The Canine Health Center is a centralized canine health database
which is jointly sponsored by the AKC/Canine Health Foundation
(AKC/CHF) and the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA).
There are some primary goals of the Canine Health Center, and they
include: to work with parent clubs in the identification of health
issues for which a central information system should be established; to
establish and maintain a central health information system in a manner
that will support research into canine disease and provide health
information to owners and breeders; and to base the availability of
information on individually identified dogs at the consent of the
owner.
There are numerous different benefits that this organization brings
to the table, and for breeders, they provide an incredibly reliable
source of information regarding dogs they may use in their breeding
programs.
For buyers, the CHIC program is one which provides accurate
information about the results of a breeder’s health testing, and for
diseases that are limited to phenotypic evaluations, there are no
guarantees.
However, the probability that an animal will develop an inherited
device is reduced when its ancestry has been tested normal.
Furthermore, as more DNA tests become available and the results are
entered into CHIC, the CHIC database will be able to establish whether
progeny will be clear, carriers, or affected.
For researchers, they provide confidential and accurate aggregate
information on multiple generations of dogs, and their information will
also be useful for epidemiological studies enhancing our knowledge of
health issues affecting all breeds of dogs.
There are various different ways to contact this organization if you
are interested in learning more about them or in resourcing them for
some purpose, and although there are many other organizations similar
to this one, none of them are even remotely as successful, and so if
you are looking for such a company then you are definitely going to
want to go with this one over any other.