Would you send these to OFA - Page 2

Thanks Jenni78.

WOW: sorry that no one collected and froze Fero's semen; sounded like one great, great dog that passed on his good genes. And of course even with great genes you will also get some crappers. Just genetics of dogs. Hopefully the good way outweighs the bad. Have great days everyone, Nan

According to OFA, it's over 95% likely that normal hips after 13 months will stay normal by 24 months. Check out the OFA website, if you'd like. "For normal hip conformations, the reliability was 89.6% at 3-6 months, 93.8% at 7-12 months, and 95.2% at 13-18 months."

Ramage, how do they define "reliability" ? Reliability of the ratings, when the scoring was done ? Or reliability of the rating remaining the same over a period of time ?

I'm not sure. I always assumed it was based on the scores and films that were submitted on the same dogs who had prelims done. It is going to be slightly skewed, possibly, because some people who do prelims might not send in bad films at 24 months ... but it's the best research we have, to date. Any research is going to be skewed, if we only look at films actually sent in to the OFA or SV. However, I have to say I've not yet seen hips done at 12 months that wind up being significantly worse at 24 months. Of all the x-rays I have seen, people I have talked to, and my own dogs, I would agree with the 95% reliability that OFA reports. You also have to take into consideration crap vets and crap positioning, but that is just my humble opinion. I realize this is a subject that has been hammered to death.

Neither 12 or 24 month hip scores matter ... what matters is joint health at 6-10 years of age and for breeders what the dogs pass on to their offspring. There are some dogs with observable defects in their joints that live a long and pain free life and some with 12-24 month fine hips that produce offspring with joint defects. Joint health is an old age malady that be affected by environment from conception to old age. There have been tons of SV dogs with fast normal hips that limped through old age. Fero vom Zeuterner Himmelreich had both a sire and dam that produced multiple offspring with joint problems and his vertical pedigree including brothers and sisters was full of dogs with joint problems yet he had SV fast normal hips and produced over 1000 offspring based on BSP wins, politics, and SV 12 month hip scores. For breeders it is better to look at the sire and dam's vertical pedigree to get an idea of what their bloodline carries and produces rather than to base breeding decisions on BSP wins and 12 month hip scores. For stud dogs hip and elbow x-rays at 8 years would be most helpful and present the information about joints useful to breeders.