Health
Regular tests and clearances for hereditary joint conditions such as hip dysplasia and eye conditions such as progressive retinal atrophy and glaucoma should be conducted by breeders on any dogs used for breeding. Occasionally epilepsy is also seen in the breed.
Flat-coats have a higher risk of cancer than most dogs. Hemangiosarcoma, fibrosarcoma, osteosarcoma and malignant histiocytosis are particularly devastating, and occur at higher rates in Flat-coated Retrievers than in many other breeds. According to studies sponsored by the Flat Coated Retriever Society of America (FCRSA), the average lifespan of the Flat-coated Retriever is only about 8 years, with a high percentage of deaths due to cancer. More recent surveys in Denmark and UK shows a median lifespan of around 10 years. The FCRSA sponsors many university cancer studies and breeders have benefited from increased information on cancer in Flat-coats to reduce the incidence of cancer in future generations.
Flat-coats have a very low rate of hip dysplasia and luxating patellas compared to other medium-sized breeds; the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) statistics consistently show a rate of hip dysplasia in the breed of less than 3%. In 1997 FCRSA health survey, 4.2% of males and 3.2% of females had been diagnosed with luxating patellas.
Read more about this topic: Flat-Coated Retriever
Famous quotes containing the word health:
“Give a man health and a course to steer; and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Even though I had let them choose their own socks since babyhood, I was only beginning to learn to trust their adult judgment.. . . I had a sensation very much like the moment in an airplane when you realize that even if you stop holding the plane up by gripping the arms of your seat until your knuckles show white, the plane will stay up by itself. . . . To detach myself from my children . . . I had to achieve a condition which might be called loving objectivity.”
—Anonymous Parent of Adult Children. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 5 (1978)
“I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.... It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)