 to formulate a Breed Health Conservation Plan for the Irish Water Spaniel.
The health teams were David Wilcox (SIWSC),  Penny Willoughby (IWSA) and Jenny Menage (IWSA) and representing the Kennel Club Hannah James and Dr Tom Lewis.

I would like to thank both teams for their hard work. It is very important and vital that both clubs work together on the future health and welfare of our wonderful breed.

The BHCP can be accessed by clicking on the following link 

 https://siwsc.org/breed-health-plan 

and if you have any queries or comments on the plan please email me and I will pass on to the Health Teams.

Sue Hempstead - arnsuecuvana@hotmail.com

David Wilcox, SIWSC.

We are pleased to announce that as a result of discussions with the Kennel Club they have agreed that from 2021 hip and elbow scores for Irish Water Spaniels will be used to calculate estimated breeding values. These complex mathematical calculations estimate the genetic component where a trait is affected by both genes and the environment and when applied to hips and elbows will estimate the risk of using an individual IWS for breeding. The calculation involves using the breed mean score and those of close relatives of the dog involved to determine the risk. This risk may change over time as more hip scores are added.

This is a huge advance as the current schemes are not really any good at predicting hips in offspring from individual dogs, rather they act at the breed level (which can result in unnecessary exclusion of suitable dogs, at the expense of genetic diversity).

Consequently we really need as many IWS between the ages of 1 (2 is better) and 4 to undergo hip and elbow scoring in order to make the EBVs as accurate as possible.

 https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/health/for-breeders/breeding-advice/estimated-breeding-values/ 

David Wilcox, SIWSC.

Discussions with The Kennel Club have resulted in a request for owners of older IWS (aged 8 and above) to have their eyes tested. This is obviously not to screen them for breeding purposes but to identify possible eye diseases in the breed that have a late onset. These would not be picked up by breeders testing for breeding purposes.

For more information on eye testing and to find a specialist eye panelist click the link.

 https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/health/for-breeders/complex-inherited-disorders/bvakc-health-schemes/bvakcisds-eye-scheme/