These are the certifications that can be obtained via OFA that are pertinent to Bichons:  hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, patellar luxation, legg-calve-perthes, cardiac, congenital deafness, and thyroid disease.  You can read more about these diseases and tests by going to the OFA web site at www.offa.org.

Below is the data from OFA for the last 30 years, from 1974 to the end of 2004.  This data is helpful in determining what diseases are prevalent in Bichons, which assists BFCA’s Health Committee in determining which research projects will benefit our breed.  The problem is that reporting of some diseases is minimal and the data OFA reports only reflects dogs that are OFA certified, not all dogs affected with these diseases. Breeders should share all of their OFA reports with OFA and the Health Committee, even those reports of abnormalities, so that we have more accurate data to process. If you do not chose to publish abnormal results, please assure that the vet sends the xrays and forms to OFA so the data can be utilized for research, which remains anonymous.  This data reflects the incidence of these diseases in Bichons and helps us determine research priorities.  If abnormal xrays and forms are not sent to OFA, the data will be skewed by showing a false low incidence for that particular disease.

Below are the statistics of OFA reports for the last 30 years for Bichons:

Cardiac Diseases
Rank: # 36 of all breeds # of evaluations: 82 # affected: 1%

Patellar Luxation
Rank: # 11 of all breeds # of evaluations: 561 # affected: 8%

Elbow Dysplasia
Rank: # 65 of all breeds # of evaluations: 199 # affected: 2%

Hip Dysplasia
Rank: # 105 of all breeds # of evaluations: 2343 # affected: 6%

Thyroid Disease: no reports for Bichons

Congenital Deafness: statistics are not reported on the OFA web site

Remember, you and any person interested in buying or breeding Bichons, can consult the OFA web site to determine which Bichons/breeders are completing genetic screening prior to breeding. To do this, go to their site at www.offa.org and click on “search OFA records”. We now mention this on our web site http://bichonhealth.org/HealthInfo/OFAdata.asp in the article entitled “Before You Buy Your Puppy”.