The other week we took Jackson to our veterinarian, Black Horse Animal Hospital, to get his x-rays for his OFA certification. Now most people are familiar with AKC but not so much with OFA…so what’s the difference?

AKC is a database where we register our dogs as purebreds and provides proof that we have registered purebred dogs. While this is extremely valuable and important, that’s about all that it does. AKC registration doesn’t prove that the dogs are healthy, that they aren’t being inbred, and that they are of breeding quality. This is where OFA comes in.

The Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) is where we choose to certify our dogs for their hips and elbows. The other recognized certification is called Penn Hip. Basically we take our dog to the vet once they are at least 2 years old (the minimum age) and they take x-rays of their hips and elbows and send it over to OFA. From there they read the x-rays and place them in their appropriate category. For elbows the results are either normal or abnormal and there are 7 categories for hips ranging from severe dysplasia to excellent. For our breeding program we will only bring a dog into our program that tests fair, good, or excellent.

Both AKC and OFA play a large role in our breeding program (and DNA is a whole other topic too!) and are a valuable resource for both the breeder and the puppy owner. It gives us confidence to have a solid health guarantee knowing we are setting our puppies up for success. Labrador Retrievers are generally healthy dogs, but later in life they can have trouble with their hips and elbows. Hip dysplasia can be a hereditary issue so that is why we really focus on having good results from the OFA hip certification.

If you are looking at purchasing a puppy from a breeder I’d highly recommend that you find a puppy whose parents are OFA or Penn-Hip certified. There really is no reason for a reputable breeder not to do it! We want to insure that we are improving the breed standards and with that we need to be making sure we have healthy parents, and one of those ways is through registering our dogs and puppies with AKC and OFA testing all of our parents.

Oh, and by the way, Jackson tested GOOD for his hips and normal for his elbows so we are so excited to have him in our breeding program!