Any Penn Hip experts? - Page 1

I was shown a report today from Penn Hip and was confused by the report. It says anything around .30 is considered low for possible HD and anything closer to .70 is considered higher risk. The dog in the report was .45. Then, it lists the median for the breed as being .41. This all sounded okay to me, until I got to the percentile. The dog was only rated in the 30th percentile. If the dog is so close to the median of .41, why would he not be in the 40th or 50th percentile?

Also, in terms of an 'a' stamp, what would .45 be considered? Is this an a2 or an a3 equivalent? 

This is my first time ever even seeing a Penn hip report and I admit that I am not familiar with it. 

The low 40s to mid 40s would approximate out to low fast norma/nz or OFA fair. I prefer to see a dog in twenties to mid thirties for comfort. 

Was it .45 for each hip?  Pennhip uses the loosest hip for the percentile.  For example, I have an ACD bitch that is .38 on one side (90%) but is .53 on the other side (40%) so she is considered a 40%.  FWIW, she was graded a "Good" by OFA.  I ended up breeding her to an OFA Good/Pennhip 90% dog (.33/.38) and the puppy I kept came out with .4's on each side which was rated as 70% for the breed at this point. 

Actually, I went back and checked the report. One hip was .43 and one was .49 not .45. So, I guess they went off the .49 hip. 

Psycht, that is very interested to know your girl had a .53 and then still went on to get an OFA Good. That is part of my issue, I am thinking Penn Hip and OFA/'a' cannot really be compared, can they? I suspect some dogs even in the .5 range could still get an OFA Good if there is no evidence of HD or DJD. 

I personally like Pennhip better than OFA but that is just my own opinion.  I cannot speak for the GSD breed but in my breed I see more dogs that flunk OFA but have favorable Pennhip evals rather than the opposite.  When I get home I will try to remember to post a pic of her hips. Interestingly enough, her first Pennhip was done at 9 months and when she was 3 years old my personal vet was getting Pennhip certified and he used Frost as one of his certification dogs.  She had the exact same distraction levels roughly two years later and with a different vet doing the xrays. 

I would love to see x-rays! That is also very neat to hear how accurate the rating was between the two different vets (and age difference). That is much more comforting than OFA who's ratings can be all over the place :-/

Actually, I've been thinking of giving Penn Hip a try. We're moving to VA in a few months and I noticed there are a LOT of vets offering Penn Hip. That's pretty different from where we are now, where there is only one vet and he charges an arm and a leg to do it. 

You really can't compare OFA and PennHip.  They're grading two different things.  Pennhip is judging the laxity in the joint and OFA is judging the conformation.  Neither is perfect though.  Honestly, I'd prefer it if OFA started grading like BVA, rating each aspect of the hip on a scale of 0-6, so that we know exactly where the problem is.  Two OFA goods that both have shallow sockets (we'll assume this is the only reason why they missed Excellent) bred together are not likely to improve the socket depth in their offspring and could even make it worse.  If we knew that was the fault, those dogs would be paired to dogs that had better depth to the sockets instead of each other and that would allow us to improve that aspect of the joint.  I don't see that happening anytime soon though.

Pennhip evaluates joint laxity as well as the joint confirmation. The percentages compares the dog to the other dogs in their database. For example, my bitch rated 90%, with distraction indexes of .31 and .29. The 90% means that her hips are tighter than approximately 90% of the German Shepherds in their database and her hip laxity is in the tighter half of the laxity profile.
There is a low risk of developing degenerative joint desease (DJD) when the DIstraction index(DI) is less than .30.

There is a low risk of developing DJD when the DI is close to 30. There is a high risk if the DI is close to 70 or higher.

There is no passing or failing score, but I do feel this gives you a far more accurate evaluation of what the hip condition is, and what the odds are of the dog developing hip dysplasia. With OFA, you can make lax hips in a young dog look better than they are with positioning. Then you can end up with a dysplastic dog later on. I know of many cases where the pre-lims were good at 1 year, but hips were dysplastic at 2 or 3 years of age.

Pennhip advises that breeding stock be selected from the population of animals having hip laxity to the left of the median mark. Your dog is very much to the right of this mark and would not be recommended for breeding. OFA may or may not pass the hips, but what PENNHIP is telling you is that there is a better than average chance that your dog will Develop DJD in its lifetime.

What you do not tell us is what the results were. Was there any evidence of DJD on the xrays? This information would also be on the results. If there is, then I doubt very much that OFA would pass the dog. My report states there was no evidence of DJD in either hip. How old is your dog?

The other plus with PENNHIP is you can test much younger with quite accurate recommendations.

Edith,

this is not my dog and no, there was no DJD. I full heartedly agree a dog with DJD would not pass OFA. 

Stary Eyed - you make a great point. It would be nice to know more on hip ratings so that we could better match breedings. 

Would a dog with shallow sockets get a good rating with OFA? If such is the case, then Pennhip would be a better choice for hip evaluation as it is rating both joint laxity (which I would think would be greater with shallow sockets) and the presence of joint desease. It is more expensive than OFA , but more accurate in the long run I think and closer to BVA is it not??