SV á'Stamp Program Has A Problem - Page 4

[Bavarian Wagon] 14.10.2016 - 15:10  to [Hundmitter]

● "There you go...resort to responding without actually providing any real information."
Yawn.... Something about a kettle calling the new pots black....

 

 

[Hundmutter] 14.10.2016 - 16:10
● "By the way: yes it WAS a "noch zugelassen" dog, (careful with initials here, when also referring to a New Zealander !), or at least that is what the SV finally admitted it SHOULD have been, if I remember rightly.

Irrespective of the pros and cons of any of the schemes, perhaps if I quote you what Dr Willis actually wrote about the british version you will get a better grasp of why I prefer the Hip Scheme in the UK (taking into account that it is now quite well used by the GSD community at large"

Including NAmericans I have been in communication with. Their main obstacle is that the NAmerican public and the majority of NAmerican GSD breeders haven't a clue what BIF-scores actually imply.

Dr Willis was YEARS - nay, GENERATIONS - ahead of The KC (which no doubt influenced them in kicking him out for a few years). Your quote from him:
"A sire with a poor hip progeny test should  be considered poor even if he himself has a good hip result."
is the nub of the whole argument - especially when readers are not educated enough to discuss even Mendelian modes, let alone polygenic ones and epistatic ones.
 

● "The procedure would be simple. Initially all that would be required would be for the KC to insist that before a litter could be registered both parents must be openly hip scored.  At first there would be no need to set score limits because merely getting stock scored would be a step forward. In time, breeders with poor scoring stock would find their market diminished and they would either have to give up breeding or improve parental hip status.  The effect on hip status of the progeny would be spectacular; rapid progress would result.  Eventually limits to parental status could be set because by then no self-respecting breeder would dream of using high(ish) scorers."

● "Well, with benefit of hind sight, Malcolm seems a bit naive there.  The KC did not take the hint, indeed it is still resisting anything that pins Registration ability on a medical test result."
Yep - arrogant, ignorant twits who think that only "educated honourable gentlemen (and their ladies)" are involved in dog breeding.

 

 

[Bavarian Wagon] 14.10.2016 - 18:10
● "Hip quality has increased everywhere that testing is done since the 1970’s."
An exaggeration resulting from overlooking a few awkward pertinent facts.
What HAS improved is the average of the OFFICIALLY SCORED pooches. But MUCH of that apparent improvement is because so many "cunning" breeders now ensure that their pups are xrayed BEFORE the age of certification (which is 12 months old for every scheme except OFA, where it is 24 months). and those with poor-lookiog  plates are NOT woken up.
 

● "the AKC will still register the puppies as long as the parents have full registration."
Guess why I consider the ANKC to be the ONLY English-speaking kennel club worth having! (Aside from it banning IPO/SchH people from being elected to ANKC-recognised clubs' committees.)

● "the OFA equivalency chart, it states that NZ is mild"
No - most of NZ is temperate, although parts of our far north are subtropical enough to ripen such as pineapples, and MUCH of our southern areas are very INtemperately snowy during winter!

STUBBORN about ignoring [Hundmutter]'s advice regarding punctuation, aren't you! None so blind as those who refuse to listen to advice that interferes with their bad habits.

● "Kiwi Boy stating that the great kennel club of Australia"
Er, ahem - you WON'T find THIS well-into-his-70s Kiwi stating that, except for the mere "detail" that Australia is bigger than the whole USA and therefore the ANKC is responsible for kc-type activities over a much GREATer area than is the AKC.

● "is so much better because they will only A-stamp 16 and not 25 like the Germans would"
When WILL you learn to READ for the FACTS?

The FACT is that ANKC issues NO stamps.
The Australian Post Office issues postage stamps. The GSDCAustralia issues "A"- and "Z"-stamps. And various supermarkets (and possibly some other retail organisations) issue "discount stamps".
"the Germans" do NOT issue 25 stamps, let a;one "A"-stamps. I haven't attemoted to keep track, but I imagine that they have issued at least 400,000 'a'-stamps by now. Similarly, I don't know how many "A"-stamps the GSDCAu has issued - possibly not up to 60,000 yet. And fewer "Z"-stamps, because that scheme has been running for a much shorter period.
 
If you d0n't like being misunderstood, start taking the CARE needed to express your thoghts succinctly & clearly, instead of leaving out units and organisation-names but using incorrect punctuation. As the horse people found:-  punctuation DOES make a difference!

Meantime: What the hell makes you think that YOUR opinion is worth even 5¢ while you remain too lazy to actually CHECK what you only THINK you have heard/read/understood?

● "At the same time, when we throw away all other important traits of a breed just for the sake of hip health, we end up losing the most important part of the breed. Sure, the hip health is important to most pet people and of course to working people as well,"
There is no other human category worth considering - either a GSD (or ACD, or BC, or BSD, or Greyhound. GR, or LR, etc is bred FOR the FUNCTIONS for which the breed was developed, with those that missed out on one of the IMPORTANT factors nevertheless being suitable as delightfully intelligent & responsive pets, or they are unworthy of the breed's name.
Regardless of the function, sound HIPS and ELBOWS are essential to every breed. Courage, devotion, intelligence, trainability are WORTHLESS if the pooch cannot reliably move to where its traits are needed. Start thinking  abput FUNCTIONALITY instead of just mouthing off.

● "but when we remove great breeding dogs from our breeding pool over something questionable like the difference between a 16 and 25"
Will you LEARN before someone strangles you in a fit of justifiable homicide?

But try NOW to prove that you know what you are talking about, by finding a handful of "great breeding dogs" whose scores were in that BIF-16 to 25 range.
You will discover it MIGHTY hard to do. You will find some POPULAR GSDs - such as Kwint, who has an 'a'-normal stamp - producing cripples. Of course, finding cripples who were xrayed instead of p.t.s. before they reached 12 months is likely to be difficult - especially from the venal "big money": kennels.

● "Just because a system of scoring is more stringent, doesn’t make it better for the breed or even more successful at achieving healthier dogs in general."
You thereby prove yourself enough of an idiot to actually BELIEVE that! Intelligent people use EXPERIENCE and STATISTICS. Idiots use their "God-given superior intuition" when choosing mating partners.

● "The Americans and the English might’ve improved the hip health of the breed in their countries, but they’ve also destroyed their version of the breed to a point of no return IMO."
But you've already proved in this thread that your OPINION is worthless. The addicts of dogs that I classify as AlsatiOns, Banana-Backs, German Crouchers, Hinge-Backs, NAmerican Ski-Slope Dogs, Prick-Eared Bassets, Teeth-on-Feet, Titanic Tail-Tuckers, or Just-Plain-Crap - that nevertheless are registered as GSDs by such as The KC, AKC, CKC, NZKC (its only GSD limit so far is that it won't register one that the breeder listed as liver, blue, Isabella or white)  - have degraded their DEPARTURES from the breed. The problem is to find people who use their GSDs for herding, or at least exhibit them under knowledgeable judges in specialist rings big enough so that no dog needs to be concerned about the rude dog behind it running up its arse - and where there is a corner I can sit just outside of to see what happens as each GSD slows for the corner then accelerates out of it.

[Hundmutter] 14.10.2016 - 20:10 to [Bavarian]

● "You still seem to be obsessed with this picture of 'English' GSDs as, like the ASL, so diverted from the original German type as to be a 'version of the breed' that bears little resemblance to "German Shepherd Dogs as I know them"."

I don't know any breed with the initials "ASL":
http://www.fci.be/en/nomenclature/races.aspx?init=A
If you mean the deviation that I term the NAmerican Ski-Slope Dog (NAmerican because it is NOT restricted to the USA), please adopt that unofficial-but descriptive term. Otherwise, abandon initials - SPELL the "breed-deviation-name".

● "There IS a problem with the lack of training and competing in anything more than running round a ring with the majority of our dogs"
But the BSE (British Sieger Event) nowadays requires that exhibits in the top class possess the same qualifications (albeit sometimes under different labels) as the exhibits in the GeBrauchsHund classes at the BSZS. And The KC's latest regulations effectively ban the RUNNING, reducing the GSDs to little more than a quiet walk - IF the judges do as they're told.
 

[Reliya] 14.10.2016 - 21:10
● "Hundmutter, I definitely was reading his sentences in my mind as "New Zealand hips." "Noch zugelassen" makes so much more sense."

If  by "his sentences" you mean "sentences written by Les", kindly quote the actual sentences. I am a stickler for following the REAL rules of English, and so (except when my current "divided" vision lets me down) would NEVER type "nz" to mean "New Zealand", nor "NZ" to mean "noch zugelassen".
Punctuation MATTERS!
Compare
«Fred helped his Uncle Jack off the stallion.»
«Fred helped his uncle jack off the stallion.»

 

 

[Hundmutter] 14.20.2016 - 22:10

● "Hell, Les can defend himself"
What? With only one leg, and with one hand using the walking stock for balance when it's not needed as a cudgel? Talk about throwing the defectives to the wolves or poolar bears!

● "as to what he thought he meant (as distinct from what Bav thought he meant); I just wanted to extricate the UK end of the deal. International cooperation between scientists is one thing; 'one size fits all' as translated by Bav leaves a bit to be desired."
I presume you mean something rather larger than the "bit" in a bridle. Maybe you should have put "gh" in it, to refer to something the size of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Australian_Bight  ?
But [Bavarian] is like Fred Lanting - "interpreting" to fit their own preconceptions, instead of doing a direct translation.


[Hundmutter] on 16 October 2016 - 11:10
● "I have already implied Bav is a 'child' still, to his 'face' in PMs, and also that he is stubborn. ...(snip)... Nothing any of us say to him seems to make any dent in this. ...(snip)... Anything that involves actually READING the explanations put to us by others here, Bav fails to study & give any credit to; any info. that has a 'historical' base Bav writes off on the assumption every aspect today stands alone and what has gone before has no influence on it and therefore does not matter. This is arrogance.  What a shame, I think that is a loss to the breed."

I've changed 3 of your "you" pronouns to make it clearer WHO does what. Prnpouns are useful, but lots of people use such a hay-bale of them that the meaning becomes confusingly ambiguous.

 

And now to hope that the CKEditor doesn't chuck a wobbly - after 3 days of struggling to catch up, I'd like to go to bed, read one of Janet Frame's "posthumous" short stories, then get some sleeeeeeep!

Maybe all the hip testing systems are flawed because they are testing the wrong thing? Maybe PennHip is on to something when they test for joint laxity which they have found to be a better indicator of future or current HD........I don't know the answer but it makes sense to me. I read about a lab breeder who switched to exclusively using pennhip. She would actually pay the owners of the stud dog she wanted to use to get their pennhip testing (and tested her own bitches) and she completely eliminated HD in her lines.

I had it explained to me that OFA/SV/Etc test if the "tires" are positioned and fit correctly on the "car" but PennHip tells how tight the "tires" are actually screwed on. They found that just looking at whether the hip lays properly in the socket and is positioned correctly was not enough. Those films do not show how tight the "tires" are screwed on and that is the TRUE indicator of HD.

I did my own research and found numerous dogs who failed OFA who never took a bad step in their life. I'm guessing because their "tires" were screwed on so tight that it didn't matter if the position of the "tires" was not correct. I also have found where dogs were A stamp or OFA Excellent/Good and got HD (without trauma or high performance) because even though their "tires" were positioned perfectly they were not screwed on tight.

I don't know the answer. I saw that the american white german shepherds had a long standing push to test for HD via PennHip and the incidence seems far less in that segment of our breed for HD(other issues might be there but, generally, not HD as a statistic that is significant with breeders who did pennhip).

Anyways, I know people have strong opinions about it. I honestly am intrigued by PennHip but finding a vet that is experienced with the procedure has been a challenge for a lot of people. I'm not advocating one way or another. It just makes sense that looking at a film to see how perfect something is positioned seems more prone to flaw than testing how tightly the joint is actually screwed on. Just food for thought......

From the lab breeder mentioned above:

"I began using PennHIP about 10 years ago and am working on my fourth generation of PennHIP'd dogs and am now able to produce dogs in the top 1% of Labs and litters in which all the dogs have hips in the range recommended by PennHIP for breeding. My upcoming litter is from a bitch in the top 1% of Labs (DI .22/.24) and a stud in the top 10% (DI .29/.32)

Even though Labs have a large population and over 15,000 Labs have been evaluated by PennHIP, it is still difficult for me to find stud dogs with appropriate PennHIP scores for breeding. Therefore, to further my own breeding program, I have paid for the PennHIP evaluation of dogs I do not own so that I can use them for my girls.

I use PennHIP because I get more effective results for breeding decisions than OFA. I use PennHIP because all dogs are x-rayed with sedation by vets who have special training to position the dogs correctly. I use PennHIP because vets are required to submit all the x-rays taken and because the results are measurements, not subjective opinions. I use PennHIP because science supports its ability to predict the outcome of offspring over 3 generations. I use PennHIP because it is one of two evaluation tools that have been correlated with genetic locations for hip dysplasia. I use PennHIP because it works for me to improve hip health in my breed.

Years ago, I also submitted x-rays to OFA, but I have found that approach to be a waste of my money because I don't find the OFA results useful for my decision making". End of her quote

I understand that the pennhip percentage is relative to the total in breed. But, as a guideline....I guess the rule of thumb in that anything under .30 means HD doesn't exist. So, the closer to that number the better even if a breed number is say .50. However, I have seen white GSDs under the .30 which is pretty amazing.

I venture that a lot of the working lines would show lower PennHip scores simply because, like whites, they have not been bred exclusively for show ring conformation but for performance and thus, would need "tires" screwed on tight......

And, the argument that it ruins their hips or they are being "cranked" on seems like a myth. I have found, literally, thousands and thousands of dogs who have bene PennHipped with no incident of any side effect and most were working dogs (field trials or performance).  

Just for disclosure...I don't have a white nor am I am a pennhip advocate. But, I am certainly stepping out of my comfort zone and trying to research it to see if it has actual merit. I think our breed deserves that much and I would be remiss to completely disregard.

Well apart from the fact that hip joints are not 'screwed' together, Smiley, you may have a point there. It is clear enough that in many of the cases where a dog's hips would fail - even be a 'Fail' - under any of the schemes, they still manage perfectly well to walk through their lives without going "off" their hips or being in any major pain.  For my money, that is due to good muscles and ligaments; which of course has something to do with the laxity or otherwise.  Having lived for years with a bitch who had almost perfect use of her pelvis & hind limbs until she became very old, but who had a radiographic, British, score of 60 (29:31), I feel my interest in this subject had a practical base.

However, that would not excuse any of the Schemes from being completely honest about their results; or sellers from being honest about the results given by any of the Schemes.  If dogs are to be sold, and to be used for future breeding, the owner needs the information so they can make a rational judgement.  This isn't to say that no dog with less good hips can ever be bred from;  what it does mean is that you need the full picture, to then judge the dog's suitable partners and whether or not it's breed-worthiness in other areas outweighs its hip result.

[Smiley] 16.10.2016 - 14:10

● "Maybe all the hip testing systems are flawed because they are testing the wrong thing?"
To one extent they are - but until the microbiologists identify all the alleles involved in hip dysplasia (and in elbow dysplasia. And in epilepsy. And in...) phenotype is all that CAN be examined. And the phenotype gives little or NO evidence of recessives that are "switched off" by their dominants.
The BIGGEST flaws with xray schemes are that (1) only in Australia, Germany, and some Scandinavian nations, is it compulsory for pooches to have OFFICIAL xrays before a litter can be registered, and (2) only in Australia and Germany (possibly in Scandinavia, but I haven't asked my contacts there about that. Italy might, too, but I don't have any contacts there) is there any appreciation for the REALITY that a pooch's own xrays don't reveal anything genetically important about THAT pooch - only when incorporated into a PROGENY ANALYSIS do they become genetically useful, as they then tell us about the PARENTS. Xrays are valuable for police trainers and shepherds and people who actually WORK their dogs, as they then indicate whether THAT pooch's working life is likely to be long enough to make the training time worthwhile. However, the xrays need to be taken OLD enough for HD to have started manifesting its effects, YOUNG enough to prevent people breeding from the pooch if it is genetically dangerous. All schemes that actually certificate (PennHIP doesn't certifcate whether a pooch is overall a Pass or Fail) set 12 months as the minimum age, except super-cautious-fragilistic OFA not certificating before 24 months old.

● "Maybe PennHip is on to something when they test for joint laxity which they have found to be a better indicator of future or current HD."
I lost my argument with our Prof Worth about PennHIP.
Laxity IS a factor in HD, just as it is in the rapid deterioration of a motor's big-end bearings. But I object to the fact that the only EVIDENCE Prof Worth was able to find FOR PennHIP was from PennHIP's own team - none from other INDEPENDENT university/veterinary researchers. Would YOU trust the evidence in favour of witchcraft if it came from ONLY covens? Would, you trust the latest medicine from GlaxoSmithKline if the only evidence for its ability to prevent cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, headaches, pregnancy, whatever came from GSK's research team?
 
Based on Dr Willis' analysis of the age at which HD was detected back in the 1970s-80s (most of it being detected because the pooch was in pain, of course), I also do NOT accept the reliability of any claim that a pooch under 12 months old is unlikely to develop HD (PennHIP boasts that it will detect HD at 4 months old - THAT disaster I have personal experience of: Back in 1968, when our profs were trying to find the cheapest way to detect HD, and certain vets began claiming that they could detect HD in 6 weeks old pups by palpating them, we had our first litter. One pup was collapsing in agony at 3-4 months old, so we were sent with our brood to see those profs. Our Zacki happily passed all the physical tests (such as dancing in the waltz position with one prof while the other observed her) but the xrays - taken with her wide awake and me holding her fore-quarter still - showed the worst grade of HD. During discussion we found that the profs had surgically corrected the stud's hips - but the OWNERS didn't tell anyone that.). I cannot find the file in which I stored his analysis, but it was something like 16% detected by 6 months old, 67% detected by 12 months old, 83% detected by 24 months old. Which STRONGLY indicates that MOST future-dysplastic pooches will NOT be detected at 4-to-6 months old.

● "I read about a lab breeder who switched to exclusively using pennhip. She would actually pay the owners of the stud dog she wanted to use to get their pennhip testing (and tested her own bitches) and she completely eliminated HD in her lines."
Please give proper nouns - such as Labrador and PennHIP - their capital letters. A "lab" is the abbreviation for a laboratory - and nowadays far too many labs are poisoning rented housing where "P" (methamphetamine-based drugs) are being "cooked up".
 
Her words that you quoted in your next post do NOT claim that she "completely eliminated HD in her lines" - just that her stock are in the superior category hip-wise (which is itself admirable).

You are more easily convinced than I am - there are a HELLUVA lot of "I heard/read about" LIES on the Internet. However, I am not aware of any HD in my foundation line since my 1983 "bonus?" litter - "bonus?" because, until Ciwa was 6 weeks pregnant, I wasn't aware that she had managed to attract her son to the top of the section and taught him the "facts of life" before I was even aware that she was on-heat. That litter had 3 : 2 inbreeding on Teufel, a VERY nice BS.Cl.1 bitch whose hips I would never have inbred on (I did happily line-breed 5 : 4 on her a few generations later, via 2 daughters by a stud who was a very good hip producer).

● "I had it explained to me that OFA/SV/Etc test if the "tires" are positioned and fit correctly on the "car" but PennHip tells how tight the "tires" are actually screwed on. They found that just looking at whether the hip lays properly in the socket and is positioned correctly was not enough. Those films do not show how tight the "tires" are screwed on and that is the TRUE indicator of HD."
NOT an apt comparison - tyres are NOT "screwed on".
Although hips are not a perfect analogy with big-end bearings, the same factors apply in both cases - the density of the components (bone vs metal), how well the opposing surfaces match for shape, how much "pounding" occurs where the surfaces slide against each other, the density of the lubricant (synovial fluid vs oil), and whether the components are held firmly in place or can unpredictably alter their angle relative to each other.

● "I did my own research and found numerous dogs who failed OFA who never took a bad step in their life."
I have NO idea what you mean by "took a bad step". Defining "a step" to mean the process of moving a foot away from its starting place, I cannot imagine an active dog that NEVER took a mis-step, But MY concern is whether a pooch will PRODUCE bad hips in some of its progeny.

● "I saw that the american white german shepherds had a long standing push to test for HD via PennHip and the incidence seems far less in that segment of our breed for HD"
Accept that there is no such BREED. The world authority on BREEDS is the FCI. Thanks to the Yank fanciers of white GSDs hitching their wagon to the not-accepted by ANY nation's kennel club UKC, instead of working on the AKC or the Canadian KC, they lost their opportunity to "develop" a breed. The Swiss fanciers got sick of calling their pooches "Canadian White GSDs" and being banned from ch.shows, so worked with the Swiss KC and had those of their pooches with sufficient generations of ONLY registered-as-white GSDs RE-registered as Bergers Blanc Suisse, See Group 1 at
 http://www.fci.be/en/Nomenclature/Default.aspx

● "I honestly am intrigued by PennHip but finding a vet that is experienced with the procedure has been a challenge for a lot of people."
Only to those too mentally "thick" to contact PennHIP - most vets are NOT licensed to present xrays for PennHIP reading.

● "It just makes sense that looking at a film to see how perfect something is positioned seems more prone to flaw than testing how tightly the joint is actually screwed on."
There is MUCH more to reading an xray than the POSITION - "details" such as SHAPE. But to get a better idea of both BIF-scoring (as used by the BVA, AVA, and GSDCAustralia) and PennHIP, follow the series through that starts at
http://www.online-vets.com/hipscore_1.html
I am not a fan of PennHIP so haven't bothered checking whether their method of "distracting" can actually be controlled to prevent a vet from either OVER-forcing the stretching or "disguising" the true amount of laxity. If that CAN be controlled, I would be very happy to have laxity added as a 10th aspect to be scored in BIF reports, But I do NOT want the early-warning supplied by the amount of detail in BIF-reports to be lost. The 2 other fields reported by PennHIP are useless and entirely subjective.

[Smiley] 16.10.2016 - 14:10

I can well believe that a breeder gets bad results from OFA. My wife and my vet were the 2 main people who persuaded the NZVA to abandon its OFA-like 5 category   Pass │ Breeder's Letter │ Fail Mild │ Fail Moderate │ Fail Severe   scheme and replace it with BIF-scoring. I just wish that Prof Worth hadn't persuaded them 28 years later to switch to PennHIP, So far as I know, all the NZ GSD breeders now ignore the NZVA and have their xrays read in Australia.
SPEED THE DAY when we can use DNA testing to evaluate possible matings before doing them!

[Hundmutter] 16.10.2016 - 17:10
● "It is clear enough that in many of the cases where a dog's hips would fail - even be a 'Fail' - under any of the schemes, they still manage perfectly well to walk through their lives without going "off" their hips or being in any major pain."
I am VERY dubious about that claim. How long were "their lives" without "being in any major pain"? Add the fact that GSDs weren't developed to WALK - they were developed to quietly & apparently-effortlessly trot - with an occasional sprint to cut off a sheep's attempt to chomp the unfenced crops or a "lurcher"s attempt to chomp a sheep - for up to 16 hours a day. A friend had to retire her foundation herding GSD at 10 because of all the work he had done to teach HER how herding should be done (which he demonstrated WAS needed even though she HAD spent a lot of time with Schäfermeister Manfred Heyne in Germany). Luckily she had 2 trained adult sons and a puppy daughter by then.

● "This isn't to say that no dog with less good hips can ever be bred from;"
SOMETIMES it does - much depends on how MUCH "less good" that dog's hips are, how much of HIS bad aspect(s) is/are due to genetics and how much to physical trauma before the bones gained their full complement of calcium etc, And VERY much on the state of the partner's hips and of HIS/HER ancestry's hip record.

Although actual mating is done using just 1 bitch and 1 dog, actual BREEDING requires rather a lot of knowledge of almost the whole pedigree - especially the nearest 5-to-7 generations and the OTHER progeny each of those near-ancestors produced. Which is why I advocate that everyone have at least one breed mentor to discuss things with before doing their first 5 or so matings.

● "what it does mean is that you need the full picture, to then judge the dog's suitable partners and whether or not it's breed-worthiness in other areas outweighs its hip result."
Except for continuing one's own kennel line, it is MIGHTY hard to actually justify ANY "breed-worthiness in other areas" factor (coat, courage, intelligence, size, trainability, whatever) managing to "outweigh its hip result" when that hip result is more than about 50% worse than the breed's average. With a breed average in the BIF-10-to-12 range, and wanting GSDs to have an ACTIVE life-span of at least 12 years: what aspects do you or [Smiley] consider would justify breeding from a pooch with a BIF-total higher than 15-to-18, or an FCI or OFA or SV Fail?

Les, I was referencing Hundmutter's post where she said Bav was going back and forth with using NZ for New Zealand and noch zugelassen. My brain didn't catch on that he didn't mean New Zealand until she pointed it out.

AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHA

Sorry...There isn't a single post where I used NZ to mean New Zealand. I was clearly speaking about hips and meant it as Noch Zugelassen. The first person to get that confused was the almighty Kiwi Boy because of his great knowledge of English I'm assuming. Sorry, no way should anyone have read my post and thought I was talking about New Zealand. I was clearly speaking of the hip rating.

Can't even bother to respond to the Kiwi after that. I'm glad all of the muppets are more than happy to follow along though after he does what he usually does...misunderstands a post and keeps going off context to try and disprove someone by saying things that have nothing to do with the actual discussion. A shame for the breed? The sheep following some washed up never been is what is a shame for the breed. Keep on reading books from the 1970s, it definitely has bearing on the breed in 2016.

Ok, I have counted.....

One person thought (obviously) NZ is New Zealand.

Another person objected to the use of that abbreviation.

But, Bav only saw the red flag down under....