The tests a Rottweiler is bred on, and what the papers should show

You are comparing two kennels, and both websites say the same thing: health-tested parents, hips and elbows done, certificates available. One answers your question within the hour with a folder of scanned documents. The other says the parents are healthy dogs that have never needed a veterinarian. The difference between those two answers is not a matter of opinion. A hip grade, an elbow grade, a DNA result and two dated examinations are documents, and each of them can be asked for by name.

A hip grade starts as a film, not a number

A hip grade begins as a radiograph, and a radiograph begins with positioning. The dog is laid on its back, hind legs extended and turned slightly inward, the pelvis square to the plate. A tense or twisted dog gives a film that no reader can grade fairly, which is why the examination is done under light sedation and why a veterinarian takes more than one exposure. The film then travels without the dog. In the United States it is sent to the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, the OFA, where radiologists read it and issue a grade: Excellent, Good, Fair, Borderline, Mild, Moderate or Severe. In the FCI countries of Europe the same film is read under a letter system, from A for a hip without signs of dysplasia to E. Elbows are radiographed in the same appointment and graded on a shorter scale, normal or one to three.

Does a good hip grade mean the puppies will have good hips?

Not by itself. Hip dysplasia is not a single gene and there is no DNA test for it: it is polygenic, and growth and environment take a share of the outcome. A grade describes one dog's pelvis on one day, at one age, and that age is set by rule. The OFA will not issue a final hip grade before the dog is twenty-four months old; a preliminary reading can be taken earlier, but it is not a breeding result. In FCI countries the radiograph is normally taken from twelve months. What a grade does is move the odds. Two dogs with good hips are less likely to produce dysplastic puppies than two dogs with poor ones, and the results of the dog's siblings belong in the picture, because it is the whole litter that shows how a family transmits what it carries.

What does a JLPP result actually tell you?

JLPP stands for juvenile laryngeal paralysis and polyneuropathy. It appears in young Rottweilers: the larynx stops opening as it should, and the nerves of the limbs weaken. It is inherited as a simple recessive, and the DNA test, run on a cheek swab or a blood sample, returns one of three words. Clear means no copy. Carrier means one copy, and a carrier is not a sick dog: it lives and can be bred. Affected means two copies, one from each parent; those dogs develop the condition and are not bred. So the result predicts the mating rather than the dog. Two clear parents cannot produce an affected puppy. A clear dog bred to a carrier can produce carrier puppies and no affected ones. Two carriers have a one in four chance of an affected puppy in every litter, so a pair can be planned to avoid affected puppies entirely.

The heart: ask which examination was done

Rottweilers are screened for cardiac disease, and that word covers two different examinations. The first is auscultation: a veterinarian listens to the chest with a stethoscope, records whether a murmur is heard, and moves on. It is quick and inexpensive, and it cannot rule out a narrowing that is not yet audible. The second is a Doppler echocardiogram, performed by a veterinary cardiologist, which measures the flow across the aortic valve and produces a measurement rather than an impression. Subaortic stenosis, the narrowing that matters most in this breed, is exactly the kind of defect a stethoscope can miss in a young adult. The OFA records the two separately in its cardiac database, one as a congenital examination and one as an advanced examination, and a buyer is entitled to know which of them was done.

Eyes: the certificate has a date for a reason

An eye examination is done by a veterinary ophthalmologist with the pupils dilated, and it records findings rather than passing or failing the dog. In Rottweilers, entropion and ectropion, lids that roll in or out against the surface of the eye, and distichiasis, extra lashes that rub the cornea, are among the entries written on the form. The OFA keeps an eye certification registry, and the certificate carries the date of the examination. The date is the part that matters: an eye examination is treated as current for a year, so a breeder repeats it on the dogs still being bred. An eye certificate from three years ago is history, not a result.

What should a buyer ask to see, in writing?

Four documents, and none of them is difficult to send. The hip result, with the name of the body that read the film and the date of the radiograph. The elbow result from the same appointment. The JLPP DNA report, showing the laboratory, the dog's identification and one of the three words. The eye certificate with its date, plus a straight answer on the heart: auscultation only, or Doppler. On each paper, check that the registered name and the microchip or tattoo number match the dog you are being shown, and that the papers belong to both parents, not to the mother alone. The sire may live in another country; his results travel with the litter all the same.

What the kennel writes down

Our records keep these results one line per dog: the date of the radiograph, the hip and elbow grades, the DNA result, the cardiac examination and the eye certificate, with the issuing body named. A mating is written down with both sets of results before it takes place, and a pair is refused when one of the four is missing or poor. That refusal is the ordinary use of a record book. Buyers who visit are shown the same sheets, because the results are what the litter rests on and the reason a mating was made or not made. The films are kept too, on paper and on disk, so that anyone can check a grade against the radiograph behind it.

One message to send before you visit

Write to the kennel, or to any kennel, with a single request: the registered names of both parents, and their hip, elbow, JLPP and eye results, with dates. A breeder who keeps records will send them the same day, because the documents already exist and do not have to be looked for. Ask for the puppy's own paperwork too: the microchip goes in at the veterinarian's, and the certificate that follows should name the dam you met and the sire whose results you read. Do this before you drive anywhere, and before any deposit changes hands. It is one message, and it decides which kennel is worth the journey.