Breeding without Hip Certificiation - Page 5

I agree that GSD's should be certified free of HD before they are bred. Most probably remember that OFA did certify at 12 months, but later revised that age to 24 months. I believe that was done since a small percentage of dogs that cleared at 12 months xrayed dysplastic later. Now OFA thinks they are pretty good at evaluating hips on puppies as young as 4 months is it? Hodie may well be correct, we may see OFA regroup again and lower their age for certification to 12 or maybe 18 months. When I was breeding another large breed subject to HD, I always prelimed them at around 6 to 7 months. OFA didn't evaluate hips on dogs that young at the time, so I depended on the vets I worked for and what I knew myself to determine the status. I've also co-owned a number of dogs that were preliminaried and later redone and sent to OFA. I'm going to guess all in all it would total maybe 35, 40 dogs xrayed, most sent to OFA. With only exception, all that prelimed good, certified as excellent or good, and 2 were fairs. One of these fairs looked a lot better at 18 months than he did at 24 months. I'd guess at 18 months he'd have received a good rating. We used him for breeding and all out of him that were xrayed, got OFA excellents, He was bred to an OFA good dam with a strong background of HD free dogs for many generations. Xraying is not 100% but it's the best we have right now. Maybe some day the genes that cause HD will be isolated and identified and we can test our dogs prior to breeding them. I suspect some will always use the mildly dysplastics and the NZ's for breeding, I myself feel that's a very big mistake. The best to the best is always the way to go with hips and everything else canine.

mrgsd2006, sorry but I must respectfully disagree with your negative remarks about Hodie. You couldn't be more wrong. She has a true love for individual GSDs as well as the breed and probably has done more to provide care to GSDs than anyone else who posts on this messageboard. She is completely honest and ethical. She tells it the way it is no matter how hard to accept. Anyone who knows Hodie can tell you she is easily one of the most knowledgeable persons about GSDs and their health that has ever posted on this board, if not the most knowledgeable. She is not in the breed for the money, that's for sure. But she does like to find good homes for the GSDs that she has rescued or bred and won't be using herself. And in addition to all this she is just plain a very good, kind, loving person. So there!

Amen, Preston.

Here are the facts, based on the available research, like it or not: 1-HD is heritable, and bad bred to bad produces the most bad, and bad bred to good produces too many bad. Good bred to good still produces some bad, albeit only a small percentage in most cases. Very good bred to good or very good produces almost no HD, especially if this is done repeatedly over the generations. 2-Good must be properly diagnosed by an experienced Vet trained in orthopedic xray diagnostics (or a very experienced vet or vet tech trained by such individuals). 3-the best diagnosis invloves use of the Norberg angle analysis (105 degree or better in GSDs is good). The BVA scheme is very good. 4-the heritability of HD is POLYGENIC, that is, it is based on a set of genes (the best evidence now is that it involves five different individual genes). 5-Canine Geneticists have proven beyond any doubt that the actual developmental occurrrence of HD can be up to 50% environmental in many breeds. This means that overfeeding, poor nutrition, too little, too much, or the wrong kind of exercise can override the good genetic potention and damage the hip development bringing it towards or into HD. However, research has also shown that clearly bad hips genetically cannot be corrected by a good environment but only prevented from increasing the level of degeneration and arthritic changes.

Note: traits that are polygenic such as hip confirmation and health are exceedingly hard to control genetically and require multigenerational efforts usually up to 5 generations to reduce such problems to a rarity (some breeders have done this). Elbows are even more difficult since breeding anything less than totally clean elbows in either parent is a recipe for a higher proportion of unclean elbows than one might expect (more difficult than hips).

Ranger, You are an idiot. You are upset that you are having to explain that your post is all about that you are upset because of someone breeding their dog, a dog that is not owned by you? Just because your ideas do not coincide with theirs you start a thread, baiting people into a discussion and get upset when ideas do not match yours? You are being intentionally hateful towards this breeder or you are trying to have sport with them over their breeding practices. I guess maybe you should have to explain why. If you are such a big person, why stoop so low? Isn't it just wrong, being hateful and picking on someone? Just because your ideas do not coincide with theirs, they are the bad person? I do not have a problem using prelims for breeding. I do not know of anyone offhand that does. If you "a" stamp at 12 months, why not prelim then too? What is the BFD? At least the breeder had prelims, how many liters advertised here have parents that do not have a working title, do not have conformation ratings and are without hip ratings? Want the truth on canine hip dysplasia in the United States? Hip dysplasia and elbow dysplasia is only checked in the majority of dogs who display some kind of pain or abnormality. Many get OFA after their dogs have a litter or 2 if the owner wants it, most do not. A person getting a prelim on their dog is great. So, Ranger, what gives, why do you feel are you so special as to tell others what, how, when to breed and judge them? Why should everyone just jump in on your little attack about their breeding and breeding practices? If you want to be in charge of the prelimed dogs in question, offer to buy her. If she is sold to you, do as you wish. If not, back up, back off and leave the person alone so they can do as they wish. Get with it my boy!

Weeney boy Get a life.. How many times are you doing to repeat yourself? PS: Get with it my boy!---at least be orginal..lol

weeney boy If you half a brain you would have noticed that I was attacked for no reason by that person and she is basically stalking me. Whatever post I make she would follow and attack. Go read the posts in the order they were posted and you will see this. But no, that would be too much work for a nim-rod like you, you would rather jump to conclusions. It is sad people like you even own a GSD, because with attitudes like yours problems in the GSD breed will only get worse. If you don't like the truth then go join a AKC board, your liberal rambling are not helping the GSD.

Wiener, the fact that you or anyone else would make the following statement is proof that this subject needs to be addressed often: "If you want to really, and I mean really get into this, many educated people have decided that this is not a genetic problem, so OFA certification and A stamps for breed worthiness is a waste of time." Who are these educated people? Are they people with scientific degrees; vet, biologists, etc.? Or are these people that are too lazy to deal with a legitimate breeding program?

If you pay attention to hip status of the siblings as well as the dogs you are using for breeding stock and breed only the best hips to the best hips. you can dramtically reduced the incidence of HD in 4, 5 generations. In my original breed it is not unusual to see entire litters with OFA certifications. My last litter was 7, 5 goods, 1 fair, one cleared by a vet. The sire was an OFA good out of a strong line of OFA dogs, the dam an excellent also with a long history of good hips. In the 70's we were lucky to get 50% of every litter certified; HD was rampant in the breed. By breeding only the best to the best and paying attention to the sibs, we have reduced the percentage of dysplastic dogs to a negligible percentage. It can be done, don't give up. The big roadblock I can see with the GSD is that there are so many other expectations that are factored into selecting breeding stock that hips might not take as high a priority as they did in the breed I just spoke of. You also need to educated yourself on what is and what is not a good qulity hip xray. If you have a vet that takes lousy xrays, you might have some dogs that are not getting the rating they deserve. Sometimes the only difference between getting a number and not getting a number is the quality of the film and the skill of the xray tech.