Health
The Dutch Breed Club initiated a hotline in 2008 for reporting health and behavioral problems. Their current statement on health is that the breed has no serious physical or mental hereditary illnesses. However, they still recommend, but do not require, screening for hip dysplasia.
Within the rough-hair population care should be taken to screen for goniodysplasia before breeding. This is a condition where the outflow of fluid from the eye is restricted and under certain circumstances can cause blindness. The link between genetics and goniodysplasia is uncertain. Two dogs who have a risk of goniodysplasia can still have puppies who are not at risk. The Dutch Breed Club regulations requires the testing for GD for rough-hairs.
As with any breed, thoroughly research your prospective breeder before making your final decision.
Read more about this topic: Dutch Shepherd Dog
Famous quotes containing the word health:
“Some fear that if parents start listening to their own wants and needs they will neglect their children. It is our belief that children are in fact far less likely to be neglected when their parents needsfor support, for friendship, for decent work, for health care, for learning, for play, for time aloneare being met.”
—Wendy Coppedge Sanford. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Womens Health Book Collective, introduction (1978)
“Of all natural forces, vitality is the incommunicable one.... Vitality never takes. You have it or you havent it, like health or brown eyes or a baritone voice.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940)
“I am astonished at the singular pertinacity and endurance of our lives. The miracle is, that what is is, when it is so difficult, if not impossible, for anything else to be; that we walk on in our particular paths so far, before we fall on death and fate, merely because we must walk in some path; that every man can get a living, and so few can do anything more. So much only can I accomplish ere health and strength are gone, and yet this suffices.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)