One thing always leads to another... now I have a serious question about hips and how someone can or should use the standard "ratings" provided within a dog's pedigree.

This was a HUGE concern of mine when looking for my GSD and now after the recent discussions on German show lines vs working dogs, I'm confused as to whether or not this information is reliable and a good indication of weeding out as many potential problems as possible.

Do the ratings of "a1" for hips, KKL 1 for breed survey, and HD/SV give reliable guidance (I understand no guarantees), and are they worth using for evaluation?

If not, please let me down slowly... there is no rum in the house.

Thanks as always...

Hips are funny. You look at the pedigree and the ratings of the dogs in the pedigree. You look at close relatives. Certain dogs in a pedigree are known for improving hips, certain dogs are known for throwing bad hips even if theirs was good.

Then you stack the deck enviromentally. You limit jumping, you feed a good diet and you kind of pray.

I have a girl here that by pedigree alone should not have HD. Actually a good breeding/pedigree hip wise. I did everything right enviromentally. And yet she is still moderate to severe hd.

Hip wise all you can do is stack the deck in your favor genetically and enviromentally.

Pepper's hips are so bad that even I could see the problems on the xray when she was two. Never limped a day in her life, no one saw any indication of it.

We manage her carefully. She is on grass a lot and of course I stopped training her when I saw her heart was no longer in it. But if you saw her running around my back yard you would never know there was a problem.

So, even if you do have a dog with HD, it is not a death sentence and a lot of dogs do very well with it and you don't really see any indication of it until they are older. Some dogs are more symptomatic.

Pedigrees help but aren't a guarantee. Just get him prelim'd at 10 months old and you'll know for sure. Look at pedigreedatabase.com and see how many littermates you can find to the parents/grandparents/etc and see what their hip ratings are, if any.

Yep, all of the above.

Like Mike said, genetic HD should be evident at 10 months (some studies have indicated even younger).
Many breeders are beginning to require prelims at 12 months for their hip contract.


And like Betty said, feeding a good food, ensuring proper growth and weight management, keeping the dog from jumping as much as humanly possible (even at a year, my training director STILL insists that my female is not permitted to take even two foot jumps. ). Limit running on hard surfaces. The full-meal-deal.

Litter mates, past breedings of the same parents and the pedigree can hint at what you may have, but genetics are kind of a gamble, regardless. Recessive genes can do funny things.

Falcon is over 6 months old. You can get him preliminary x-rayed at any time now.
Start looking for a good vet with OFA experience who DOESN'T sedate the dog for the x-rays. It will probably take a month or two to find one willing, anyway.

Once you find a good vet, have the x-rays done. You'll have the peace of mind knowing that genetically, he's okay. Then all you'll have to keep in mind is taking it easy on those joints until he's a bit older.

Okay - will do. Thanks for the info.

http://www.puliworld.com/hips.html
While this is specifically about unilateral hip dysplasia, it addresses interesting studies on ALL HD. I am a firm believer that it is not purely genetic, and that environment plays a huge role in it. I especially like the contrast between the hip health of kennel dogs free to exercise at will, and dogs kept indoors during the day, who end up being "weekend warriors."

I do look at hips of parents of puppies I'm interested in, but if I like the overall dog, I really don't weigh too heavily on hips. If we really knew HD was as simple as genetics, we'd have it eradicated by now.


From the article: Over the years, our observations of the kennel populations of giant breeds and their siblings living in private homes have led to the conclusion that there is no such thing as congenital unilateral hip dysplasia, but only acquired unilateral hip dysplasia

Very interesting! Thanks!

What I took from the article after reading it is that overweight, out of shape dogs are at greater risk for hip dysplasia.

While the statement is made that kennel dogs have less incidence of HD than indoor dogs, it is elaborated that the reason for this is the lack of exercise and overfeeding in the typical indoor dog.

The author later asserts that indoor dog owners can change this paradigm by controlling their dog's food intake (and thus weight gain), and ensuring that the dog receives adequate excercise throughout the day, rather than one period of intense exercise.

In other words, responsible feeding, and breaking exercise into moderately paced, but more frequent (3-4 times per day) sessions, and instituting a warm-up and cool-down phase during exercise, can reverse the statistical differences between kennel and indoor dogs.

Hypothetically speaking, sure, someone COULD do what's necessary to close that gap b/t the exercise a kennel or outdoor dog gets and an indoor. But, in all reality, how many people are able to do that? In one part, the author mentions something like "continuous and strenuous" exercise. How many pets get that? At best, most working people can only manage a few staggered walks, which is still, IMO, quite different from "continuous and strenuous." I guess I keep going back to the fact that HD is little known in non-industrialized countries...and not just b/c they don't know any better. Their dogs live very different lives (not always in a good way).

I have a very good friend who is studying all different types of dogs from all over the world; anyone care to guess where most of the HD in the world is concentrated (other "genetic" issues, as well)? I also believe that environment can influence genetics in the long term. There is evidence that exposure to all sorts of things works its way into genes, so why should HD be so different?

I try to have my puppies spend as much free time outdoors as possible. I am testing my theory and will let you all know pretty soon, when I have the 3 young ones xray'd. Xander and Qira were raised like wild children, and Simon was to a degree as well. X & Q hardly come inside, ever (by their choice), and are free to do as they please, running and chasing each other all day and all night long. I will be curious to see how their hips are.

Continuous and strenuous exercise? Kenneled dogs?

What am I missing here?