What’s the Deal with Health Tests?
November 29, 2009 by Magda Omansky, NTCA Health Chair • Categories: Health
Prior to year 2002 there were only 9 Norwich terriers entered in the database of the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, or OFA as it is more commonly referred to. As of the day of this writing, the OFA database for health screening grew to include the information about one thousand one hundred and three tests performed on Norwich terriers. I could not resist spelling out “thousand” tests. Whenever I feel saddened by news of some irresponsible actions on parts of some breeders I remind myself of this heartwarming statistics. Norwich terrier breeders do deeply care about the breed. It is in excellent hands.
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Norwich Upper Airway Syndrome (UAS)
May 1, 2008 by NTCA Webmaster • Categories: Health
Magda Omansky wrote two informative articles on Upper Airway Syndrome. (Spring 2008)
DNA Test For Fluffies
November 1, 2007 by AKC Gazette Breed Columnist • Categories: Breed Columns, Health
They are adorable, round balls of fur, unmistakable with their jackets of soft cottony hair. They are homozygous recessive—fluffies. And that’s how breeders have traditionally found out that their perfectly normal-seeming parents were heterozygous recessive—fluffy gene carriers. One breeder describes her experience this way, “By six weeks of age, the fact that puppies are destined to be fluffy is indisputable. They just puff right out as if someone had pumped them full of air.” It’s a serious fault in our breed. But now there is a new tool to avoid the Michelin puppy scenario.
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