Companion Animals

Breed-Specific Health Screening in Dogs: A Welfare Investment

How health screening programmes reduce inherited disease welfare burden across breeds.

Key Facts

Welfare Considerations

Breed-specific health screening reduces the inherited disease welfare burden across generations. Purchasing from health-tested parents reduces individual puppy disease risk; population-level breeding decisions reduce condition prevalence over decades. Welfare-focused breeding uses all available screening tools, selects breeding animals below breed mean for scoring conditions, and supports mandatory testing introduction by registries.

What You Can Do