Hips Change??????? - Page 1

I have my opinion but am looking for others. Lets say you check the hips out at 1 yr and get an "A" stamp, how much can they change by the age of lets say four or five. Excluding an obvious injury.

Due to environmental factors, I think they COULD change quite a bit, meaning what work have your done with the dog, weight, type of exercise and warming up the dog before you work him say in Sch.; family history, food you feed, keeping up the muscle tone, etc.  I could probably think of more.  Normal wear and tear, jumping is a biggy more straight up and down on cement than over obedience jumps;  hum...  My old vet that loved the ortho part of his job felt HD was like 75% environmental, excluding the obvious troubled breeds.  Nan

Also, how the dog was raised as a puppy; hard surface, soft and controlled exercise, or hard roadwork, all have factors for later in life.  Some of my best hips still became arthritic later in life due to cement surfaces (kennel life) even though they ran on softer surfaces like pea gravel or grass and not road worked??  Go figure.  N

PS:  All of the above except family history is environmental..

our bodies change all the time, our joints wear out (knee and hip replacements for instance), our muscles and connective tissues also changes (tennis elbow, corpal tunnel, etc.).......dogs also.....



i know if a female that was graded as (a)normal at 18 months... she had a very bad habbit of jumping straight, and has been doing it for years... she is now 4 and her hips are now borderline...

i also know of a female that was graded at mild at 12 months and at 2 years graded as good.

I actually had a somewhat opposite question.  I have a puppy who at 7 months of age has one hip that is normal and one that is subluxated on radiographs.  She shows no lameness. I thought it might improve with time radiographically, but have been assured by the orthopods that it will not....

Swim her, build up her muscles with non impact work...... she could improve.

How close was she to her first heat when the x-ray was done it makes a difference.

Of course I hope there is a chance for improvement . It seems as though only 50% of the femoral head is seated within the acetabulum when 2/3 or more should be in a normal hip.   She has not yet had her first heat, the xrays were taken as an adjunct to elbow xrays due to a forelimb lameness.  

From the OFA website:

Radiography of pregnant or estrus females should be avoided due to possible increased joint laxity (subluxation) from hormonal variations.OFA recommends radiographs be taken one month after weaning pups and one month before or after a heat cycle. Physical inactivity because of illness, weather, or the owner's management practices may also result in some degree of joint laxity. The OFA recommends evaluation when the dog is in good physical condition 

If it is due to hormonal variation why would it be unilateral rather than bilateral laxity?

For one thing, legs move independently. For example, if you know of anyone with arthritis in hands or fingers, they can tell you the digits are not all equally affected, some are worse than the others most times. Same with hips. Usually, when you view X-rays of hd, one side will be much more severely affected than the other side.

EisenFaust, my female was x-rayed at age 1 in Czech and received 0/0.  I just had her hips redone with OFA at age 4.5 and she received a Good even though on x-ray her hip positioning was poor.  She's a jumper too.  Interestingly, of the 10 or so half siblings that had records online (owner reported) , all had a1.  And of her litter mates, I believe 2 had 0/0 and 1 had 1/1

I remember someone posted a dog who despite being heavily obese her whole life still received OFA Excellent at age 3.

I think environment can catalyze hip problems; but like many autoimmune diseases, there is a genetic predisposition.