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Good Morning,
OFA is a data base for all breeds. It will someday, hopefully, help our breed get more and more health. The more we test and the more we use OFA the better OFA and our breed will get. ARTA's ( American Rat Terrier Association, Rat Terrier parent club) members voted on the most prevalent health issues our breed has and the ones that we should test for. In hopes that we can identify the carriers to breed away form these problems and to hopefully prevent them in the future. These test are, Patella, LCP, Hip Dysphasia and Cardiac.
Here is a link that might help explaine things more. www.kndkennels.com/links.html and this link might be helpful too www.kndkennels.com/ofainfo.html
Patella and cardiac can be tested for at the age of 1 year. The rest can be prelimed before 2 but it isn't official until they are 2. It can be posted but it will show that it is a prelim.
You can do this testing from anywhere... It doesn't matter that you are in Alaska. Your vet can do the patella and cardiac exams and he does the x-rays for hip (CHD this xray is also used for the LCP) the x-rays are then sent to OFA. OFA is the ones that determine the CHD and LCP.
Good luck and thanks for inquiring about OFA. It truly is important to our breed
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