Which health tests does your breed need?

“Health tested” in an advert tells you almost nothing until you know tested for what — and the answer depends entirely on the breed. This page puts the answer for every breed in one table, taken from the Royal Kennel Club Health Standard, with each breed’s hip score median from the BVA where one is published. Each breed name links to that breed’s page, where every test is listed in full with what it involves.

How to read the table

Good Practice is the Royal Kennel Club’s stated minimum: the tests it says a breeder should complete before breeding from a dog of that breed. Best Practice is what it recommends on top. Breed club schemes are tests the Standard points to but which the breed clubs run themselves; the Royal Kennel Club does not record the results, so ask for the certificate.

Tests come in two families. Screening schemes — hips, elbows, eyes — are examinations by a vet or a panel, scored or graded; DNA tests look for a specific mutation, and most come back Clear, Carrier or Affected (a few, such as DM, report a level of risk instead) — or Hereditary Clear, a status inherited from clear parents rather than tested in the dog itself. Health testing explained covers both, and Hereditary Clear explained covers the result that trips most people up.

The hip median is the middle score of the dogs of that breed scored in the BVA scheme over the period shown on the breed page. Lower is better, and a dog’s own score is best read against it — see hip and elbow scores explained.

Before you rely on it

• The Standard changes. This table follows the Royal Kennel Club Health Standard as published in August 2026. Tests are added as DNA tests become available and as breed clubs ask; check the Royal Kennel Club’s own page for the breed before a mating.
• A result belongs to one dog. Ask for each result in the dog’s registered name, not the parents’, unless it is a Hereditary Clear status — and then ask how many generations back it rests on.
• Some breeds have registration rules too. Separately from the Health Standard, the Royal Kennel Club runs DNA control schemes for a few breeds: imported dogs, and litters by artificial insemination from overseas studs, must be tested before the puppies can be registered.
• No record is not a bad record. The Royal Kennel Club’s public records may not include all the screening a dog has had, so a dog with no Royal Kennel Club record showing is not necessarily untested.
• A clear panel is not a guarantee. Tests find what they test for. A screening scheme is a snapshot, and a DNA test covers one mutation, not every cause of a condition.

On Breed Right, a stud listing shows a health result only once our team has checked it against the Royal Kennel Club’s public records — see how verification works.