84 Saber Tails Summer 2017

Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America

wanted to make a formal rebuttal (such as the rebuttal 

written in this issue by Ms. Liscum).  

As President, I refused to bring the issue of removing hip 

testing from our CHIC requirements to vote until we had a 

chance to allow members to voice a concern and no one 

did.  I had heard rumor that this topic would be brought 

up during the annual meeting in Indianapolis (2016) at 

the national specialty, and it wasn’t.  Why weren’t these 

concerns and arguments brought up sooner?  I felt when 

we published our recommendation in March of 2016, the 

path we were headed down was obvious.  If that pub-

lished article wasn’t clear enough, the health committee 

chair was specifically made aware that the Board of Ddi-

rectors was leaning toward removing the hip dysplasia 

requirement from our CHIC required tests.  However, the 

concerns presented in Ms. Liscum’s response were never 

addressed until the formal announcement was made in 

the April 2017 Saber Tails magazine.  I’m unhappy that 

the health committee stayed silent until a formal decision 

had been made.  I’m concerned that there is such a gap 

between the health committee and the Board of Direc-

tors.  This should not be an “us” versus “them.”  None of us 

on the Board wants a divide between the BOD and the 

health committee.  The health committee is a committee 

of the club and operates at the behest of the club.  Com-

mittee members are appointed by the elected officials of 

the club.  The health committee is specifically in place to 

research health issues and provide advice to the Board of 

Directors about where money should be spent and what 

the Board should do related to certain health topics.  As 

such, the health committee’s purpose is to provide feed-

back when it is solicited.  Feedback that gives the type of 

evidence cited in Ms. Liscum’s article is exactly what the 

BOD was asking for in the Fall of 2015.  A response of “the 

health committee disagrees” but doesn’t have anything 

else to add isn’t a response that will change anyone’s 

mind and is not an appropriate response.  Ms. Liscum’s 

response published in this issue provides a well-thought 

out ‘why’ to the question of should we or shouldn’t we 

remove hip testing from the CHIC requirements, but the 

timing is off.  We asked for and needed this information in 

the Fall of 2015 when we were evaluating this topic and 

debating and laboring over whether or not we should re-

move hip tests from the list of parent club recommended 

health tests.

 

Also…as to the section related to hip testing conducted 

in Sweden, I have no doubt that the Swedish Kennel Club 

takes hip dysplasia very seriously.  However, PBGVs are 

NOT one of the breeds in Sweden for which hip testing 

is required or conducted.  The implied connection be-

tween Labrador Retrievers (about which the cited Malm 

article is written) and PBGVs doesn’t exist.  I reached out to 

breeders in Sweden to ask if they considered adding hips 

to the health testing required for PBGVs in Sweden.  They 

responded that they didn’t think they should look for a 

problem that isn’t there.

Furthermore, if the PBGVCA conducts health surveys and 

plans to use the results to justify sweeping health-related 

decisions, the questions and categories can’t be so broad.  

In a previous health survey conducted by the PBGVCA, I 

answered “yes” to a bone issue for one of my girls because 

the question specifically stated that the answer should 

be affirmative if the dog had had any bone or joint prob-

lems, including any broken bones.  Yes...my girl Cricket 

broke her leg at 8 months old.  She caught her leg in the 

webbing of a papasan chair as she fell out of it.  That has 

absolutely nothing to do with hip dysplasia (in fact, she 

does have a passing hip test result which is recorded with 

OFA).  However, because of the broad nature of the ques-

tions, and the fact that any bone or joint related issues 

were lumped together, it sounds as if Cricket’s accident 

and broken leg is now being used as evidence of the need 

for hip testing for dysplasia.

 

While I do not want to rehash all of the information and 

justifications we have published on this topic (see March 

2016 and April 2017 Saber Tails articles) I would like to re-

mind everyone, the BOD did request that hip testing be 

made optional and the CHIC organization refused our re-

quest.  The BOD did not ‘want’ to withdraw from CHIC but 

the two options we presented to CHIC as our club’s rec-

ommended health tests were denied.  The BOD does NOT 

believe CHIC has the right to make decisions on behalf of 

our club.  We would also like to remind everyone that any 

PBGV can still be tested for any health test offered by OFA 

(whether recommended by the PBGVCA or not), the re-

sults can be recorded and published with OFA for a fee, 

and those results can be searched within the OFA data-

base by anyone with a computer or smart phone.  With-

drawing from CHIC does NOTHING to change the tests 

available for PBGVs…it simply means dogs having rec-

ommended tests will no longer be issued a CHIC number.  

CHIC is nothing more than a database of parent-club rec-

ommended tests and the dogs that have had those tests 

conducted (and paid to publish the results).  The same in-

formation is available in OFA at www.offa.org by looking 

up each individual dog.  You are still welcome to conduct 

any test on your dog and have that information recorded.  

Your dog will be issued an OFA number and receive a cer-

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