Border Collie Health

"The Border Collie stands alone in its exceptional ability to work livestock. Both the Canadian Border Collie Association and American Border Collie Association defines the breed by this working ability. The main goal of any Border Collie breeder should be to produce sound, useful, working dogs. While Border Collies also excel in many non-herding activities, they should be bred ultimately for their ability to work livestock.  The integrity and preservation of this breed's ability to work livestock  lies ultimately with the breeders. Breeders of this wonderful working breed should take this responsibility very seriously.  Border Collie breeders breeding specifically for the conformation showring are jeopardizing this breed's natural ability to work livestock and their primary use as the world's best herding dogs."


The Border Collie breed is a comparatively sound and healthy breed of dog with few breed specific disorders.  However there are a few genetic ailments that are present in the breed that both breeder's and potential puppy buyers should know about:   

Collie Eye Anomaly (CEA) is a congenital disorder where the parts of the eye, particularly the retinal area, do not develop normally. The severity of the disease ranges from no visual impairment to blindness. It is not a progressive disease and affected dogs usually have only mildly impaired vision. CEA is an autosomal recessive disorder. Autosomal means it is passed on and expressed equally in males or females. Recessive means a dog may carry a mutated CEA gene and pass it on to its offspring without having the disease itself. A dog is defined as Clear (or Normal) if it does not have a mutated CEA gene. A dog is defined as a Carrier if it has one mutated CEA gene and one normal gene. The eyes of both the Carrier and the Clear dogs will be normal and unaffected by the disease. A dog which has two mutated CEA genes is defined as Affected.  It is estimated that 2.5% of all border collies are affected with CEA, with as many as 25% being Carriers.
It is recommended that breeders utilize the OptiGen test to determine the status of all dogs used for breeding. A Clear (genetics rated Normal) dog bred to a Clear ( gentics rated Normal) dog will produce only Clear puppies, so the offspring of such a mating need not be DNA tested; their status is known. An Affected dog should be bred only to a Normal rated dog, and only when the dog's exceptional merits are such as to justify a breeding that will produce pups which will all be Carriers. Carriers, too, should be bred only to Clear dogs, in order to avoid producing affected pups.  However, breeders should not exclude Carriers from their breeding program, as this would be detrimental to the goal of maintaining the highest level of working ability in our breed by constricting the gene pool too tightly. All pups with a Carrier parent should be tested to determine their CEA status before being bred. If testing all breeding stock is not feasible, at a minimum breeders should ensure that one parent of any litter is DNA Clear, as this is the only way to be sure that Affected pups will not be produced. Breeders and owners should be frank and forthcoming in informing anyone inquiring about a breeding or a puppy purchase about the CEA status of the dogs involved, and the significance of that for any offspring that are produced from such breedings.

Photos provided by Spring Photography.