One very sad thing in the double page spread Express piece today is that it shows how much confusion there still is about what the Innate Health Assessment actually does.
The gentleman who supports the IHA speaks movingly about losing his Cavalier to syringomyelia and heart disease. Anyone who loves Cavaliers knows how heartbreaking those conditions are.
But the difficulty is that the IHA cannot detect either of those diseases.
Syringomyelia requires MRI scanning. Mitral valve disease requires cardiology screening and careful long-term breeding strategies. They are complex inherited conditions that breeders and researchers have been working on for years through testing, data collection and careful mate selection.
The IHA, by contrast, is largely a visual checklist of external features. It looks at things like proportions, eye shape, leg length and other visible traits. However well intentioned, it simply cannot diagnose heart disease or neurological conditions.
If only we did have a quick visual tool that could solve complex inherited diseases like SM or mitral valve disease. Every Cavalier breeder and owner in the world would be using it tomorrow.
The real danger is that people understandably assume the tool will fix problems it was never designed to address.
Everyone wants healthier dogs. The question is whether this particular tool actually tackles the problems people think it does.
Do read our article on what we think of the IHA – we really need to be at the table when dogs are being discussed.
Click here
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