Health Testing A Cane Corso

Cane Corso Health Testing Recommendations

Currently our parent breed club (CCAA) recommends that hips, elbows, cardiac, patellas, and genetic testing for DSRA and NCL be checked. Hips can be checked through PennHip or OFA. Elbows, cardiac, and patellas can be checked by OFA. Embark covers DSRA and NCL.

Any breeder should be more than willing to provide proof of health testing. If the health testing was done through OFA and the dogs registered name is known then buyers can search the OFA database themselves to find the health testing results. PennHip results can be added to the OFA database by breeders. All of Cinder’s health testing is public and available on the OFA database under her registered name “Brown Haven’s Born Of Fire Born Of The Sea”.

PennHip can be done anytime after 16 weeks although I recommend waiting as the dogs have to be put under. OFA prelims can be done before two years and the OFA finals have to be done after 2 years old. It’s best for breeders to wait until their Cane Corso is 2 years old so they can do OFA and PennHip at the same time and only have to anesthetize the dog once.

OFA cardiac can be done by auscultation only or auscultation and an echocardiogram. I highly recommend going the echo route. It is much more costly but more Corsos are popping up everyday with heart issues. We shouldn’t wait till this is a problem in our breed to test for it.

Another very important health test to mention is the DSRA genetic test. DSRA is dental skeletal retinal anomaly genetic disease that can be easily avoided by a test to rule out breeding two carriers. The test can be bought through Embark or OFA. All Cane Corso breeders should be testing for this.