Can someone do me a favour...

Serenity087

Serenity087

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And just explain to me the hip scoring system?

I wasn't too confused until someone mentioned a dog having a hip score that was 3 1/2 times the breed average... Surely there's a point when hips are "perfect" and they can't keep getting better! And if the breed average is that low, surely they should all have hips falling out of sockets???
 
The hips are x-rayed and scored, in this country by a BVA panel. 0:0 being the best possible score, no dysplasia.

It is generally inherited but can be caused by injury or IMO over-exertion in youth, which is why in recent times I have come to the decision never to let my dogs leave the ground, jump obstacles, jump in and out of vehicles or go mental or do strenuous, ground-pounding exercise until after 12 months.

It can go up to a total of 108 (I think) before it goes off the scale.
The idea is, breed from animals with low scores. Dogs with uneven scores like my old girl's brother from a repeat mating, who had 8:14, usually have had some sort of injury on one hip.
Personally speaking I would not breed from anything (a GSD) with a total over ten, ie 5:5 or 6:4.

Our last female had a total of 12 and the one before that, 0:0 and the one before her, 12 again, despite being from old English lines known for some horrendous hip problems.

Some dogs with good hips, throw dogs with bad hips. Some dogs have scores off the scale, but get around fine and you would never guess, including an Irish Champion bitch I knew very well and won all her classes based on her amazing movement!!! She was of course never bred from.

Tis a minefield but I would never breed from a dog without doing a lot of research into it's pedigree, re good hips. Thankfully, the Germans are nice and anal about recording every single last detail.

We also score elbows as standard, which I think is also important for a weight-bearing breed. In our breed and in certain classes run under German-style rules, you cannot enter the top classes or breed from animals without a hip and elbow score under a certain level.

*you can wake up now*
 
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Oh one of my favourite subjects Hip Dysplasia!
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With three interesting links that I don't remember having read before and will enjoy reading :D (Thank you CaveCanem and Thank you Harper_Gal for posting the question), but why did I not see this post before I was about to turn off my computer *sulk*, I hope that I have time to come back to this post tomorrow, I recently read on Swedish about HD, that it might even be only 40% heritability and 60% other factors involved, but now I don't remember how old that data was...




Why did I see this - so late, - - I want to - - - open links - - - - now...
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"I wasn't too confused until someone mentioned a dog having a hip score that was 3 1/2 times the breed average."
That should be possible, each hip can get a score from 0 (ideal) to 53 (bad), then the score from both hips are added together, into a total result from 0 (ideal) to 106 (bad).
According to one of CaveCanem's links e.g. Dobermann have a breed average total HD score of 10 x 3 ½ = 35. 35 on a scale from 0 to 106, even though it is not close to the ideal 0, it is quite far from 106.

"Surely there's a point when hips are "perfect" and they can't keep getting better!"
Yes, 0 result is ideal and there is nothing beyond that. If a dog has 0 in total HD score, there is nothing to improve. However, if we're not talking individual results, then getting individuals with perfect scores is only one part of the problem, getting them to reproduce only their own perfect results, is still somewhat like travelling in an unexplored jungle.

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"And if the breed average is that low, surely they should all have hips falling out of sockets?"
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Now you've lost me, maybe it's because we have another system in Sweden, but a low breed average HD score in UK equals averagely good hips and a high breed average HD score might equal that only a few and mostly dogs with problems have been x-rayed or it might equal that the breed have a big problem with averagely bad hips.
A high HD score could mean, that it is basically the muscles that keeps the femoral head from falling out of the hip socket.



To try and keep myself short, Hip Dysplasia is inherited by polygenes, so it is not just one gene involved and a dog with a good HD score can maybe have both good HD genes and a "dormant" bad HD gene, which perhaps won't be "dormant" in potential puppies. And as if the polygenes wasn't making breeding dogs with good hips difficult enough, other factors also affects the HD score results.

As I mentioned in my first reply, I recently read that it has been suggested that only 40% of the HD score result is due to heritability (the polygenes) and 60% of the HD score result is due to other factors. No matter what the percentage is, there is several things that can affect the HD score results. For example over-exertion before 12 months of age (as CaveCanem mentioned) but too little exercise isn't good either, overfeeding, gender, age, which type of sedation that is used, the skillfulness of the staff doing the x-ray and for bitches, if they're in season or not.

So hypothetically, if a bitch has a bad HD score result due to being overfed, wrongly sedated and x-rayed while she was in season, she doesn't have to carry any/many bad hips polygenes for potential puppies to inherit.
It really is a jungle and that is why I advocate that, from what we know today about HD inheritance, breeders and potential puppy buyers doesn't stare themselves blind on good HD scores.

In case somebody reads this and is planning to buy a puppy, of course, if everything else is similarly good, buy the puppy whose parents have the best HD score, but personally, I would rather buy a puppy from a brood bitch that has a lovely temperament and a not quite ideal HD score (NOTE I don't mean really bad result), than a puppy from a brood bitch that has an ideal HD score and a not so good temperament.


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:)
 
The other two have covered everything far better than I could Harper Gal. I think you are getting confused and thinking the higher the score the better? In fact it is the lower the better as above, e.g. 0 is perfect. In GSDs I think the breed average is around 19, so a dog with really poor hips with a score of 70 would be 3.5 times the average.
 
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