When Alisha was a teenager, she worked at “Deer Acres” a fun place to go for families. Deer acres included puppies in their petting zoo every year, and at the end of the season they would place the puppies. Well Alisha fell in love with a male Lab/Irish Setter mix puppy and she brought him home. His name was Duke and he was a great guy. When Duke was about 3 years old, he went blind. It was the hardest thing to watch him go through, it robbed him of so much in his life.
When we started raising Labs, we knew we wanted the health of our adults and puppies to be of utmost importance, so we began health testing all of our labs. One of the tests that is important to us is the test against PRA, a disease known to Labs that will cause them to go blind between ages 1 and 8. We’re proud to so that none of our Labs even carries the gene that causes this disease! Unfortunately so many of the health issues we have in Labradors in America today are hereditary, they are completely avoidable if breeders would be responsible. Right now we test for 11 different diseases known to Labradors, including PRA, and we don’t carry genes for any of them.
Here’s an article that explains PRA well if you’re interested: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/progressive-retinal-atrophy-in-dogs/