the Kennel Club advises – We wanted to reach out to you to make you aware of a new initiative being launched today, 19th November, by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare (APGAW), the Innate Health Assessment (IHA).
The Innate Health Assessment is an assessment of conformation that includes ten visible criteria, with dogs that score at least 8/10 awarded a pass. The assessment will be voluntary, and licensed breeders will be asked to self-assess their own dogs using the Innate Health Assessment process. The Kennel Club is not requiring any owners or breeders to complete the assessment: as stated it is voluntary.
The Kennel Club is committed to the principle that all dogs should have a body shape that enables them to lead a good quality of life. We therefore support the principle of initiatives such as the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare (APGAW) and the Innate Health Assessment (IHA).
However, while we are supportive of the principles of Innate Health, we believe that for our pedigree breeder community, veterinary involvement is crucial to ensure a consistent and robust way of assessing conformation and recording data to help breeders demonstrate progress. We are therefore developing a robust, nose-to-tail veterinary assessment, which builds on over a decade of prior work with breeders committed to ensuring a healthier future for dogs
It is worth noting that, while we have been involved in the development of the IHA in an advisory capacity, having been invited by APGAW to join a working group in 2023, the assessment criteria were not selected by us, and we have in fact raised concerns on several occasions about how these criteria may not best support breeders in our community.
At the beginning of 2026 we will be launching our new Future for Dog Breeding report. This report will introduce our new ‘Breeding for Health Framework’. A central aim of this framework is that every dog should have a body shape that allows it to lead a normal life and to display normal canine behaviour.
Whilst we do not believe this assessment will directly impact your breed, we will be keeping our communities updated with how this initiative progresses throughout 2026 and be coming to you as BHC for your insights and thoughts, particularly to those of you who run your own breed club health scheme already, as we appreciate you will have details and knowledge in this area that we can integrate into this project. Whilst the assessment is being managed independently of the Kennel Club, our Public Affairs and Health Team can feedback from our communities to APGAW.