Thanks, Angela - you understood my question perfectly.

I am also still wonder about the prevalence of elbow dysplasia vs. hip dysplasia.

Anyone know or have any links?

The OFA keeps those stats

http://www.offa.org/elbowinfo.html
German Shepherds come at about 19% bad elbows and about 19% bad hips.

The trend on hips is improving slightly
http://www.offa.org/hipstatbreed.html?view=2

Silly? If I may quote Laura Sanborn from a genetic group, who is a expert on the working GSD breed.

Speaking in general rather than about your breed... demanding work is also a "test" of hip soundness, and medical health screening tests aren't the only way to achieve good hips.
Indeed, medical health screening tests are rather narrowly focused in what they can achieve. A demanding functional test of physical abilities can select for overall orthopedic soundness and health, rather than just good hips.

The German Shepherd Dog and Malinois derive from landrace populations that did quite similar work, and looked rather similar 100 years ago. Yet mandatory radiographic HD clearances of all GSDs used for breeding in Germany over the past 40 years has not managed to get the frequency of HD in that GSD population as low as that in the working Malinois population,
even though the working malinois population has had less radiographic HD testing.

A friend explained it rather succinctly when we were watching a French Ring (protection dogsport) trial. As I was marvelling at the effortless athleticism of these dogs, nearly all of them working line malinois, he said of the palisade (vertical wall),
http://www.ringsport.org/Pictures/champ04/ring3/2004%20NARA%20Championships%20134.jpg
"that's our OFA".

Indeed, the palisade and the other tests of agility in the protection Ringsports have done far more to select for useful athletic abilities and overall orthopedic soundness than the conformation show ring and 40 years of mandatory hip clearances have accomplished for the GSD breed in Germany".

Of course Benjamin you may be correct with your A and B reasoning, but before you settle on that, you might try asking the working Malinois breeders what they think of taking away the palisade wall and long jump in the vetting there working breed stock. Ask them if they want the there test ipso-facto there breed, weakened as the test of schutzhund and the GSD has been by the taking away of vertical wall and replacing it with the A frame, done solely so there show contingent, now sporting a change in phenotype, could then pass the obedience portion of the test of schutzhund. For you who don’t know it is mandatory for both the dog and bitch, pass a working test before papers are issued for any working GSD breeding. Ask them why there breed looks the same now as it did 100 years ago and the GSD who used to look very similar, now does not. Ask them if they would now enjoy being worried about HD in there working breed stock as the breeders of the working GSD do now. You asked, "Could there be or instances of HD in GSD's because of the over breeding compared to Mals (even in working lines)." I’m not sure what you mean by over breeding but certainly breeding to many sub-standard dogs will in time will have an negative affect on the health any breed. Given that the cause of HD is polygenetic it will take improvement on more than just one front to see progress on HD. Therefore a dog must have better musculature, stronger ligaments, correct angulation and a true working conformation in addition to better selection before overall orthopedic health is realized and a large part of that improvement is a lessening of HD. All of these can be realized by rigorous work and or rigorous testing and a significant part of that testing is the vertical wall and long jump. The schutzhund obedience routine now has many of the same exercises in common with French Ring obedience, which I believe is the most used breed test for the working Malinois, but a significant difference between the two is the absence of the vertical wall and long jump in schutzhund. Would putting the vertical wall and long jump back in schutzhund promote better hips, IMO yes and the talking away of those two exercises has lessened the overall orthopedic health of the GSD. If hip x-rays are the holy grail in HD improvement then why has there been no significant drop in HD in the working GSD breed despite mandatory hip x-rays for 40 years in the working and show, breed stock. It may be of interest that the palisade wall and long jump was removed from the schutzhund obedience test about 40 years ago and why the show Malinois who is not tested has a greater incidence of HD than its working counterpart, who is.

 Quote: