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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