Bearded Collie Health - Useful Websites for Information
You can download a PDF copy of the list here 
(PDF 381 Kb).
The Kennel Club – this website carries information on breed, breeding, canine activities, health and genetics and also canine health surveys and registration statistics. It enables you to look up the recorded health tests for any dog provided you know the Kennel Club registered name and allows you to look at the predicted coefficient of inbreeding of a test mating.
The Bearded Collie Club – (this website) - contains information on the breed, club events, shows, health and puppies as well as a dedicated page to the Joint Breed Liaison Committee (JBLC) who were formed to liaise alongside the Breed Health Co-ordinator with the Kennel Club regarding all aspects of health within the breed. It also contains the links to our health survey.
Bearded Collie Club of Scotland
North of England Bearded Collie Club
Eastern Bearded Collie Association
Southern Counties Bearded Collie Club
BeaCon – this is an American website containing a wealth of health information on the Bearded Collie. Owners are invited to input health data on their dogs and there is information on UK dogs. Sarah Ritchie has recently been appointed a UK director for BeaCon.
CIMDA – this is website with a wealth of information on immune mediated disease founded by Jo Tucker who aims to help and support people with dogs with immune mediated disease.
BVA Health Schemes - this web site has details of the British Veterinary Associations Health Schemes and useful downloads on the diseases covered.
VetCompass - this website has details on health data collection done anonymously via vet's computer systems. We would encourage owners to ask their vets to register for this so we can get more health data on UK Beardies.
Dogs Wellnet – this web site attempts to put international dog health in one place and is supported in the UK by the Kennel Club.
BCX – this web site contains information on the Bearded Collie including shows, judges, puppies and health, plus links to other Bearded Collie web sites.
Irena's Bearded Collie Pedigrees – this website includes 4 and 6 generation pedigrees of Bearded Collies worldwide including many photographs of the dogs recorded. It can also produce pedigrees of test matings.
Canine Genetics and Epidemiology
All of the last four websites give direct access to published scientific papers some of which are free and other have to be purchased but the abstract is often available to read free. Just because papers are published in scientific journals does not necessarily mean that they are good science, when looking at them consider some of the points below:
- Look at who was involved in the paper – sponsorship by a big company who has a product to sell might indicate a bias but not always.
- Numbers of animals involved in the study – a paper on two dogs in a breed may not give an accurate indication of all dogs in that breed.
- Some results of health conditions may vary according to breed so just because something happens in a Golden Retriever does not mean that it may also happen in a Bearded Collie.
- Look at the methods used in any experiments - some scientific studies are more robust than others. It is always good to have a least two groups, a study population and a control population.
- Look at the date the paper was published – a paper in 1969 may have been superseded by better scientific information by now – but not necessarily.
- On some subjects, there may be data on Bearded Collies, in some cases it may just be a population of dogs or it may be in a different species. All may be valid but obviously a study in Bearded Collies (if there is one!) would be the most valid assuming all the above criteria have been considered.
- Consider the pyramid of evidence the most robust data is at the top of the pyramid so this is the best to look at if it is available. (See below)
© Elizabeth Ayrton BHC
Page last edited: 09 August 2022