Prelim, or OFA Cert? - Page 1

Would you wait for cert. from OFA before breeding an 18 month male, if you were planning on breeding anyway and the prelim. looked good? Of course, a health screening with great outcome as well.

Just looking for advice, and your code of ethics.

Yes, I would wait a bit longer. Even with the Pre-lim, you never know what else could pop up or if his littermates have any severe problems. I would always check with the breeder if possible before breeding any dog to be sure mine wasn't the only perfect one in the bunch. :o)

Tina

I concur with the above advice and will offer a bit of my own opinions. The only way I would consider breeding a male at the age of eighteen (18) months requires that:

(a) He has a preliminary evaluation that is O.F.A. "Good" or "Excellent"

(b) All of his littermates have passed their preliminary evaluations.

(c) He is an excellent specimen of physical conformation and temperament.

Good Luck,

Bob-O

Male no female yeah, I might.

I did it once many years ago. I bought a very well bred bitch that had pyo on her third season. Had her treated and she recovered, but we were not sure if she could conceive. The repro vet suggested breeding her the next season, she was OFA'd by then. I decided to use my own male rather than ship her and pay a stud fee not knowing if she was fertile. My dog was was just under 20 months at the time and prelimined good by a very experienced good vet. The xrays looked fine to me too, I had seen a lot of hip xrays and thought I could recognize an iffy one. The breeding produced a nice litter and all that were xrayed received goods and excellents. I'm getting ahead of myself - when he was 30 months I decided to have him done for OFA and his hips didn't look nearly as good as they did 10 months earlier. In fact we were holding our breath thinking he might not get a number; he ended up with a fair. In all fairness I must also say that I had a LOT of other dogs preliminaried before they were a year old and every one that looked good then went on to get OFA certified when of the right age. No more fairs, all goods and excellents. And don't forget, at one time OFA certified dogs 12 months or older and the SV does that now.

Odds are if a dog has good hips at 18 months he will also have good hips at 24 months, but it's not a sure thing. Other health issues will take longer, some won't show up until long after the dog is bred. There will always be an element of risk where dog beeding is concerned.

If your dog is a good one, I would do it.  Personally, I think way too many people take OFA far too seriously.  It's an indicator at best.  If OFA were a certain thing, then goods and excellents should produce just that, but it doesn't happen in the real world.  An excellent can produce displastic dogs and a fair or worse can produce goods or even excellents.  Also, OFA is subjective.  I've heard of a number of stories about dogs getting a fair rating one time, and then a good the next.  I don't throw out OFA, but it has to be taken with a grain of salt.  

DCW 

Rugers Guru- At what age was the Prelim done? Did you just do it or did you do it as a puppy? OFA gave the dog a rating of "Good" or did your Vet say the hips were good?

DCW - I partially agree with you but there is a lot more to look at then just OFA and things you wouldn't neccesarily know at such a young age. Also the system will not work completely with OFA (or any rating system) until all dogs in a litter are OFA'd and before breeding you take into account the rest of the litter. If your dog is prelimed Good at 7 months and the rest of the litter never got done, would you still breed the male? Also no titles, certs, or show ratings yet to prove the dog is even worth breeding?

Tina

Well, My boy is only 1 year today {HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUGER!!} So I plan on getting his prelim. done this month, I do not plan on breeding until his OFA, but I have had a request when he turns 18 mos. if his hips are good. I do not know what to tell him. That is the reason I am asking. His bitch is NICE and I would not want to pass this one up if I don't have to. She is OFA'd Excellent, health, temp, and has BH, SCH1. But I suppose if she wants to that bad, she would be willing to wait..... Right?

From The OFA Website:

A recent publication* compared the reliability of the preliminary evaluation hip grade phenotype with the 2 year old evaluation in dogs and there was 100% reliability for a preliminary grade of excellent being normal at 2 years of age (excellent, good, or fair). There was 97.9% reliability for a preliminary grade of good being normal at 2 years of age, and 76.9% reliability for a preliminary grade of fair being normal at 2 years of age. Reliability of preliminary evaluations increased as age at the time of preliminary evaluation increased, regardless of whether dogs received a preliminary evaluation of normal hip conformation or HD. 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. These results suggest that preliminary evaluations of hip joint status in dogs are generally reliable.

In Essence, if you have an OFA pre-lim done at 18 months of age, there is a 95% likelyhood that you will get the same rating at 2 yrs of age.

The USA is the only country who does hip evals at 2 yrs.....I wonder if Germany/Europe, etc, might know something we don't?

I started ex-raying Largo, my Rottie, at 6 months---if she had been dysplastic then, she would have been spayed and rehomed.

She was ex-rayed again at 1 yr.  She looked good then.

At 18 months, I did an OFA prelim.

I re-exrayed her at 2 yrs, but have yet to send the exrays in.  I compared them to her 18 month exrays and there is no difference.  BTW, I had an orthopedic vet look at them.

But, I think this nonsense of re-ex-raying imports is silly.

I am replying to TheDogTrainer with this posting, and please remember these are just my opinions.

I agree that it seems silly to re-evaluate a dog through more radiographs processed by the O.F.A.. But, I do not trust the "a" stamp that is done past twelve (12) months of age; just as I do not trust the ZW score if it is available. Both are merely tools and are neither empirical values nor exact predictors of what will happen. But we all know that.

Young bones are ossified at the age of twelve months, and should not change very much-with that I agree. But the dog still must grow up towards adulthood, and things can change. For example, the dog can develop arthritic spurs and nodes that were not apparent on an earlier film, and if this progresses the dog can fail a later evaluation. Such a condition indicates a problem, even if there is decent joint conformation.

Perhaps it comes down to the matter of "who do you trust?" I think it does-at least with me. I am neither an expert on canine skeletal/connective tissue issues nor am I a medical professional. I am merely an engineer and I know the value of system comparion and data comparison. And I know (just as you do) that no system is 100% perfect as sometimes a dog is re-evaluated with a different result.

I put it this way-If I planned to spend a lot of money for a proven import dog or bitch, then a successful evaluation by both me AND the O.F.A. would be a condition of sale contained within the sales contract and I would agree to pay for the new radiographic evaluation plus the O.F.A. evaluation if the dog passed. I think it is just too risky to spend one's money otherwise. But again, I am speaking about a high-dollar dog that I planned to breed.

Best Regards,

Bob-O