Health Testing: Embark and Hips

In order to produce only QUALITY Australian Shepherds that represent the breed WELL, all of our parent dogs undergo a health screening protocol. Only breeders who strive to continuously improve future generations, like DeVos Australian Shepherds, are very particular that their sires and dames will produce puppies that will only enhance the reputation of their breed, NOT flood the gene pool with undesirable traits and/or underlying genetic disorders. ALL breeds have certain diseases/defects that are inheritable. And unless you buy from a trusted breeder who health tests their dogs and will willingly share said tests, you have a high chance of buying an AKC registered dog for thousands of dollars, with numerous hereditary defects,  underlying genetic disorders, such as cataracts, cancers and/or spinal conditions that will manifest early or later on in their life.
Embark

Before breeding, our Australian Shepherds are genetically tested for the specific diseases and defects that can affect this breed. We use Embark, which not only tests the Australian Shepherd panel, but as well as 225 other genetic traits and marked diseases in the canine species. 

This helps to determine how breeding pairs match up virtually and what coat, color and traits the puppies may possibly inherit from each parent.
Hips/OFA’s

OFA is the acronym for Orthopedic Foundation for Animals. This organization was founded in 1966 with the goal to lower the incidence of orthopedic and genetic diseases in companion animals. Our Australian Shepherds hips are first  x-rayed and examined by our veterinarians who then send those X-rays  to OFA  to evaluate their risk of developing  hip dyplasia. The reason we do this screening is to determine if they will be suitable for our program and produce puppies that are LESS likely to form hip problems in their lifetime.

Prior to being selected officially for our program we submit preliminary xrays (before 2 years old) . “For normal hip conformations, the reliability was 89.6% at 3-6 months, 93.8% at 7-12 months, and 95.2% at 13-18 months. These results suggest that preliminary evaluations of hip joint status in dogs are generally reliable. However, dogs that receive a preliminary evaluation of fair or mild hip joint conformation should be reevaluated at an older age (24 months).

We then screen our dogs again once they have reached 24 months/ 2 years old. 

*Corley, EA, et al. Reliability of Early Radiographic Evaluation for Canine Hip Dysplasia Obtained from the Standard Ventrodorsal Radiographic Projection. JAVMA. Vol 211, No. 9, November 1997.

HOWEVER, it should be considered that hip dysplasia can develop regardless of parentage later on in life depending on diet, weight, activity level and other health factors.