Jeannette,
I have known Fred for about 5 years or maybe more and he is a very big supporter for pen-hip, even does seminars on pen-hip. He has always tried to convince me to do a pen-hip on my GSDs. The contract I have with my breeder specifies preliminary OFAs hips and elbows as well as OFA before they are 24 Months old. This time around I asked if I could substitute pen-hip instead. Her answer was a firm no. Her argument was that the record does not show any better track record with pen-hip. Also another complaint was that there is too much torque applied to the hip joints to get laxity and that it was subjective to each vet that did the pen-hip (Fred has a list of vets that are pen-hip certified. The concern for the excessive torque is what I also was told at the Schutzhund club when I enquired the opinion of the training director and other seasoned trainers at the club. Not one was for pen-hip. In theory it looks very good . I have considered it and still do but if the torquing is going to hurt my pup or give long term problems I do not want to chance it. There is too much uncertainty about it and most of us have gotten confortable with OFA evaluations over the years and that is something hard to change. The breeder also said that she has found the best predictors to be the x-ray combined with the German hip numbers.

Philipe,

Those comments about torquing hips in the PennHIP method are nonsense. This is a rumor that just keeps going round and round and just won't seem to die.

When a dog is positioned for an OFA xray (or the HE view of PennHIP), he has his legs stretched out straight away from the axis of his body, like he was standing straight up on 2 legs. This is why it's called the hip extended view. This causes the ligaments of the hip joints to tighten up unnaturally. Last time I checked, dogs do not walk upright on two legs like humans. In the key PennHIP distraction view, OTOH, the dog has his legs sticking out like he does when he's standing on all 4 feet. Now I ask you, which one is unnatural?

The amount of force applied to achieve the PennHIP distraction laxity is not going do any damage to any dog. Ask your friend Fred. Maybe he can arrange to have you tag along when a PennHIP is taken on a dog, so you can see it with your own eyes.

Also, the results of the PennHIP distraction view are not sensitive to variations in the amount of force (not "torque") applied in the real world. PennHIP even has a way of telling from the radiograph itself whether enough force was applied, and they will reject it if not. Actually, 90% of the laxity will be revealed with a very small amount of force.

PennHIP vets are specifically trained and certified on how to do these x-rays; you cannot say the same about vets who do x-rays for OFA, since any vet in America can do an OFA x-ray.

It is the hip extended view (OFA, "a" stamp, etc.) that suffers reproducibility problems due to positioning, not the PennHIP method. Read the articles in the Journal of the American Veterinary Assocation that describe the PennHIP method, and Ed's article here for more info.:
http://www.leerburg.com/hipart.htm

Your breeder commented that PennHIP doesn't have a better track record than OFA. Better track record in what sense? Better track record in getting lots of people to use their method? You bet, OFA wins. Does that mean its better? Hmmm.... If more popular is always better, then I guess Labs must be the best breed of dog
Better track record of proving to reduce hip dysplasia if used as a breeding tool? Well to be honest, neither OFA nor PennHIP can make a claim to this. Reason being, hip screening is voluntary in America, so the breed average stats of either organization cannot be used to prove that hip health is improving in dog populations bred user either of these methods. So who has the better track record of developing a method that by the scientific evidence indicates that it should be the best for improving hip health? If you read the scientific literature on this, I don't know how you could conclude that PennHIP isn't superior.

If your breeder requires an OFA prelim for your purchase contract, then just have the PennHIP vet put an extra film in the cassette when he takes the PennHIP hip extended view (one of 3 x-ray positions done in a PennHIP eval). This is exactly the same view used by OFA.

Laura

Well said Laura <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> !!!!

Philippe, I would think that Fred Lanting would have been able to explain the reasons why PennHIP is superior to OFA.Once I did some investigating it is clear there is no other way to go.

The notion that the stress applied in the neutral position is damaging to the dog is sooo laughable!! :rolleyes: As an x-ray tech for humans, I can tell you that we use stress to evaluate joints in people too and with no ill effects.

Just wondering Philippe, what happened to Fred's realGSD website? I tried to go on to check some data and it's gone...Does he have a new one?

I am so glad to know that there are others out there who feel the same way I do. I honestly can't understand why breedeers/dog people would still use OFA.

Laura and Jeannette thanks for you info. I stopped going to the real GSD site when I started posting and reading here. This forum is so much more responsive. I will e-mail Fred and ask him about the site. As for my getting a penn hip on my GSD, I might do that as well. Out of curiosity can both the OFA and the pennhip be done at the same time by adding another film (as you mentioned with preliminaries?

I attended a talk some years back at the USA nationals regarding Pen Hip. When I
left the talk I was convinced Pen Hip was without a doubt superior to OFA , but there
would be resistance to it because it would disqualify some breeding stock that relied
previously on OfA . I still think this is where some of the resistance lies today.

John

Well, it is time for me to take my dog for a PennHip evaluation.
Can someone either recoomend a specialist in Maryland area? or suggest a web-site that would help me to find one?
Thank you!

If you are in the eastern area of Maryland, why don't you just go up to Penn and have it done there. They are probably no more expensive than your local vet. They had a study going on at one point where they wanted 6-12 month old GSDs and would do them for free - I was going to do one of my pups, but sold him a couple of weeks before I had planned to go to Philly.

p.vetservices@comcast.net is the email for Pleasant Valley Vet Services. I know that's where I'm going to have the vet perform PennHip on my dog. In central NJ.

The website for Penn/HIP has a list of all vets who do the procedure. They have to be trained through the program in proper positioning. See the link above in one of my previous posts and look up your area in the search ( see bottom left column). Good Luck