Health Screening
Our Great Danes undergo various health screens to insure that we continue to improve upon the breed. Great Danes are predisposed to various problems such as those listed here.
| Click on a bookmark for details about the screens. | ||
| C.E.R.F. | OFA Cardiac | OFA Hips |
| OFA Thyroid | ||
| Canine Eye Registration Foundation (C.E.R.F.) | |||
| The
Canine Eye Registration Foundation (C.E.R.F.) is an organization that was
founded by a group of concerned, purebred owner/breeders who recognized
that the quality of their dog's lives were being affected by heritable eye
disease. C.E.R.F. was then established in conjunction with cooperating,
board certified, veterinary ophthalmologists, as a means to accomplish the
goal of elimination of heritable eye disease in all purebred dogs by
forming a centralized, national registry.
The C.E.R.F. Registry not only registers those dog's certified free of heritable eye disease by members of the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists (A.C.V.O. ), but also collects data on all dogs examined by A.C.V.O. Diplomates. This data is used to form the C.E.R.F. data base which is useful in researching trends in eye disease and breed susceptibility. Not only is this data useful to clinicians and students of ophthalmology, but to interested breed clubs and individual breeders and owners of specific breeds. |
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| CERF Website | Back to top of Page | ||
| Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) Congenital Cardiac Disease | |||
| Congenital heart diseases in dogs are malformations of the heart or great vessels. The lesions characterizing congenital heart defects are present at birth and may develop more fully during perinatal and growth periods. Many congenital heart defects are thought to be genetically transmitted from parents to offspring; however, the exact modes of inheritance have not been precisely determined for all cardiovascular malformations. | |||
| OFA Cardiac Web Site | Back to top of Page | ||
| Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) Hip Dysplasia | |||
| Hip Dysplasia is a terrible genetic disease because of the various degrees of arthritis (also called degenerative joint disease, arthrosis, osteoarthrosis) it can eventually produce, leading to pain and debilitation. | |||
| OFA Hip Dysplasia Web Site | Back to top of Page | ||
| Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) Thyroid | |||
| Autoimmune thyroiditis is the most common cause of primary hypothyroidism in dogs. The disease has variable onset, but tends to clinically manifest itself at 2 to 5 years of age. Dogs may be clinically normal for years, only to become hypothyroid at a later date. The marker for autoimmune thyroiditis, thyroglobulin autoantibody formation, usually occurs prior to the occurrence of clinical signs. Therefore, periodic retesting is recommended. Hypothyroidism has been linked to VonWillebrand (vWD). | |||
| OFA Thyroid Web Site | Back to top of Page | ||