Hip Injury? - Page 1

Hello I have a GSD / male that just turned a year an a half a few days ago. I'm still learning about the breed and wanted to know if a dog has HD in one hip but not the other is it genetics? I'll try to post pictures later of the x-ray. Thank You for your input.

or is it from an injury?

Probably genetic;  or environmental.

it will depend how the other hip looks...if x rays look like mine (see 1st page on HD-FHO thread just below) than it was most likely an injury when a pup was a few weeks old ( i was told my dog most likely had injury between 8-12 weeks old and if the hip area was hit or kicked, and popped out and was never placed back correctly this would be a result)....i was told by Ortho specialist that anything that severe was not genetic, if it was hips would have been relatively similar...maybe one worse than the other but it would have effected both hips..anything that looks like 1 hip is good and the other is outragesly deformed would be an injury...

According to what I have read over the years from experts on the field,if it's one hip, is an injury; the genetic hereditary fault would affect both hips.

yes mine too, she  must have done something when young cause she has a  very bad hip while the other is an excellent hip . she is almost 6 with no signs of any problems.. 

That's what I thought but my vet said it was genetics, I took it to other vets to get their opinions on the x-ray and they said it was from an injury. THNX yall!

OFA can tell the difference between HD and an injury without a doubt.  Has this been submitted?  Nan

Hate to throw a bucket of water on the happy party that seems to think if a dog has unilateral HD that's it's cause by an injury or accident. Tho that may happen in a FEW cases especially if KNOWN trauma happened to a very young pup ( ex stepped on by a horse or slipped badly on ice and wretched leg and came up lame or broken leg etc). If not known IMHO likely to be genetic.

A couple of things to keep in mind.

Most vets know Nada ( jack s**t) re breeding, genetics and hips. The few that do are frequently breeder vets themselves of dogs or horses. They also know didley squat about nutrition which is so so important to the growth and health of an animal but that doesn't stop them from routinely recommending awful crap "veterinary" foods to their clients.

I believe back in the netherlands of early research on HD ( the 50s or 60s) there was at least one study that in it addressed the heritability of unilateral HD. Perhaps someone has a copy or can find it if it has not been lost to time.

I can tell you from the perspective of 45+ years of being involved in this breed that certain families when they express HD will express it unilaterally. Usually it is always the same side. This suggests heavily to me that this a a genetic process because the statistical probability of it always being the same side in an "accident' is near nil. My observation also is that typically dogs with unilateral HD even if borderline or mild are more likely to actively suffer from the effects of HD. My theory is that it is because they are unbalanced which causes greater wear and tear. I have repeatedly seen and known dogs whose hips where as bad as they could get and yet the dog did not seem to notice - but these dogs were bilateral with their HD.

Now what do I have to back this up.  Some but unfortunately not a lot since we do not actively keep statistics on such as this. Would like to hear from other old timers and from the English since the hip score each hip separately. I would be interested to see if their data follows my observation. There is some limited data available for the having however.  See next post