The club has had a health co-coordinator for a number of years monitoring the health of the breed and producing an annual health report, also working in every way possible on the breed's difficulties with hip and elbow development strongly recommending the BVA/KC scoring scheme for all breeding stock and where possible their brothers and sisters.
At all times we have worked closely with the Kennel Club (KC) through the past 12 years since it has been recognised that epilepsy is a problem. The KC genetics expert recommended a breeding programme to us at the beginning that responsible breeders have followed since.
The KC Charitable Trust is now assisting with funding for the snp-gene mapping of otterhounds for epilepsy and we will continue our work unceasingly until it is possible to test all breeding otterhounds and make known publicly their epilepsy status.
The Otterhound Cub is working with the Otterhound Club of America to carry out a world health survey of the breed to cover all otterhounds alive at any time in the last 5 years, before the end of 2008, this is to be analysed independently by the animal health trust and we would encourage maximum participation in this survey by all otterhound owners. Are you the owner of an otterhound?, do you know someone who is?
If so please contact Katy Evans, katy.evans@aht.org.uk letting her know that you wish to complete a form for your hound as soon as it becomes available.
The survey will be analysed by the world and by country so we can not only compare the health of our hounds with previous health surveys, but know their health status world wide and compare any differences country by country to the whole world.
