matt schmidt Webboard User Reg: 01-10-2005
Posts: 214
Loc: Los Angeles
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Okay. My wife brought pup in to get neutered yesterday and the Vet pressured her into getting the pup X-rayed (140 bucks). I forgot my cel phone yesterday and my wife couldn't get a hold of me so she okay'd it. ENglish isn't her first language so she isn't very confident in these situations.
Had she gotten a hold of me I would have said no. It is my understanding that a hip X-ray on a 6 month old pup is pretty much useless and you can't tell anything for certain until they are much older and the hips have completely formed. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Not that it means much, but the Vet told her it was the best X-ray he had ever seen on a GSD.
I wouldn't exactly call it getting swindled but if there was no apparent reason for a x-ray, yeah it could have waited. I would say 1 year for pre-lim if everything looked good and then the next one @ 2 years if you wanted to get it OFA'd.
Even OFA allows prelims to be done at 6 months of age. For $140, I'd tell the vet I want the xrays to submit to OFA and see if they actually put the information on the xray film required. If not, then ask him why he would even bother doing the xray then if not to prelim?
One reason why the vet might of suggested the x-ray then is because it is my understanding the dog has to be under general anesthesia to get a good hip x-ray. Since he was going to be under general anesthesia anyway for the neutering, it saves your dog from going under again (which always poses a very small risk) and might have saved you some money in the long run (not in the amount of anesthesia used, but in the prep blood work, pre-anesthesia physical, etc).
Just a question then. If the dog is being neutered it will not be bred or shown. So OFA doesn't really matter. Why xray at
all unless problems develop later? I wouldn't have bothered with an xray at this point. JMO
matt schmidt Webboard User Reg: 01-10-2005
Posts: 214
Loc: Los Angeles
Offline
We didn't have a contract with the breeder. The reason was because he was being anesthicized so why not do it while it was convenient, but it is my understanding that the pre-lim is not all that useful anyhow because the dogs hips are developing and only an expert (OFA doc) could really even read the X-rays which provide inconclusive information.
In addition, it sounds like from the post above that a 1 year pre-lim would better than a 6 month.
Being a vet tech going on 8 years now, 1. if you were not breeding the dog and the vet knew this, 2. you were having the dog neutered and 3. the dog had no problems suggesting there needing to be x-rays done, I would question the vets motives. Being extremely serious about sound breeding, using the dog for schutzhund, agility or just working in general or problems related to the hips is when I'd have prelims done and I still wouldn't do it until the dog was a year old, then at 2 get em OFA'd. Prelims do shed some light when under a year however the growth plates haven't fully closed and the dog still has muscle to build, weight to gain and bones to grow. 6 months to 1 year for a dog is a big difference. If a good vet had known this they would have said wait until the dog is 2 get the hips x-rayed and rated.
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ripped off by my Vet?
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