Hedgehog X-Ray

Have a nice x-ray of a hedgehog. Thought l would share it here. You can see the spines along the side of the hoglet like a halo.

Hoggie came in collapsed, the vet x-rayed to check for anything obvious. Nothing was earth shakingly showing and he made it through his problem and went to wildlife rehab, many don't. They get poisoned, hit by cars and sliced up by strimmers.
Worse case l saw was a hedgehog that had 2 long red stalks with black tops on sticking out of a hollow cavity. We think a tractor pulling a hedge cutter that was working the area had cut the top of his head off and scooped much of his brain out. We all leapt for the pentobarb unable to believe that what we were seeing was still alive. The soggy noises as it tried to breath and the waving stalks that were his eyes confirmed it was.

Tail Base Fracture

Possibly the cat had been jumping off a fence, a fairly simple exercise but somehow the tail had got caught, maybe in a gap in a panel. The downward body weight had fractured the cat’s tail at the base. Being caught with closing doors is another culprit.

This innocuous fracture has cost a lot of cats their lives. There is a nerve that appear in this area, it’s job is to ensure the bladder empties, and knows when to empty. If this is damaged it may take anything from weeks to never to get better.

This fracture means a long hospital stay for the cat as it has to have it’s bladder emptied every few hours. A catheter is not generally placed to empty the bladder as the vets want to see if any feeling is coming back and the cat makes any moves to urinate by it’s self.
The tail hangs down limply and if the cat recovers the tail is amputated so that it does not get caught in anything else. Tails are not repaired if they are fractured just removed.

The cats get very grumpy at having their abdomen squeezed all the time, even if they are sweethearts in between the squeezes. It can take several weeks before the vet is happy for the cat to go home. The cat may or may not be better. Sometimes they are able to take over urinating again, at least with the knowledge that the balloon in their abdomen needs the toilet, often not in litter trays though. If cats are lucky enough to get some feeling back their tails are amputated and they can resume a semblance of normal life.

Often though the urine the cat is passing is from bladder overflow. The owner may take the cat home and take over expressing the cats’ bladder, or come in two or three times a day for the nurse to do it till the owner gets the hang of it. Some people decide that they can do that for the rest of the cat’s life, this is rare.
Even with the owners doing the squeezing it is stressful and places unnatural strains on the cats body, renal failure may start or if it is an outdoor cat the change to indoor cat can be very stressful for them, sometimes the cat will go just downhill the decision is taken that the stress is to much.

The bladder is full and visible in the bottom portion of the x ray it is the large oval shape tipped at a slight upward angle.

Pellets Again

We had a lovely cat brought in on Friday night. He was lame on his right foreleg and had a wound. The vet snapped an x-ray as we were busy and everyone had different jobs to do. Usually it is nurses that do x-rays but at time we let the vets take them because we are generous like that.

Anyway l walked past and he was holding up a flattened piece of mishapen lead which had in a former life been an airgun pellet until it smashed into the bone in the cat’s front leg. . Looks like you lost a bit l commented, he grunted agreement and went back to snap another picture.

I went over to have a look on my return trip past the x-ray room and got that heart sinking feeling. There was several small shiny speckles lodged deep in the joint capsule. All the vet could do was put a thick support dressing on, and write the cat up for ongoing pain relief, and leave onward treatment as an ortho. decision.

I don’t know what will be decided a lot will depend on cost cheapest is to remove the leg. The more expensive option to try and save it may be carried out but with all things there is no guarantee of success and it depends on what else has happened that has not shown on the pictures.
I am not due back for some time and will have forgotten his name by then, l always write names down and loose them.
What l never loose is my anger at the stupidity of whoever shot that pellet and a wish to send them all to hell whatever the age of the shooter.

The Maggoty Cat

It is not often we get a maggoty cat it happens about 2 or 3 times a year, usually maggots are rabbit based. In this case the cat “Monty” had gone missing and been found about 4 days later when he dragged himself back and was found in the garden.

Monty had been hit by a car there was head injuries and as it was hot enough for flies they had gone straight to the wounds. Monty had a fractured lower jaw so was unable to groom himself and anyway did not feel up to it.

I am not up on how long different maggot species take to hatch but apart from the tiny yellow dots attached to Monty’s coat a lot had hatched and made their way into the wounds to start eating. It was all the more upsetting because cat’s are generally fastidious in how clean they keep themselves.

Monty needed a general anaesthetic so that we could x-ray him. It is never easy to get decent x-rays of an animal due to their shape unless it is a lateral (lying on their side) it requires troughs to support them on their backs, ties to straighten or hold their legs, foam pads to support under their legs and often tape to hold the legs in more difficult positions.

Under anaesthetic we were able to pick the maggots out of the wounds and clip off all the eggs. Maggots are pretty difficult to kill. If there are not many l tend to squash them, if lot’s l put them into a bowl with some Ivomec in.

Monty had a fractured femur, he got away quite lightly usually cats who have been hit by a car suffer from a fractured pelvis as well as other bones. The surgeon placed an external fixator on/into the leg. These are well tolerated by animals.

Monty had another common cat problem a fractured mandibular symphysis (join in his lower jaw) and this was wired post his x-rays. The lower jaw of cat is not one solid piece but 2 parts joined in the middle with a bit of cartilage. Trauma can break this bond. Wire is fed under the tongue and around the jaw. I found some photos on the net that explain the procedure.
Usually unless there is other facial trauma cats are back eating within a day or 2 of the procedure. In about 4 weeks the the cat is given another ga and the wire removed.
Monty was fairly good about eating but did need syringe feeding to supplement his own intake.





He was discharged after 4 days to attend outpatients for checks, dressing’s changes and a couple of admits for anaesthetics to have various bits of iron removed until he was back to normal. He was scared of going out of the garden but appeared otherwise happy with life.

Travels of a Pellet

Jake was a big fluffy domestic long hair cat 8 years old. The other week he ended up at the emergency vets. He was found on the Friday night bleeding and collapsed. Initially it was thought that he was yet another victim of the metal monster, a car. He was placed in critical care on fluids, pain relief antibiotics other medications overnight to stabilize him.
The car theory was disproved when he was x-rayed and a pellet lay in his abdomen. Unfortunately, instead of stabilizing he was deteriorating, so the decision was made for him to go to surgery. When l got into work at 13:00 he had just gone through, in fact was in surgical prep being shaved.

An incubator was prepared for him, a heat pad placed along with a nice deep bed and we got on with our normal jobs. I was in critical care covering for lunch breaks and doing odd bits. After about an hour and a half l went through to see why they were taking so long.
Jake was in what is best described as a state of repair, his intestines were not in but out and what had been hoped to be a straightforward op was settling in to a marathon.

On its travels the pellet had started by dragging dirt and Jakes long silky hair deep into the body, this had to be removed or it would set up infection.
The pellet continued in and out of the stomach causing 2 holes that needed closure and had allowed stomach contents to leak out into the abdomen.
The pellet then hammered on and made 3 holes in the intestines. Major damage had occurred and again contents had run into the abdomen, 2 sections of damaged intestine had to be removed and the ends reattached to each other, this means that his small intestines are now shorter by a few inches.
The spleen was damaged but had stopped bleeding and the decision was made to leave it in, the option would be there to go back and take it out if the need arose.
Finally after all hair was removed, all holes found and closed and no more bleeding evident, he had to be flushed. This involved several liters of warm saline flushed through his abdomen to clean the organs and remove as much of the leaked fluid and remaining foreign material (hair and dirt) as possible so minimizing the chance of peritonitis.

Nearly 3 hours later he was brought back to critical care, placed into the incubator on his heat pad and bed and snuggled under a blanket. He came round slowly but as soon as he was conscious enough he took up what we fast learned was his favorite position. Blanket kicked off and on lying on his back, legs straightened at full stretch outwards as if he was sunbathing. He is a big cat and filled the incubator. I do not recall a position like that a recovering animal, usually they curl up and try to ignore everything, but not Jake.
He had a long way to go and was still at high risk of peritonitis, and his spleen was still not out of the woods. He had come through this far though and was treating his recovery like he was sunbathing this was one cat that was not going to feel sorry for himself.

By mid evening he was round and taking a mild interest in life but the incubator was getting to hot, it isn’t temperature regulated. I moved him to a kennel and placed an oxygen tube next to his face, and yes you guessed...straight back to sunbathing position.

Sunday he was brighter and had a little bit to eat, when he wasn’t sunbathing. Needless to say everyone fell for him. His purr made listening to his heart difficult; just as well there are pulses! Cats purr if they are scared or if they are happy, but his body language was not scared just contented.
On Monday he was subdued and there was a worry that things may be kicking off inside of him. I was not back in till Friday and one of the first things l asked was how he was. The brilliant news was that Jake had pulled through and gone home. Thankfully Monday’s quietness had not progressed. He still has a lot of recovering to do but the vets and veterinary nurses had done their job now it was down to his family to do the rest with antibiotics and outpatient trips to visit the vet and tons of TLC.

If you allow kids to use a pellet gun then teach them that animals are not sport. The pellet that hits an animal will often mean a slow lingering death and is not funny nor does it make you a big man for shooting an animal.
While l do not advocate hunting, if you have to hunt animals it must only be recognised game animals. The hunter should be an experienced marksmen, and using a killing shot on the animal. If the game animal is injured it is the hunters responsibility to track it and kill it. No real hunter would ever consider it right to leave an animal harmed and in pain they have more respect for their prey than that.

Jake post op, as he appeared in the local paper



A photo of Jakes x-ray the pellet very visible.

FUS Cats

There is a very high incidence amongst cats of FUS (Feline Urinary Syndrome) at the moment, unusual, we normally have a big collection around fireworks night.
Females have a much larger urethra and do not usually get FUS they do get cystitis though.
FUS generally affects male cats. Males have a very tiny penis that blocks easily. However if your cat (male or female) can not urinate or keeps going and passing small amounts or it is bloody, anything out of the ordinary see the vet as soon as possible.

FUS is rather an innocuous term but it is actually a life threatening condition. The cat is unable to pass urine. Due to crystals or urethral spasm which is often stress related or idiopathic reasons. The bladder backs up as it can not empty, the cat goes into renal failure and if not corrected and the bladder emptied the cat WILL die.

My cat Ginger got FUS in Tenerife. I went to the best island vet as Tony was not out in Tenerife at that point, the vet refused to empty the bladder as it was not full enough. I was ignorant of the dangers and agreed to go back the next day. I wish l had known what to do and was going to happen. There was also no vet available in the night.

I sat up with Ginger and in the middle of the night he started to fit. I sedated him and went over to see a friend in another block. I had lodged a trainee German vet with her. I asked the trainee to come and put Ginger down for me l would supervise but couldn’t do it myself, trying to put my own pet down was not something l thought l could do.
The lass came over but wouldn’t put Ginger down and begged me not to. I agreed to give him one more go but any fitting and l wanted her to put him down. About 30minutes later Ginger had another fit. I sedated him down again and she refused to put him down saying wait, l refused and despite her protestations put him down myself. She went home sulking, l was emotionally screwed up, going between disgust at her behaviour and pain and guilt in what l had done to Ginger. I next did the second hardest thing l have done, l put Ginger in a plastic bag and put him in the dustbin outside.
When l went back to bed l finally crumbled and l burst into tears which woke hub up, I hadn’t wanted to as he had had a hard day. He was upset at what had happened as he loved Ginger as well and was horrified l had not woken him up with all the drama. I pointed out that l knew he would have struggled to cope with the situation it was easier for me and what with the bloody trainee stressing l couldn’t cope with 2. He understood.

This made me very aware of the danger of FUS. And the fact that the bladder does not have to be very big there may have been a series of short term blocks, possibly un noticed or as they seemed to clear un worried about. In Gingers case he had the short term blocks that cleared l had noticed but did not realise the danger. These probably damaged the kidneys.

Under normal circumstances the cat is admitted and bloods run straight away. This will give an idea of what is happening with his kidneys and other system values. He is put onto fluids appropriate to the blood results.
As soon as possible the bladder is emptied. Sometimes a cysto will be carried out. For this their side is clipped and cleaned over the bladder area (some vets prefer to do this with the cat on their back not their side) A needle is inserted into the bladder and the urine drawn out. This helps take some of the pressure off the bladder.

A cat urinary catheter is then inserted, a cats penis is tiny and insertion can be difficult. Sometimes an eye flushing catheter needs to be placed and saline is flushed along it (retro flushing) to try and push debris (crystals and sediment) back to the bladder.
Finally with luck ok and skill the main urinary catheter is inserted and the bladder is flushed out. Usually a sample is kept to check for crystals type and size.
The urine can be very bloody especially as if there is crystals they have been rolling around and damaging the bladder lining.

If the catheter went in easily then practices vary but the one l was at tend to remove the catheter after a good flushing with several hundred ml of saline. If it is badly blocked then the catheter is sewn in and the cat has to put up with the catheter for several days having it flushed every few hours to help clean the bladder out. Some crystals if large may need an operation to remove them.

If it is impossible to place a urinary catheter then vets will discuss operation choices with the owners to bypass the blockage but this is for extreme cases.

Food changes are indicated for some crystals. The food correcting the body’s Ph and stopping the crystal type forming. In Gingers case it was crystals, the water in Tenerife is very high in calcium and l did not realise how common FUS was there.
One of the biggest factors in UK FUS cats is weight. The amount of obese cats that have it is huge and probably the biggest factor.
If stress related then reasons are discussed about what is going on. Sometimes basic suggested changes can help with a bit of common sense. Other times a good behaviourist can help.

Once a cat has had FUS they may be prone to reoccurring bouts and it can get very expensive. An owner needs to be aware of future ramifications of the condition which their vet should discuss in detail with them. Another good reason to have insurance. And my good old chant go via petplan

Placing the urinary catheter


The bladder is flushed with saline and the urine is often very bloody


The catheter is sutured in place and a line placed on to drain the urine away from the cat, sometimes the line is left off if the cat is restless so he does not twist it.


If they are worried the vet may take an x-ray of the bladder with a "contrast medium" the white oblong is the bladder. Any leaks would show a white explosion or line out of the bladder. In this case all is normal.

Cats & Speeding Cars

Sorry l am in the middle of night shifts and not really connecting with my brain cells. I will just put up the x-ray of a cat that was involved in an RTA.

It may make anyone who thinks of speeding because there is no one around think again. There is always the unexpected and it is estimated that a cat gets hit by a speeding car every 2 minutes in UK.

Drips and Drops

I really need to learn to say no to work. I was rung up Sunday at 16:30 in the afternoon and said ok to working the 17:30-03:30 shift and as we were so busy l didn’t leave till 04:30.
Just as well l went in as from 22:00 there were 2 of us nurses and a vet with no auxiliaries, so we had to do their jobs the laundry, bins, cleaning and reception, phones as well as our own jobs.

I ended up doing the anaesthetics and assisting the vet on ops, l took x-rays (nurses job generally), did dressings (nurses are better at dressings than vets), placed drips, took and ran blood tests and the odd bit of inpatient ob’s to help when l got a chance.
The other nurse did the inpatients, a bit like painting the forth bridge never ending.
The rest of the jobs we shared between us. The 02 alarm has a fault on and at one point l ended up laughing hysterically, leaning against a wall as the other nurse marched like the honey monster snarling in frustration towards the alarm to slam it with her hand for the 10th time or was it the 15th l lost track.

We had a couple of major operations like removing a collar buckle from a stomach. The dog got bored and ate his friend’s collar FFS talk about a pimple brain!
“Duh l am bored wonder what l can do, l know l is gonna eat your collar”
His friend joined in and ate the studs and other bits of the collar that fell on the floor. After all it was his collar so fair is fair, x-ray showed they were moving through his intestines.
That was the op that ended late then l had theatre and prep to clean and mop post op, l refused to pack the kit though just slung it into the cleaning fluid to soak.

A pyo, the uterus fills up with pus and it is life threatening. Why oh why do people not get their bitches neutered when they are puppies. They would avoid the £700+ bill, the misery and illness of the animals.

Add that to the usual night time crop of x-rays of dog and cat RTA’s or accidents and temporary support dressing (if possible) till the patient is operated on.
Stitch up wounds, gastro enteritis - joys of Christmas dinners, blocked bladder cats and renal failures.
Wound breakdowns – Listen people use the sodding buster collars they are there for a reason, don’t sit and watch your pet chew the bloody wounds.
A rabbit, a couple of birds some medical cases and oh 2 Parvo dogs in isolation.

It added up to a fun round of work yourself silly night. Think it was 36 inpatients with 32 on drips. Not the busiest of nights but more than enough to keep us going without a break as we had so few staff. If one more dog pulled, ate or disconnected its drip line then there was going to be a group of hysterical staff on duty. Drip lines can be the bane of our lives. If you have a “Bad Drip Night” you know things are just going to go downhill.

At one point l had 5 redrips waiting for me. I tend to prefer dripping to holding and the other nurse on was happy with that as she prefers holding to dripping.
I had the locum vet holding earlier in the evening. He is a Jelco person. And is to bloody slow when we need to motor. Being male he can hold and talk but not drip and talk and l felt that taping his Irish mouth shut was a bit extreme as being the only other option.

There is 2 main makes of iv catheters (canulas) we all tend to use Surflo or Jelco. I have had to get used to Jelco with locuming about but generally if you can use one sort you will screw up the other. I am in the hate Jelco camp.
The other type is winged catheters. These have little wings next to the cap to suture them in. Not something you do with animals we chop them off.
We tend to use these for rabbit ears. Yes rabbits do need iv fluids and we give it via their ears. I also hate doing rabbit ears. We put a local on their ears but it never properly works. They jump at just the wrong second. The skin is so thin and veins so tender it is all done by hope.. “hope l am in this ***ing time”.
For those who understand sizes, 27 or 26 (purple, yellow) rabbits, puppies and kittens, 23 (blue) cats and small dogs, 21 and 18 (pink, green) bigger to huge dogs.

One Jack Russell broke 2 buster collars and chewed out 2 lines. The little git got a shock when his teeth descended on the 3rd line though. I left his buster collar off and he thought Christmas had come again, stupid vet nurse. I won that round though, l sprayed the line and dressing with bitter spray.
I also placed the drip into his back leg vein. This can be a difficult one to get, but often patients will tolerate it better here. The vein is very wobbly and the stylet on the catheter bounces off it, you have to give a hard jab but not to hard so you go straight through the vein and blow it. The hind legs are a difficult shape (The vein goes diagonally towards the back of the leg just above the animals hock from front to back, run your finger round your pets leg there and you will see what l mean about shape, lumpy, bumpy and a rounded leg.)

There was a lot of short legged dogs last night, again a nightmare to drip. We call the short front legs, Queen Ann legs. The veins are very loose and wobbly, run in weird shapes around the legs and are a nightmare to find let alone drip. These dogs tend to wriggle a lot often try and bite as well and there is no decent handles on them to grab.

The drip lines used where l was disconnect part way up. This is useful when you have dogs to walk and swop lines for some reason or trying them off drips for a bit. The down side is that they can come apart and when this happens blood flows out till it clots. The clot happens fairly fast but not fast enough that the bed is not a blood bath (blood mixed with the fluid leaking out of the bag spreads well).
To sort it you disconnect the whole line and flush the blood this comes out like a hard long worm, then reattach everything. Change the bed, which was probably cleaned about 10minutes before when they peed or pooed on it.

Then there is the restless walkers, round and round till your drip is one long snarling twisted mess and pulls out the leg. Mind you not that it was dripping anyhow. Even if you manage to untangle the drip line before it pulls out they damage it with the tight twists. We were to busy though to give hourly boluses. At least there was only one “walker” and she was a non critical dog, being a recovery and going home the next day, we ended up taking her drip out.

I was so glad to get home last night and climb into bed forgot to drink my coffee. I fell asleep while trying to decide if l should reach a finally warming up arm and hand out to the cold air to grab the mug.

The Stray Puppy (Part 2)

This is just a short blog, l need to go and watch the inside of my eyelids. Tonight has been a very busy night at work. I met myself a few times! The important part and why l put this up now was that l have updates and photos on the staffie pup. He had his op today, there looks to be quite a lot of nerve damage but with physio will see how it goes.

X-Ray of the right femur 2 positions. 1st is a side view 2nd is lying on his back. The red arrow points to the fracture.





































He had an external fixator applied. The x-ray is a final check before the xfix is set in place. The small round looking things are staples closing the op site.


When l got in at 14:00 he was recovering in critical care.



At 17:00 He was having a snack.

19:00 He had to have a buster collar on as he was trying to eat his drip line.
22:00 he was evicted into dog ward l popped a toy polar bear in with him for company as he was yapping and bouncing up and down. I also removed his drip as he was eating and drinking and took his buster collar off. If he starts to pester the external fixator though, it goes back on.

Lung Foreign Body

The English springer spaniel bounced into us last week. He had a bad cough and was coming in for a heart lung check-up. His breath was like a charnel house but his teeth were clean.

Mike well experienced with what may be the problem took a couple of x-rays which tipped the diagnosis more in favour with his idea. There was a fuzzy area on the chest x-ray in the lungs which was suspicious.

A general anaesthetic and a scope down the trachea into the lungs confirmed what was happening. Springer’s and apparently Labradors are the main culprits for “foreign bodies” being inhaled into the lungs. They generally cause a cough and can be well tolerated. Often just the cough and no slow down in their lifestyle, oh and the bad breath. Do not mistake it for doggie bad breath. This is putrid and bad teeth/tooth smell is not even on the scale it is so tame.


A set of graspers was pushed down the instrument channel in the scope and the item was caught. It was fairly difficult and at first a few single grains were pulled up. This moved the main plug a bit into a better position and a 5th go the grasper's managed to get a good grip on the full plug. It was slowly lifted all the way out the lung.


If l thought the smell was bad before it got a whole lot worse as the plug arrived in what had been fresh air. The whole lot was shoved in a bottle ASAP so that we could get some more un-putrid air circulating, the plug was put to one side for the owner to see.


The lung was red and spots of pus still remained but would soon settle down.


An hour later the Springer was back to his bouncy self. There was still a bit of a cough but that would go pretty quickly. The plug was an awl of barley. The cough had started in about august which was cropping time (roughly) so that was about a 3 month window of how long it had been down in the lung.

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Better photos views in thePhoto album

Hip Scoring & Breeding.

I was discussing hip scores with a client as she wanted to know if it was worth breeding (NO). Would her Labrador need a hip score if breeding (Yes).
Hip scoring is an x-ray taken of the patients hips to check for hip dysplasia. HD is abnormal formation of the hip socket, is very painful, and may require an artificial hip, or other surgery to correct it, or them if both sides are affected.
The bitch was too young at that point as she was only 10months old, a hip score is only done over a year old. Once scored the hips can not be re-scored, “you gets what you gets!.

Doing a hip score x-ray is one of those painful episodes in a vn’s life. In many practices x-rays are the vet nurses domain. Vets may pop in and check you have the view they want, and they always diagnose, but the setting up of patient and machine is for the vn.

The patient has to be lying on their back, usually supported in a plastic trough.
Wedges placed around so they do not roll over. Some dogs are thin, and roll like a boat on a stormy sea, no matter how you try and wedge them, using foam wedges and sandbags.
Each leg has to be the same height from the table top and pulled out straight (along the tail line) and together, at the correct angle.
This is an unnatural position and the legs do not like this. A foam wedge is placed so the legs do not loose the straight line and form a sort of hip to toe triangle.
Tape is often wrapped around or across the legs to hold the position and more wedges to support placed under the lower leg (away from the xray)
The pelvis must be flat and perfectly straight across the xray cassette.

Five x-rays (depending how good a day it is or isn’t) and slight readjustments to position or machine settings finally the decision is that the picture is as perfect as can be taken.
A few weeks later you get a rejection slip saying not good enough. This means back comes the dog, another anaesthetic and more muttering noises from the nurse!.
Usually things are ok on the second set but they look identical to the first set. The outcome to the nurse is the same. A frazzled bad hair day, that requires a large coffee or tea and a bit of chocolate to de-stress.

The score system is based on 9 areas per side with an overall score from 0 (best) to 106 (worst)/side.
Each breed has a mean score, indicating the breed’s predisposition towards hip dysplasia. 16 in UK for Labradors.
I know a boasting Lab breeder that told me she bred from a bitch who had a score on one side of 42. Most of the litter was destroyed, mum as well. It was ok though as she made money on the others. I did manage to be almost polite to her.

The particular client l had been discussing hip scores and breeding with decided against breeding. I threw the whole gamut of what was needed and could go wrong at her.
The £600 for a caesarean (which generally insurance won't cover), possible hand raising and 2 hour feeds of puppies.
And if the above did not happen you still have the cost of doing it properly. The food, the mess around the house (unless it is in an outside kennel), worming at the correct intervals of mum and puppies, arranging first vaccines, arranging insurance (free first 6 weeks), advertising. Looking for the correct sire and those fees and checking his health.

Many breeds are part of the hip have Hip Score scheme and other scoring schemes for hereditary problems. If you must have a pedigree for all pre health checks of the parents that the breed has available to it.
A Labrador should have had hip and elbow score and eye checks for Progressive Retinal Atrophy.
Many breeders do not do the above, do part, or do none. The sensible ones do everything and more but they do not usually make any money.

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I am driving home tomorrow back across the country after work. I do not think l will get to writing, instead l shall put finger to keyboard before work on Saturday.