The single most powerful thing you can do to avoid heartbreak with a herding-breed puppy is to read the health paperwork before you fall in love with a wriggling bundle in someone’s kitchen. By the time you are holding the puppy, your judgement is gone. So do the document work first. This guide shows you exactly what a CEA eye certificate and DNA report should contain, which parental clearances to insist on, and the excuses that mean you should politely leave.

What documents you should actually be asking for

For Collies, Shelties, Border Collies, Australian Shepherds and other at-risk breeds, a responsible breeder should be able to hand you two distinct types of CEA evidence:

1. A litter eye examination performed by a board-certified veterinary ophthalmologist when the puppies were 6 to 8 weeks old. Depending on your country this is recorded on an ACVO/OFA form (North America), a BVA/KC/ISDS eye scheme certificate (UK), or an equivalent ECVO sheet (Europe).
2. DNA test results for both parents, showing each parent’s CEA status as clear, carrier, or affected.

If a breeder can only produce one of these — or neither — that tells you most of what you need to know. The eye exam and the DNA test answer different questions, and you want both.

Reading the eye-exam certificate line by line

An ophthalmologist’s certificate is not just a pass/fail stamp. Look for:

• The examiner’s credentials. It should be signed by a board-certified specialist (DACVO, or a BVA-KC-ISDS panellist), not the breeder’s regular vet doing a quick look.
• The date and the puppy’s age. Was the exam done in the critical 6–8 week window? A litter examined at 12+ weeks may have been screened too late, after retinal pigment masked the mild signs — a real pitfall we explain in the article on why some affected dogs go “normal” on later exams.
• Individual puppy identification. Each pup should be listed by microchip or marking, with its own result. A single line saying “litter clear” with no individual detail is weak.
• The actual findings. “Choroidal hypoplasia present” is not a reason to panic — it is the mild, usually harmless form. What you want flagged is whether any coloboma was seen, because that is the finding associated with the rare but serious risk of retinal detachment.

Reading the DNA report

CEA’s DNA test looks for one specific NHEJ1 deletion and reports each dog in one of three states:

• Clear (normal/normal): two normal copies. Cannot pass on the affected gene.
• Carrier (normal/affected): one copy. Perfectly healthy, normal vision, but passes the mutation to half its offspring on average.
• Affected (affected/affected): two copies. Has the condition (though, as above, usually mildly).

Here is the rule that protects you: at least one parent must be DNA-clear of CEA. That single requirement guarantees no puppy in the litter can be CEA-affected, because an affected puppy needs two copies and a clear parent contributes none. A carrier-to-carrier pairing, by contrast, can produce affected pups — the simple carrier-to-carrier breeding math shows why one in four offspring is statistically at risk.

So when you read the two parent reports together, the green light is: clear × clear, or clear × carrier, or clear × affected. The pairing to question is carrier × carrier or carrier × affected — not necessarily disqualifying, but the breeder must then prove every puppy was individually eye-examined and explain their reasoning.

The parental clearances to demand on paper

Do not accept verbal assurances. Ask to see, as PDFs or originals:

• DNA certificates for both sire and dam, with the dogs’ registered names matching the pedigree.
• The litter eye-exam certificate at 6–8 weeks.
• Ideally, eye certificates for the parents too, since DNA covers CEA but a full eye exam screens for other conditions DNA cannot (such as the early signs of unrelated problems).

Cross-check the registered names and microchip numbers across documents. Paperwork that “belongs to another dog” or names that don’t match the pedigree is a serious red flag.

Red-flag excuses that mean walk away

Over and over, the same lines are used to paper over missing testing. Treat any of these as a reason to step back:

• “The line has never had eye problems, so we don’t test.” Untested is not the same as clear. CEA carriers are invisible without a DNA test.
• “The vet checked them and said the eyes look fine.” A general vet glance at 8 weeks is not an ophthalmologist’s CEA exam.
• “We’ll send the certificates after you’ve paid the deposit.” You vet the dog before money changes hands, not after.
• “DNA testing is a scam / unnecessary for this breed.” For NHEJ1 breeds it is the gold standard and inexpensive.
• “Both parents are carriers but it’s fine, carriers are healthy.” Carriers are healthy — but a carrier × carrier litter must be individually eye-tested, and the breeder should welcome that question, not bristle at it.

The questions to ask, word for word

Bring this short list to your first conversation:

1. “Can I see the DNA CEA results for both parents?”
2. “At what age were the puppies eye-examined, and by which ophthalmologist?”
3. “Were any colobomas noted in the litter?”
4. “If the parents are both carriers, what is your plan for the affected puppies?”
5. “Will the health guarantee cover inherited eye conditions?”

A good breeder answers these calmly and produces documents without defensiveness — they are proud of their testing. If the questions are met with irritation or evasion, that reaction is your answer.

The bottom line

A CEA eye certificate plus two parental DNA reports, read together, let you walk into a purchase knowing your puppy’s eye risk before you ever meet it. The maths is reassuringly simple: insist that at least one parent is DNA-clear, that the litter was eye-examined in the 6–8 week window by a specialist, and that any coloboma findings are disclosed. Browse the full set of genetics articles before you visit, do the paperwork first, and let the documents — not the puppy eyes — make the decision.