The Canine Eye Registration Foundation (CERF) is an organization that was founded by a group of concerned, purebred owner/breeders who recognized that the quality of their dog's lives were being affected by heritable eye disease. CERF was then established in conjunction with cooperating, board certified, veterinary ophthalmologists, as a means to accomplish the goal of elimination of heritable eye disease in all purebred dogs by forming a centralized, national registry.

After the painless examination of the dogs eyes, the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists (A.C.V.O.) Diplomat will complete the CERF form and indicate any specific disease(s) found. Breeding advice will be offered based on guidelines established for that particular breed by the genetics Committee of the A.C.V.O.

No. CERF and the A.C.V.O. are separate, but cooperating entities. The A.C.V.O only provides their professional services and expertise to ensure that uniform standards are upheld for the certification of dog's eyes with the CERF organization.

Much like a regular human eye exam, the ophthalmologist will administer drops to the dogs eyes to dilate them. After the eyes are dilated, in a darkened room, the ophthalmologist will use specialized equipment to examine the interior of the dogs eyes, much like an ophthalmologist will do when examining the interior of a humans eye. Any findings will be recorded on a form by the ophthalmologist and the ophthalmologist will normally discuss the results with the owner of the dog.

Yes, the owner remains present while the dog is examined.

If the dog is certified to be free of heritable eye disease, you can then send in the completed owner's copy of the CERF form with the appropriate fee ($10.50 for the original CERF Registration, or $8.00 if it is a recertification) The certification is good for 12 months from the date of the exam and afterwards the dog must be reexamined and re certified to maintain its' registration with CERF.

Starting from January 1, 2001, CERF adopted a policy that a permanent identification in the form of DNA profile, microchip or tattoo will be needed for any dog to be registered. Dogs not permanently identified will continue to be registered, however, they will be issued a CERF number with the suffix "N" indicating that the dog has no permanent identification. For example:

• With permanent identification
  
• LR-54321Without permanent identification LR-54321N
  

Please notify CERF when your dog receives a permanent ID so they can update our records and re-issue your certificate.

No. The AKC is incorporating CERF registration numbers on their registration slips and certified pedigrees, when the dogs are permanently identified via microchip, tattoo, or DNA profile number.

CERF does offer a kennel rate for owners/breeders who are sending in 10 or more exam forms for certification that are to be sent back to one owner. This rate is $7.50 for each registration regardless of whether it is new or a re-certification.

Regardless of the outcome of the dog's exam, the research copy of the CERF form will be sent to the CERF office at V.M.D.B (Veterinary Medical Database) where its information will be entered into the database for that specific breed. This information will be used in generating research reports, but the individual dog's identities will become confidential and will never be released.

Yes, CERF is charged a handling fee of $8.00 for processing checks or money orders drawn on Canadian financial institutions, an $8.00 fee will be charged for registrations paid using Canadian funds. To avoid this fee, please pay using either:

1. Checks or money orders drawn on United States financial institutions.
2. Visa or MASTERCARD. (Please provide us the credit card number, expiration date and the name as it appears on the card.)

Any registration requests submitted with Canadian Funds will be sent back with a letter requesting the extra $8.00 fee.

Please send the CERF number along with the dogs name, registration, photo and pedigree to Phil DeGruy to be entered into the database and be included in the next quarterly report in Chow Life. You can also use the form that is available on the Chow Health website

( CCCI Health Database Entry Form ). Follow the link for the CCCI Health Database Entry Form.

CERF results are submitted to OFA the first full week of each month. If your dog is registered this month, the results will be submitted the following month. They will be in OFA’s internal database for several days before they post them to their site. OFA also requires other health records to be posted to their site before posting CERF results.

There are a couple of reasons for this. A lot of breeders/owners assume the doctor mails the form to CERF for certification and that is not the case. They mail a copy of the form to CERF which is used for research purposes only, not for registration purposes.

The doctor gives the breeder/owner a copy which is used for registration purposes. Please fill out the back side of that copy and mail it to the address shown. Our fee is on the back side of the form as well. Some forms come to CERF with a diagnosis of “other.”

These forms are held up for review by the CERF staff ophthalmologist. This can cause a temporary delay in registration.

When searching our site for your dog, please use the registration number without the forward slash. For example use SN12345678 instead of SN123456/78.

When searching using the CERF number, use LR-12345 instead of LR-12345/2006- -23. If the dog does not have perminate identification, then you will need to add the letter “n” after the CERF number like so LR-12345N.

If you search by name, spell it exactly as it is spelled on the CERF certificate. If the spelling is not correct on the certificate, please notify CERF so that can be corrected.

A puppy can be CERF examined as early as fi ve to eight weeks of age, depending on the breed and the ophthalmologist. Once the exam has been completed, the form can be mailed to CERF immediately for certification.

The dog has a condition indicated on the exam form other than normal that is considered a "Breeders Option" in the ACVO Ocular Disorders Book. The ACVO Genetics Committee has devised this system to help control various conditions that are not necessarily problematic, do not cause vision impairment, and may not be hereditary. They recommend that you try to breed these dogs to others that do not have the same category.

You can go to the CERF website at vmdb.org. Go to the CERF link and then into the ACVO Clinic List. There you can search by state for a Doctor near you.

It usually takes 10-14 days for The CERF to process the form and get it back in the mail to you.

You can call the Doctor that did the CERF exam and ask them for a copy. Make sure you ask them to have the Doctor resign the copy. It must be an original signature on the copy, not a photocopied one.

We do not match the Research Copy of the CERF exam form with the Owners Copy that you send us to register the dog. We only scan the Research Copy into our database for our statistics reports and then it is recycled. It is up to the owner to register the dog.

CERF still has various guidelines as to diagnoses which are certifiable in each breed of dog. The categories are there simply to assist the breeders who have dogs with one of the conditions indicated in the category which is a "breeders option" in the CERF book. The category system was initiated by the ACVO genetics committee as a means of assisting owners in breeding away from various certifiable conditions.