Home / Maltipoo Health Testing
Maltipoo health testing: what to ask your breeder
Patella grades, a DNA panel for inherited eye disease, and a cardiac clearance explained, so you know what to ask for before you pay a deposit.
Home / Maltipoo Health Testing
Patella grades, a DNA panel for inherited eye disease, and a cardiac clearance explained, so you know what to ask for before you pay a deposit.
Our own choosing-a-puppy checklist tells you to ask for a patella evaluation, an eye exam, and a cardiac check on both parents. This page is the deeper version: what a patella grade actually means on a scale of 0 to 4, what the PRA DNA panel does and does not rule out, what a cardiac clearance covers, and how to check a breeder's paperwork yourself instead of taking their word for it.
Luxating patella, a kneecap that slips out of its groove, is one of the most common orthopedic issues in small breeds, and a Maltipoo's Maltese side carries real risk for it. A vet checks for it by hand during a physical exam and assigns a grade using the OFA's scale:
Grade 0 means the kneecap does not slip at all. Grade 1 means it can be pushed out of place with pressure but snaps straight back the moment that pressure is released. Both are considered normal to mild.
Grade 2 means the kneecap slips during normal movement but returns on its own. Grade 3 means it stays out of place most of the time and only returns with manual pressure. Grade 4 means it is out permanently and cannot be pushed back at all.
The Maltese parent club's own recommended screening asks for this exam once a dog is old enough for a stable result, generally a year or older. Ask which grade both parents received, not just whether they "passed," since a breeder who calls a Grade 1 the same thing as a Grade 0 is rounding up.
Progressive retinal atrophy, a slow deterioration of the retina that leads to night blindness and eventually full vision loss, is carried by a mutation called prcd, and it is common enough in Toy and Miniature Poodles that a DNA test for it is a standard part of that breed's own health-screening recommendation. Because a Maltipoo's Poodle parent can carry this mutation, ask whether that parent has a documented prcd-PRA result. The test is a simple cheek swab, doable even as a young puppy, and it returns one of three answers: clear, carrier, or affected. A carrier will not develop the disease itself. Two carriers bred to each other is the pairing that risks affected puppies.
A DNA panel only catches the mutations it is built to test for. It does not catch cataracts or other inherited eye conditions, which is why both the Maltese and Poodle parent clubs also recommend an annual eye exam by a board-certified veterinary ophthalmologist, sometimes called a CAER exam. Ask for the exam date. A result from three years ago is not current.
The Maltese parent club's own CHIC health-testing list includes a cardiac evaluation aimed mainly at ruling out patent ductus arteriosus, a congenital defect where a blood vessel that should close shortly after birth stays open. The OFA runs two levels of cardiac clearance. A basic exam is a stethoscope check, auscultation, that any licensed vet can perform. An advanced exam requires a board-certified veterinary cardiologist and, since late 2020, an echocardiogram, which catches heart problems a stethoscope alone can miss. A congenital clearance, covering defects like patent ductus, is considered permanent once given. An adult-onset clearance is only valid for one year, so ask for the date on that one specifically.
Hip dysplasia screening gets most of its attention in large breeds, and it is a lower priority for a toy-sized dog like a Maltipoo than the knee, eye, and heart checks above. Some breeders still run it anyway, using either OFA, a single X-ray read once a dog is 24 months or older and graded excellent through dysplastic, or PennHIP, which measures joint looseness with a distraction index and can be done as early as 16 weeks by a specially trained vet. Neither is required the way patella and cardiac screening are for this breed. If a breeder mentions hip results, treat it as a bonus, not a red flag if they do not have it.
Maltese are one of a small number of breeds with a known, elevated risk for a congenital liver shunt, a vascular defect where blood bypasses the liver instead of being filtered through it. Some breeders screen puppies for it with a bile acid blood test, usually between 6 and 12 weeks old. Here is the honest part: veterinary researchers have found that Maltese, specifically, can show elevated bile acid levels even when they do not have a shunt, which makes a single test result harder to interpret in this breed than in most others. A breeder who runs the test is being careful. A breeder who does not is not automatically cutting a corner, given how unsettled the science still is for this specific breed. If a puppy ever shows symptoms like poor growth, lethargy after meals, or neurological signs, that is a conversation for your vet regardless of what a screening test said months earlier.
Every OFA result is public and searchable. A CHIC number is the shortcut: it confirms a dog completed every test its breed club recommends, not just the ones a breeder chose to run.
Our own care guide covers what to ask your vet once your puppy is home, including periodic knee checks even when the parents tested clear. Health testing on the parents lowers risk. It does not remove it, which is also why our choosing-a-puppy checklist treats vague answers about health testing as a red flag on its own, not a minor omission.
A CHIC number comes from the OFA's Canine Health Information Center and means a dog has completed every test its breed club recommends, with the results made public, good or bad. It does not mean every result was normal. It means nothing was hidden. You can look up a dog's CHIC record yourself at ofa.org.
They measure different things. OFA reads a single hip X-ray taken at 24 months or older and rates it excellent, good, fair, or dysplastic. PennHIP measures hip joint looseness with a distraction index and can be done as early as 16 weeks, by a vet trained in the method. Hip screening matters less for a toy-sized dog than for a large breed, so do not expect every Maltipoo breeder to run either one.
No. A clear prcd-PRA result rules out one specific inherited mutation, the one behind progressive retinal atrophy in Toy and Miniature Poodles. It does not rule out cataracts or other eye conditions, which is why a breeder should also show you an annual eye exam from a board-certified veterinary ophthalmologist, not just the DNA panel alone.
The OFA sets a minimum age of 12 months for a cardiac clearance and generally expects patella exams once a dog is a year old, since a young puppy's joints and heart can still change. A clearance given earlier is a preliminary check, worth having, but not the same as the certified result.
Yes, and you should. Ask for the registered name of both parents and search it at ofa.org. A real result is public. A breeder who will not give you a name to search, or only offers a screenshot with no way to check it, is telling you something on its own.
Every puppy on this site comes from parents with health testing. Ask to see it, check the dates, and search the registered names yourself before you pay a deposit.
See Available PuppiesRead the full breeder-vetting checklist