Eyes need to be checked annually as they change. Even eyes that have been cleared can produce pups with problems...

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Janice and The Celebration Gang -
"Samantha, George, Tiki, Emily, Mick and Basil" Gone but not forgotten, Sally(Windjammer's Ima Country Girl CDX CGC), Laney(Mandell Marlenes Celebration UD RA CGC), and Cookie(Starseeker's Kissmas Cookie CDX RE CGC).

Short answer: sort of.

Long answer: Some health checks can help reduce the incidence of a problem in the long term even if they can't help with litters that are already born. Some problems (like PU in the eyes) don't typically show up until after an animal—especially a bitch—is past breeding age. However, catching it after a litter or even after a whole breeding career helps you eliminate it in later generations. It would be nice if eyes, like hips and elbows, showed 99.9% of their problems by the time an animal is two years old. Sadly, they don't, so the best bet is to do yearly CERFs through an animal's whole life and then use the results to make decisions about later generations.

So if you're buying a puppy from a breeder who is religious about CERFs, you're benefiting from the CERFs done on grandparents and great grandparents, even though CERFing the parents themselves will only catch the most severe, early-onset problems, which you'd obviously still want to do.

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http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/...eye-exams.html (The importance of eye exams)

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Maybe I'm not using the right term. Where the puppies and parents are kept is adjacent to the house, separated by a gate.

Let me be clear, my pups and all of my dogs are in the house, there is no adjacent...

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Janice and The Celebration Gang -
"Samantha, George, Tiki, Emily, Mick and Basil" Gone but not forgotten, Sally(Windjammer's Ima Country Girl CDX CGC), Laney(Mandell Marlenes Celebration UD RA CGC), and Cookie(Starseeker's Kissmas Cookie CDX RE CGC).

Would I buy from this breeder? No. That is my opinion. I want a dog from proven parentage. With my quick look, there are too many holes in the clearences for my taste. I am a stickler. Also, they don't compete in anything anywhere that I can find. They then point to champions back in the pedigree. To me this seems like coat-tail riding and dosn't sit well with me at all. The quality of Champion dogs can be lost in just a generation or two of careless or unknowledgeable breeding. Lastly, is this quote, "Due to the high demand for our pups, we needed to expand our breeding program which required us to build our new state of the art facility." Reputable breeders are breeding for themselves, not because buyer demand. I don't judge a breeder on the number of litters they have. Each reputable breeder breeds the litters they want/need to compete with and continue their program. For some this could be several a year, others a single litter every few years. What this statement does make clear to me is that this is a business being driven by supply and demand. It is not where I would want my next "baby" to come from.

To SparrowWatcher, Do I think you should consider them? Well, to me that depends on two things.
1. Who are the parents. Some of their dogs do have better clearences then others. So, there could be a good combo to be had here especially if they can provide copies of the missing eye clearences.

2. Price point. On average a well bred puppy from fully cleared and titled parents ranges from $1000-2000. I don't know what the going rates are in your area but usually if you budget for $1500 you can find that well bred puppy. If you could get a puppy from the better clearenced dogs at Super Goldens for say $600-1400 again depending on local pricing in relation to the first range, then well maybe. But I would not pay SuperGoldens the same amount or slightly less as I would for a well bred puppy from full cleared and competitive parentage.
I certainly would not pay them more. Sometimes folks will demand more than reputable breeders by claiming to have something rare like, "English Creme" which is just a marketing ploy. There is no English Creme retriever breed. They are Goldens with a fancy name slapped on them.

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Laura, Jinx, and Rocky
UKC CH Wildfire's A Kind of Magic CGC
http://www.k9data.com/pedigree.asp?ID=474956
Rocky the old min pin who thinks he's a golden

Can I just save all of your posts!!! You are awesome!! ;-)

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CH Lakewood's Bringin' Out Da Big Guns "Cannon"
Rhythm's Dat's Da Way I Like It "KC"

Sparrow watcher posted the question nearly two years ago. I assume he/she has already made a decision regarding this breeder.


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App

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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)

Here's what bugs me about this. The OP asked about this breeder nearly two years ago, and disappeared. Stacebabe bought a pup from this breeder, found this forum, and came across this very old thread. She is obviously happy with her puppy.

Why continue to trash the breeder? Who does that help at this point? The OP is long gone, and a new forum member got her puppy there. At this point, it comes off as arrogance. I doubt stacebabe feels welcome here at this point.

Just my 2 cents......

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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)

That's a good point. But there is some wisdom here, and it can be helpful to future buyers. I know that when I first came here (not very long ago) I found incredibly useful information in old threads that suddenly got bumped for whatever reason.

I generally don't like breeder trashing -- though I am guilty of it myself with regard to one puppy mill breeder -- and think there's kind of a pack hysteria here that is quick to attack and feast on the flesh off any breeder with a perceived weakness. But even the unfair threads contain valuable information. I learned a lot from a couple of the more unfortunate threads here. (Not least of which is to stay out of certain people's way!)