Grades of Elbow Dysplasia - Page 1

Here is a topic for discussion. What is your opinion of the U.S. OFA scheme of grading elbows. For example, if you have a dog whose elbows come back Grade 1 with slight evidence of degenerative joint disease (DJD), and lets say this is in an older dog (as an example, 4 years of age), assuming all other factors are positive (including passing hips, titled etc.), is this a dog you would consider breeding? Why, or why not? What if the grade was Grade 2 with DJD? I know there are other schemes in Europe which grade differently and would like to hear what experienced GSD owners and breeders consider problematic for breed consideration. Thank you for your opinion.

Hi Here in Oz we have been grading elbows for a long time to get the "Z" stamp the degree of arthritic change has to be under 3.9 mm until a couple of years ago it used to be up to 5mm. Now we have normal 0/0, grade 1 up to 1.9mm and grade 2 2mm-3.9mm all are considered suitable to breed with although normal is the most desired. Like everything else breeding is not cut and dried I have in the past bred a imported female with grade 2 elbows to another imported male who has a good record of producing good hip/elbows and out of the four that were xrayed three were normal and the other had 0/1mm. If your dog has a grade one or even two make sure if you can the female has normal elbows. You are in the same position as us here a while ago because the dogs have not been xrayed for elbows in the past there are no stats to compare - just be careful that's all. You can't throw the baby out with the bath water a far more serious problem is UAP there are no reliable stats as most affected animals are PTS as soon as detected and no-one talks about that!