[107barney]

I don't think a pedigree is all that important. I think it may tell you something about the structure and beauty of a dog relative to the standard but it is not going to tell you if those dogs were all healthy. My Teddy has a pedigree w/ some very nice dogs and you cannot tell reading his pedigree that he has 5 health problems that are proven to be genetic. His breeder swore up and down that he was an outlier when compared to her other dogs over a 30 year history of breeding. As yorkiemom said, it's a minefield. It's like having 100 children -- one of them might have a problem yet the other 99 could be perfectly fine. So I would say use a pedigree as a starting point for a conversation w/ your breeder -- what can she tell you about those dogs and their health?