The main intention of this on line health survey is to improve the health of the pure breed dogs that we love.   This goal will, hopefully, be obtained by maintaining a continuous health history that monitors most diseases and conditions.   The data provided by this on line survey will show developing trends in the health of our dogs.   Health issues can be address sooner by identifying these developing trends.   Furthermore, a continuous survey will build on itself and will continue to emphasize both good and bad health trends in the breed.   With a continuous survey, there is no envelope or window of time to constrain the data, e.g. all dogs currently living or all dogs born since January 1, two years ago.   The only constraint imposed on the continuous survey is that the dog must be born on or after January 1, 1970.
See the UNIX Epoch discussion.

Indeed, the on line survey would also show health trends from a geographical view.   True, a paper survey could also show the same geographical trend, but it would not display the growth of the trend as the geographical data increases.

Most canine health surveys provided by a few breed clubs are discontinuous, that is, they are taken at a snapshot in time and are only valid for the instance when the breeders and owners were surveyed.   Such a survey could miss an emerging trend, or only show the results of a trend in as it fades.

Both types of surveys - on line and paper - can and should omit confidential information, however the paper survey is prone to errors since the data must be transferred from paper to a database for massaging.   The on line survey is prone to error, but the data is only as accurate as the person inputting the data into the forms.   An on line survey forces all respondents to enter consistent data, e.g. dates, throughout the survey process.   In addition, both types of surveys are subject to unethical entries, over-reporting a disease, or not reporting a disease, etc.   Therefore, to obtain the most accurate data, the respondents must be ethical and responsible.

It is anticipated that an on line health survey would foster a positive atmosphere within the breed club and enable the club to be pro-active based on an emerging trend.   By becoming pro-active, breed clubs could create programs for breeder/owner education and university research to resolve any health issues.   Because the health data is on line, it is always available. Reports in the form of graphs, bar charts, and tables would be available to breeders and owners at all times.

A final note, an on line survey would be less expensive than a paper survey.   Postal rates are increasing every few years and increasing rates along with increasing club membership only cause a paper survey costs to increase.   Most national breed clubs have a web site.   Therefore, the cost of additional disk space for the survey files and a database is only a few dollars a year, if that, compared to the paper survey costs.   Club members could be given regular reminders, in the regular club publications and/or e-mail, to update their dogs health data.

This table shows the postal rate increases from the year 1999 to 2009. On average, postal rates are increasing for first class at 1 cent a year.

Date of Increase	Increase To
January 10, 1999	33
January 7, 2001	34
June 30, 2002	37
January 8, 2006	39
May 14, 2007	41
May 12, 2008	42
May 11, 2009	44
May 11, 2010	44

---