Dutch Shepherd Forum

I wanted to share a link I found of many Common and Popular breeds (including DS) and their Hip Laxity scores. It is PennHip not OFA. I have done research and found that it would be better (I think) To purchase a puppy from a breeder who Checks their DS's hips this way because Pennhip checks for Hip Dysplasia AND Degenerative Joint Disease (Which if I did my research correctly, it can lead up to Hip Dysplasia in Offspring), though the OFA is more acurate for checking for Dysplasia. Though when I saw the scores for the German Shep I was a little skeptical because their hips had a good score, they have the same score as the DS too. Do you think this list is accurate?

http://tampabayvets.net/wp-content/uplo ... Breeds.pdf

It depends on what you want to do with the dog. It is a risk getting a rescue dog, but if you dont have a specific job in mind for the dog, then rescue is great. If your heart is set, or you must do a specific job with the dog, I would lean towards a breeder.

DogGirl_95 wrote:I wanted to share a link I found of many Common and Popular breeds (including DS) and their Hip Laxity scores. It is PennHip not OFA. I have done research and found that it would be better (I think) To purchase a puppy from a breeder who Checks their DS's hips this way because Pennhip checks for Hip Dysplasia AND Degenerative Joint Disease (Which if I did my research correctly, it can lead up to Hip Dysplasia in Offspring), though the OFA is more acurate for checking for Dysplasia. Though when I saw the scores for the German Shep I was a little skeptical because their hips had a good score, they have the same score as the DS too. Do you think this list is accurate?
http://tampabayvets.net/wp-content/uplo ... Breeds.pdf

I would be horrified if the DS scored the same as the GSD! God help us!
I am certain that PennHip is not readily available in all parts of the country, and certainly a lot more expensive. Good system, no doubt, but there are few DS's and even fewer in the PennHip database. I think I understood they compare the entry to the other entries in the breed, to come up with the score. So if you have 10 DS's who got PennHip scores, and 7 are marginal, your score will look as bad as a huge breed where 1000 dogs are entered, and where 700 are marginal. The way I read it, this list alledgedly recommends PennHip for the listed breeds, because they would be prone to problems. Not very comforting to see the DS mentioned at all. I see breeds listed that I never heard of. Belgian Mastiff? What's that? (and where are the malinois?) So am not ready just yet to switch over to another breed because we are beyond help.
Personally, I will not hestitate to find a dog with good hip scores, OFA or otherwise, without elevating PennHip to the absolute authority just yet.
But I am very interested in opinions of those who are stauncher fans of PennHip.

vneerland wrote: But I am very interested in opinions of those who are stauncher fans of PennHip.

So far I am a fan of PennHIP and continue to use it on anything we think we will breed. The concept just makes sense to me. Conformation of the joint is important, but if the hips are lax, then DJD is still likely to set in. So both parts should play into factor when determining long term potential. Well formed, tight hips would be ideal.

Here, its about $325 for PennHIP and about $250-$300 for OFA. We are lucky to have a great PennHIP vet within an hour and she is awesome about respecting our dogs and our ability to handle them.

Then if PennHip is correct, we have as many crappy hips in our population as the GSD's.
IMHO, no matter who does the evaluating, I woud prefer an absolute verdict, not one related to the rest of the breed. Example. I seem to remember that AmBulls have just about all terrible hips. Their score is worse than the GSD or DS but not by much. It must be pretty naieve on my behalf, but why is good not good and bad not bad for all dogs, regardless of what breed you are discussing? Does a lax hip not create as bad a problem in a Corgi as it does in a Dobermann?

vneerland wrote:Then if PennHip is correct, we have as many crappy hips in our population as the GSD's.
IMHO, no matter who does the evaluating, I woud prefer an absolute verdict, not one related to the rest of the breed. Example. I seem to remember that AmBulls have just about all terrible hips. Their score is worse than the GSD or DS but not by much. It must be pretty naieve on my behalf, but why is good not good and bad not bad for all dogs, regardless of what breed you are discussing? Does a lax hip not create as bad a problem in a Corgi as it does in a Dobermann?

I agree with you that at this point the statistics are probably skewed. Just like only some DS breeders use it, I assume only some GSD breeders do as well. Perhaps those that know they have tighter hips then the general population. I assume the back yarders (who we think of most) don't screenmuch at all.

The concept of it is that you breed the top 50 percent of the population to continue to bring the mean up. I also agree that good hips are good hips, and bad are bad. But if you only bred French Bulldogs with a DI of 0.30 or less, you would limit the breeding population to almost nothing. So PennHIP uses the 50% mark as their cut off. However, they put the following feedback on reports (these are examples, but there are others):
"DI is less than or equal to 0.30, with no radiographic evidence of DJD"
"DI is greater than 0.30 with no radiographic evidence of DJD. There is an increasing risk of developing DJD as the DI increases; low risk when DI is close to 0.30, high risk when DI is close to 0.70 or above"

So there are some general guidelines to follow and you can request the overall mean to compare to if you want.

Lastly, OFA does not rate hips objectively. This is from the OFA website: "Radiographs of animals 24 months of age or older are independently evaluated by three randomly selected, board-certified veterinary radiologists from a pool of 20 to 25 consulting radiologists throughout the USA in private practice and academia. Each radiologist evaluates the animal's hip status considering the breed, sex, and age. There are approximately 9 different anatomic areas of the hip that are evaluated."

I saw a "Fair" Frenchie set of hips that would have been Mild to Moderate dysplasia in a herder at least.

Christie M wrote:Lastly, OFA does not rate hips objectively. This is from the OFA website: "Radiographs of animals 24 months of age or older are independently evaluated by three randomly selected, board-certified veterinary radiologists from a pool of 20 to 25 consulting radiologists throughout the USA in private practice and academia. Each radiologist evaluates the animal's hip status considering the breed, sex, and age. There are approximately 9 different anatomic areas of the hip that are evaluated."

I saw a "Fair" Frenchie set of hips that would have been Mild to Moderate dysplasia in a herder at least.

Nowhere did I suggest that OFA had it all figured out either. I just wished that good would be good and bad would be bad, for all dogs, regardless of breed. Though I do think that age should slightly play into it.
As it stands, I think there is room for improvement in most scoring systems, but I do feel for the owners of a breed with notoriously bad hips, that get told that their dog is a 'fair' when it is, in actualilty, dysplastic. I recently managed not to comment when someone told me their GSD was OFA fair. I wanted to say "I am sorry!" but I soon figured out she was elated. I guess that is why is shocks me that the DS is rated the same as the GSD. Surely we don't label a fair as good enough?
(But I might know the answer, seeing that there are owners of dysplastic DS's on this board....) Ouch. Just ouch.

>>I just wished that good would be good and bad would be bad, for all dogs, regardless of breed. <<

Boy, do I agree with this, Judith!

vneerland wrote:Surely we don't label a fair as good enough?
(But I might know the answer, seeing that there are owners of dysplastic DS's on this board....) Ouch. Just ouch.

Well, I guess that applies to me. As you know, Willow OFAed Fair. But her PennHIP came back very tight and at 10 years of age she has no evidence of DJD on x-ray. So which is a better indicator? Does Fair equal dysplastic regardless of other factors? What about an OFA good dog with loose hips that is cripled by 10?

Christie M wrote:

vneerland wrote:Surely we don't label a fair as good enough?
(But I might know the answer, seeing that there are owners of dysplastic DS's on this board....) Ouch. Just ouch.

Well, I guess that applies to me. As you know, Willow OFAed Fair. But her PennHIP came back very tight and at 10 years of age she has no evidence of DJD on x-ray. So which is a better indicator? Does Fair equal dysplastic regardless of other factors? What about an OFA good dog with loose hips that is cripled by 10?

No, that did not apply to anyone! I did not know (or rather remember) anything about Willow's hips.
I was relaying that it is easy to relax a standard, where breeders are thrilled with fair (like in my example of the GSD) or where a dysplastic dog gets labelled as something much better, because of the breed that he/she is part of. I know the dysplastic dog on the board is a rescue, but before that, of course, the dog came from a breeder who apperantly did not check hips, or maybe deemed a marginal set up hips in a breeding pair as good enough.Gosh, I so hope that as a community, we hope to rise above the rating of the GSD. That is what my remark was all about. No stab at anyone, but expressing the hope that we all aim for the best results.

Hi,
for myself, I make OFA on my standard schnauzer and noone under GOOD are use for breeding.
I think that we have a bigger problem which start with breeders who send x-ray to OVC which only evaluate if the dog show any hip dysplasia or free from dysplasia.
OFA: rate (not necessarly the best one but you know if a dog is excellent, good, fair...)
OVC: 2 choices : 1- "this dog doesn't show any hip dysplasia " (from excllent to bordeline)
2- "this dog show dysplasia sign"

Here penhips is very hard to do so betwn my 2 choices I prefer to pay for an OFA rating than just knowing that my dog is not dysplasic at this time and don't know if he is excellnt or borderline..

But it's still my own opinion,

Josée

What is OVC Josee? I don't think I have ever heard about that?

Hi Judith,

the OVC is the Ontario Veterinary College where the most Canadian Breeders send thir x-ray ( hip and elbows)

Here their wbsite link : http://www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/hip-elbow/process/

vneerland wrote:I would be horrified if the DS scored the same as the GSD! God help us!
I am certain that PennHip is not readily available in all parts of the country, and certainly a lot more expensive. Good system, no doubt, but there are few DS's and even fewer in the PennHip database. I think I understood they compare the entry to the other entries in the breed, to come up with the score. So if you have 10 DS's who got PennHip scores, and 7 are marginal, your score will look as bad as a huge breed where 1000 dogs are entered, and where 700 are marginal. The way I read it, this list alledgedly recommends PennHip for the listed breeds, because they would be prone to problems. Not very comforting to see the DS mentioned at all. I see breeds listed that I never heard of. Belgian Mastiff? What's that? (and where are the malinois?) So am not ready just yet to switch over to another breed because we are beyond help.
Personally, I will not hestitate to find a dog with good hip scores, OFA or otherwise, without elevating PennHip to the absolute authority just yet.
But I am very interested in opinions of those who are stauncher fans of PennHip.

I would be horrified too, the whole reason I became more interested in a DS other than a Working GSD was because they had straighter hocks and better hips. But according to this that is not true! When you explain how they could have the same score though I understand now. I really am confused on why they don't have the Belgain Malinois on there which is much more popular than a DS? And I have no Idea what a Belgain Mastiff is either! If I couldn't find a good breeder who PennHip's their dogs I would be willing to go with Excellent-Good OFA scores.

Dutchringgirl wrote:It depends on what you want to do with the dog. It is a risk getting a rescue dog, but if you dont have a specific job in mind for the dog, then rescue is great. If your heart is set, or you must do a specific job with the dog, I would lean towards a breeder.

I would be all for a good Pound dog but I am Intent on Personal Protection training my future dog. With a Pound puppy I would have no idea if It could even do this type of work and with a Adult dog they will probably be very sweet since most pounds put to sleep agressive/protective dogs.

Jbou wrote:Hi,
for myself, I make OFA on my standard schnauzer and noone under GOOD are use for breeding.
I think that we have a bigger problem which start with breeders who send x-ray to OVC which only evaluate if the dog show any hip dysplasia or free from dysplasia.
OFA: rate (not necessarly the best one but you know if a dog is excellent, good, fair...)
OVC: 2 choices : 1- "this dog doesn't show any hip dysplasia " (from excllent to bordeline)
2- "this dog show dysplasia sign"

Here penhips is very hard to do so betwn my 2 choices I prefer to pay for an OFA rating than just knowing that my dog is not dysplasic at this time and don't know if he is excellnt or borderline..

But it's still my own opinion,

Josée

Thank you for not breeding Dysplasiatic dogs! I wish there were more breeders that did this, plus more! I had never heard of OVC either but from what you said I will never buy a puppy from one that sends their dogs X-rays to them! I would choose OFA over OVC anyday also.

The database dose include Malinois and "Dutch Malinois" which are listed mixes. This is an incomplete sample of the presented samples.

Force is from a breeder that had Pennhip results on his parents.
I do agree that it is a good idea if you have a specific activity in mind that getting a dog ( puppy ) from a breeder that works or has dogs in those activities and health screens their breeding stock is a good thing. You are stacking the odds in your favor of having a structurally sound dog and one with the temperament for your chosen activity. ( no, it's not a guarentee but you do have more things on your side )

Not saying you HAVE to go through a breeder, but knowing lines and history can be a plus.
We all know there are lots of rescue DS's out there excelling in their new homes as working dogs in various activities that also have super hips.
It's just as easy to x-ray hips on a non-papered dog as it is on a papered one

I Pennhip checked Force as a young pup ( 4mths ) because I wanted to be sure he physically had the structure to be a working dog.
I already had a dysplastic dog at home ( not a DS ) and living in town I can only have 2 dogs. So for me it was a way of screening early before I'd invested tons of training time in the dog.
Glad he came back ok as sending him back would have been super hard ( but I told myself I would if he failed ).
Pennhip wise he came back in the middle. So not the worst, not the best, but average at that time.
He may be better than average now, or worse, no way of knowing as we don't know if more DS's have been checked or not since he was. They don't have an open database for people to look through.

Things I don't like about Pennhip :
Cost !!! In my area it's way expensive.
The database is closed. Results are private so anyone wanting to research particular dogs and/or lines cann't.

Now that Force is over 2yrs I had OFA films done.
Results just came back and hips are rated by OFA as Good. Not sure how that correlates with the Pennhip system and our puppy results.
OFA costs a lot less to do in my area ( compared to Pennhip ).
I do like that results are public ( passing results ) so people can research dogs.
I don't like that failing results are not posted unless the owner signs paperwork to have the information posted. ( I always sign for results to be posted even if failing ) Though I do understand a lot of people don't even submit films on dogs that'd clearly fail.

For me, I'm still on the fence as to whether or not one screening system is better than the other. They both have good and bad points to them.
It was nice to know early that my puppy was put together correctly to do the work I wanted to do ( SchH ). So although expensive , it did save me 2yrs of training and wondering.
Watching a dog move isn't going to tell you the hips are good or bad ( unless really bad ). My other dog is dysplastic but runs, jumps, climbs like a maniac and has numerous agility titles.
Watching her you'd say there's a dog with good hips.
The x-rays show the real truth.

Brindle wrote: Pennhip wise he came back in the middle. So not the worst, not the best, but average at that time.
He may be better than average now, or worse, no way of knowing as we don't know if more DS's have been checked or not since he was. They don't have an open database for people to look through.

You can request the current mean for any breed in years following. Also, and veterinarian who performs the test receives an updated list of means by breed once or twice a year.

Brindle wrote:Things I don't like about Pennhip :
Cost !!! In my area it's way expensive.
The database is closed. Results are private so anyone wanting to research particular dogs and/or lines cann't.

Brindle wrote:OFA costs a lot less to do in my area ( compared to Pennhip ).
I do like that results are public ( passing results ) so people can research dogs.
I don't like that failing results are not posted unless the owner signs paperwork to have the information posted. ( I always sign for results to be posted even if failing ) Though I do understand a lot of people don't even submit films on dogs that'd clearly fail.

This is why PenHIPP currently maintains a closed database. With OFA the rankings can get skewed because often people choose not to submit x-rays if they look bad - and the ranking is based on age, sex and breed. With PennHIP, once the x-rays are taken, they must be submitted by the veterinarian regardless of what they look like.

As I said previously, I choose to use it because it makes sense and is is a better predictor. But I understand the reasons that others can't use it.

Over here in the UK, our Kennel Club uses the British Veterinary Association (BVA) to evaluate hips. They use the same scoring system across all breeds and there is no judgement according to breed as fair/good etc. We simply get a score back on each hip. It ranges from 0-53( the lower the better in this system) and then both hips scores are combined to give an overall score. The only problem with this is that you can get a good score ( according to average) with a very unbalanced dog.. eg..a good score for GSD is 5/5(10).. both sides the same nicely balanced and below the breed mean of 18, or you could get a dog with 2/8(10)... now, if one hip is a 2 and the other an 8.. does that mean this dog displays dysplasia against the norm for that dog because it got a higher score on the one side? Does it have an injury that could have contributed to that score?

In this country the GOOD breeders always go for dogs with lower than average breed scores and try to get as even scores as possible. It's up to the breeders to evaluate whether to breed from their dogs though because with the KC as long as the dog is scored you can breed from it. They have no set limits or anything for that, but at least all breeds get evaluated in exactly the same way and are not given ratings according to their breed. What you see is what you get. I don't agree with the way the KC registers dogs for breeding etc, but I do like the BVA system because its the same for all breeds. I think it gives a better indication of whats going on with the dogs hips as you get to see both individually rather than just as one combined score. I think it allows breeders to make a more objective decision about whether to breed their dogs or not.

For example.. my GSD.. she's coming up for 3 now, but she was hip and elbow scored at 18 months old. Her elbows were 0/0..but her hip scores never got sent in.. the vet advised against it, her right hip was fabulous, really nice and tight, but... her left hip.. unexpectedly she had a really badly developed hip. It wasn't through bad breeding though, her mum stepped on her as a puppy and we didn't realise it had caused problems within her hip and the muscle had developed in the wrong place. This explained her occasional limp as a pup which we had put down to just her growing. After having a good talk with the vet my girls breeder and I decided it would be best not to get her scored and she lost her potential to become a mum. According to the vet her problem could lead to issues with whelping and we just were not willing to put her at risk and especially without getting a score for her. Luckily we had a very experienced vet who could tell us this and had masses of experience so we didn't have to bother spending out all that money. I now know that she could have some serious issues as she gets older so i can be more objective with her training and the excercises I put her through. It's just one of those things with breeding. You should always breed from dogs who have a better than average breed mean score.. the people who don't are doing a disservice to any breed they are in, unless its a breed on the edge of disppearing and then thats when the specialists should be brought in.

I have absoloutely no respect for people who breed dogs above the breed mean score and then give me some pathetic excuse such as.. 'but they are so well put together'.. 'great temperament'.. etc as reasons to breed. In my mind a dog has to be good in everyway. Health is a major issue and we've seen how disregard for that has led to dogs with all sors of issues because their breeders thought they were great and were not objective enough to realise their own dog had issues. Its how we were given over-angulated GSD's and dogs that can't breathe properly. As breders its a resposibility to make sure dogs are the healthiest they can be, not just in the immediate generation, but for the future aswell and too many breeders don't think about that. It'sthe breeders who are ruining the dogs by breeding from poor dogs. If people were more objective and less emotional when it comes to this sort of thing, health would improve much quicker. This is why I like the DS breeders as generally only those with good or above get bred, same as with the scores, generally its a B or above..these are people who actually care about the future of their breed

p.s sorry for the long post