fast normal hips in dogs pedigree - Page 1

I would like some feedback on this dog. His hips and elbows are normal, he is a nice guy, but there is a lot of fast normal hips and elbows in the pedigree. I worry about the possibility of these less than normal hips being passed on to his pups.
Figo du Val d'Anzin (http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=726551-vv-1-b--figo-du-val-danzin)
He is a very accomplished guy and I am interested in a pup of his; any information would be helpful.

-- mr

Clickable link.

 

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=726551-vv-1-b--figo-du-val-danzin

There are no guarantees.  Even if you only bred dogs to

dogs with OFA Excellent / German full 'A' stamp (not A FN) / UK above breed average score / etc, any other country's

scheme you care to name, while it will reduce the risk, there will still be a proportion of dogs born who develop HD, with

or without associated arthritic joint disease.  It's just a

feature of the condition;  all any of us can do is hope to

reduce the odds.  Nobody has yet found an absolute

cure.

Some believe that you can alter the chances of getting

it, or make it easier to deal with once you've got it, by

manipulating the environment (food, supplements,

exercise, etc) - but it is still basically a genetic problem

which remains subject to the throw of nature's dice.

 

So you can only do your best - if you are going to breed

puppies, by all means use the lines that have the best

hip results that you can find, but do not use only those

dogs at the expense of everything else good that you

want to produce.  Breeding is a crap shoot.  Same with

buying a puppy.

Recently read an article on HD. It said all puppies are born with healthy hips, and for some dogs it is a matter of a gene or genes that gets turned on at a certain age. It went on to say that keeping the dog healthy, at a normal or "sport" weight, good muscle development, avoiding certain types of exercise (e.g. swimming good, fetch with a ball bad) on certain surfaces can help decrease severity. I believe the gene affected the major tendon that holds the head of the femur in place although good muscle development helped stabilize the joint.

Why genes are turned on or off is still up for grabs, and the going theory in regard to gene therapy is not whether they are there but whether they are turned on or off.

In the end, you have a better chance of having a dog with healthy hips if thete is a history of healthy hips in its pedigree. And environmental influences are also important. You can also ruin a dog's healthy hips by letting it get too fat and lazy, or even by a lot of exercise that puts unhealthy stress on the joints. And GSDs were never meant to be huge dogs. A big frame only adds to skeletal stress.

Even if you can say there are no gurantees, you can still stack the deck in your favor.

Recently read an article on HD. It said all puppies are born with healthy hips, and for some dogs it is a matter of a gene or genes that gets turned on at a certain age. It went on to say that keeping the dog healthy, at a normal or "sport" weight, good muscle development, avoiding certain types of exercise (e.g. swimming good, fetch with a ball bad) on certain surfaces can help decrease severity. I believe the gene affected the major tendon that holds the head of the femur in place although good muscle development helped stabilize the joint.

Why genes are turned on or off is still up for grabs, and the going theory in regard to gene therapy is not whether they are there but whether they are turned on or off.

In the end, you have a better chance of having a dog with healthy hips if thete is a history of healthy hips in its pedigree. And environmental influences are also important. You can also ruin a dog's healthy hips by letting it get too fat and lazy, or even by a lot of exercise that puts unhealthy stress on the joints. And GSDs were never meant to be huge dogs. A big frame only adds to skeletal stress.

Even if you can say there are no gurantees, you can still stack the deck in your favor.

Sure; just trying to illustrate why the Fast Normal dogs in the
pedigree were probably still used, and that even if they had
all been perfect there will still have been some risk. (As you
say, we don't know how / why to turn the genes on & off ...yet?).

OP seems to be seeking a way to prevent the 'less than perfect'
hips in previous generations - tho' gawd knows Fast Normal isn't
SO much worse than perfect - from turning up again at all. Can't
be done; but isn't the end of the world either. You gotta have a
balanced approach to this stuff or it'll drive you bonkers.

And that is without even beginning to consider the other things
(like elbows) we can know stuff about / test for, which we can
skew our breedings to avoid ... but maybe do not always need
to. Let's face it, maybe 'nobody' would ever breed any more
dogs at all, if everybody stuck to the avoidance principle. Now,
maybe (also), that would not be SUCH a bad thing if hardly any
litters were bred ...but over-production is a different issue.