Should I test breeding dogs, their litters, or both?

Both—we recommend testing your potential breeding pair as well as the litter.

We recommend testing all dams and sires prior to breeding. Our lab can then develop a risk assessment for a litter of puppies from the test results of pairing a specific sire and dam. If the sire and/or dam is a carrier or at increased risk for a particular condition, we recommend testing the puppies as a portion of them could be at increased risk or carriers themselves.

The statistical chance of a litter containing carrier or increased-risk puppies can easily be calculated based on the parents' genotypes.

To learn more, we recommend the following blog posts:

• Bring the Family: Why You Should DNA Test Your Litters
• How do I create Punnett Squares and use them to predict litter outcomes?