I'm feeling down about all of the health issues in Labs. Seems like we have done a good job with hips and PRA, but still elbows are there and others festering, like allergies. Gee, where did all of this come from, heart, EIC/CNM, Epilepsy, Entropian, Thyroid to name a few. I am wondering what are the healthiest breeds out there (other than beagle)

Beagles are not free from health issues:
distichiasis, retinal atrophy, pulmonic stenosis, cataracts, demodicosis, glaucoma, intervertebral disk disease, prolapsed gland of the third eyelid, retinal dysplasia and other diseases.

Please remember we are working with living, breathing things. These are not cars to be manufactured upon request.

I doubt there are many humans that don't suffer from one ailement or another and most often it is hereditary. Do you wear glasses? Did you have braces? Do you have allergies? Arthritis? Asthma? and on and on.

I think it is important to remember that EIC/Echo/OFA/CERF/CNM...these are all tools in order to help us breed better dogs. This is not a black and white hobby.

I think as a whole...this is a pretty healthy, hardy breed. BUT, we do need to watch our gene pools...seems we all breed to the same dogs and we are lessening the diversity in our pedigrees. No big surprise we are dealing with the same issues.

I think this is partly due to the ever increasing ease in being able to ship semen from just about anywhere. This has positive and negative affects. We are relying more and more on pictures, internet and honesty of people we have never met to make breeding decisions versus seeing the dog in the flesh.

Things have changed alot in the 12 years I have been involved in this breed. I am sure if you talk to a breeder that has been at it for 20-30 years....you would get some very good perspective.

This hobby has never been for the faint of heart and is definately not for everyone.

I know that Whippets are pretty healthy, they do not need to be OFA´s for hips and elbows, neither do they need to have their eye certificate. I´m even not sure if they have any kind of allergies? But what they suffer from is having their skin so thin that they cut up easily. So I guess that every breed has it´s pros and cons.