18 Saber Tails Spring 2017

Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America

PETIT BASSET GRIFFON VENDEEN

CLUB OF AMERICA

WITHDRAWS FROM CHIC

L

ast November the Board of Directors of PBGVCA de-

cided to end its participation in the CHIC program as 

administered by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals.  

Before explaining how the Board arrived at this decision, 

some clarification about the relationship between the 

CHIC program and OFA database is needed.  As stated on 

their home page the OFA has as its mission “To promote 

the health and welfare of companion animals through 

a reduction in the incidence of genetic disease”.  In sup-

port of this goal, the OFA establishes standards for various 

evaluations of specific health concerns identified in dogs 

in general and relevant to specific breeds as needed.  Ini-

tially, the health tests overseen by OFA were orthopedic 

in nature (hip and elbow dysplasia and patella evaluation) 

and OFA developed and administered a process of evalu-

ation by veterinarians based on objective criteria devel-

oped by OFA and maintained a database of results  open 

to the public.  With the owner’s permission, the dogs so 

evaluated are identified by name and breed in the data-

base.  Over the last several years, with the development 

of many genetic tests (such as the POAG test in PBGVs), 

OFA has expanded its database to include the results of 

genetic tests done by other organizations like the Animal 

Health Trust and other laboratories, both commercial and 

research oriented.

C

HIC (Canine Health Information Center) is a database 

sponsored by OFA.  Its number one stated goal is: “To 

work with parent clubs in the identification of health is-

sues for which a central information system should be 

established.”  Parent clubs identify health concerns they 

are interested in tracking and measuring and list tests 

associated with those health concerns as required to be 

conducted in order for a dog to receive a CHIC number.  

Several years ago, the PBGVCA joined CHIC and chose 

OFA hip and CERF (eye) examinations to be the two health 

tests required for a PBGV to be given a CHIC number.

W

hen the test for primary open angle glaucoma 

(POAG) became available, it afforded the opportu-

nity to assess the usefulness of existing CHIC required 

tests.  Two years of research into the prevalence of hip 

dysplasia (clinical) and the usefulness of OFA hip evalua-

tions in either predicting the outcome for the tested dogs, 

or the genetic outcome for the offspring of these tested 

dogs led the Board to recommend that OFA hip testing 

be removed as a required test for obtaining a CHIC num-

ber for PBGVs.  A summary of this research was published 

in Saber Tails  (March 2016, p. 29).  The article concluded 

that hip dysplasia is not prevalent in PBGVs and that OFA 

evaluations are not useful predictors of clinical or genetic 

outcomes in this breed. 

T

he Board of Directors of PBGVCA has the responsibility 

of making decisions that are in the best interests of the 

breed and its members and that are based on available 

evidence.  Several requests for information about actual 

cases of clinical hip dysplasia resulted in one documented 

case of HD in a dog with an OFA rating of ‘Good’.  Based on 

this, a majority of the Board decided to formally request 

the removal of hip evaluations for the CHIC requirements 

for PBGVs and a letter was sent to OFA with this request.  

A

lthough CHIC states that its goal is to  “work with 

parent clubs in the identification of health issues 

for which a central information system should be estab-

lished”  the response received from OFA denied our re-

quest.   The Board responded to this denial by offering 

to retain hip evaluations as an optional test as is the case 

with many breeds with higher incidences of Hip Dyspla-

sia.  This request was also denied by OFA leaving the Club 

in the position of either requiring testing of no demon-

strable value in this breed or ending our participation in 

the CHIC program.  The latter was the course chosen by 

the Board of Directors.

T

he Board’s decision was not made lightly.  It was not a 

unanimous decision and there were dissenters on the 

Board who wanted to leave hip dysplasia testing in a re-

quirement for CHIC.  However, the clear majority voted to 

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