I had a very nice female for 13 years with not very nice hips.

She was SchH I and lived a very normal life. We did give her pain medications for the last 4 years, but she had a very good quality of life.

She also worked till about 8 years, jumping and all.


Diet and conditioning, conditioning, conditioning, conditioning, and more conditioning is the key.

If you do that to the extreme, your dog will most likely be able to work.

If it was me, I'd do the OFA.

The SV will probably give her a noch zugelassen. :rolleyes:


<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Sorry about the radiograph being backwards...I just showed it the way the vet presented it to me, with the left being on the left. Here's a close up of each of the hips...
http://gsd.illusionfxnet.com/left.jpg
http://gsd.illusionfxnet.com/right.jpg

Karmen, you said you saw several other things that might be problems...could you elaborate? Like I said, the vet told me nothing. I'd really like to know exactly what i'm dealing with. Hopefully the close ups will help you see anything better.

I am glad to hear that she might still be able to work. I would love to start again, but she is so depressed...I can't figure out what's wrong with her. Maybe she's depressed because I haven't worked with her, if this keeps up I'll try to take her out and get her working a few days in a row to see if it makes a difference. It was also suggested to me that she might be coming into heat...guess I'll just have to wait this out!

VanCamp, I will probably do both OFA and SV...I just wanted to do SV so it would impact her parents ZW. Or is it not even worth it?

For the best evaluation I would OFA and find a good ortho vet.

To affect the ZW rating you could do SV, that could be beneficial to the breed.

Meghan,I know how heart breaking this can be. If you read in the "show all topics" under dysplasia, you will see my long saga about my GSD, Diva.
The good news is that she is doing great and she will be 2 in May. When she was around 7 months old, she had a Triple Pelvic Ostectomy on both hips, one right after the other. The surgeon I took her to see, adviced that she have the surgery before she got any older. A couple months ago, she starting nibbling and lickin on her hip which had the first surgery. I knew something was going on, since I had not seen her displaying any sign pain before that. I took her in to see her surgeon and he noticed from x-rays, that one of the screws which was used in this procedure, was working it's way out. She had slipped on ice while she was recovering from her first surgery and the fall she took, bent the plate they put in her hip to bring the ball joint into the hip socket. This made the screw work it's way loose as time went on. Her surgeon made a half inch incision and removed the screw and she has been fine since then. The GREAT NEWS is that the x-rays showed that her hips are about as perfect as one's hips should be. They have held there place really well and she shows no sign of pain or disability at all.
I am so glad I didn't listen to those who told me not to put her through all that. What a difference it has made in her life.
My best advice is to immediately take Djenga to see a Board Certified Surgeon. If you lived in North Carolina, around Asheville, I could highly recommend one. Good luck!!!