best time to x-ray female - Page 1

Does any one have any advice as to when the best time to x-ray for HD in a female would be in relationship to last whelp date and or heat cycle? Also what are preferences on OFA or SV certification and why you would choose one over the other? Thanks!

You can submite X-ray taken after 1 year old to SV for "a" stamp, and to OFA - only after 2 yars old. That's the main difference. It also seems that OFA is harder to pass.

Hi Acepatch, I don't know if I understand correctly, but a female should always (!) have her certification, a-stamp or OFA before she whelps. That goes without saying. OFA or a-stamp is personal perference and depends on your situation. If your female never leaves this country, do OFA. If you show and want to breed, do the a-stamp and/or both. But whatever you do, never ever x-ray a female during her heat cycle. You will get a bad reading since the estrogen relax muscles. That is why females in heat wobble so much! Makosh, OFA is not alway harder to pass. We just had the 2nd incident, there the OFA-rating was much better! Years ago, I co-owned a female who was x-rayed here in the US, x-ray sent to the SV through USA, and it came back as a-noch zugelassen. We had submitted a copy of that same x-ray to OFA for a prelim. reading and that came back as GOOD. This particular female went to Germany for titling and I protested Prof. Brass' reading. The SV granted us that we can get her re-xrayed, which was done in Germany. The SV Breed Book Office then changed her a-stamp to "Fast normal". I guess, a-normal would have been too much to ask for, lol. Now, the same thing again. A friend submitted an x-ray on a dog to the SV through USA, received a-noch zugelassen, went to a different Vet for another x-ray, sent it to OFA and received OFA-GOOD. Dog is almost 3 years old. This is strange, isn't it. Chris

In addition to Chris comments, you can also get an OFA prelim if you want to know if the young dog is developing well. If you plan to raise a pup for example, it is a wise decision to prelim so that you know your efforts are worth it (we prelim at 8-10 months, note - ED prelims should not be done before 8 months because elbow bones are not properly fused before then and ED prelims will be inconclusive if done to young). Or if you feel that you absolutely must breed a dog under 2 years of age, a prelim will at least give you an idea what the hips are like. The OFA does prelims starting at 4 months of age. You will get a letter back from them with an inofficial evaluation. It is not the same as the proper OFA certification though, but the prelim is fairly reliable. I quote the OFA website: "A recent publication* compared the reliability of the preliminary evaluation hip grade phenotype with the 2 year old evaluation in dogs and there was 100% reliability for a preliminary grade of excellent being normal at 2 years of age (excellent, good, or fair). There was 97.9% reliability for a preliminary grade of good being normal at 2 years of age, and 76.9% reliability for a preliminary grade of fair being normal at 2 years of age. Reliability of preliminary evaluations increased as age at the time of preliminary evaluation increased, regardless of whether dogs received a preliminary evaluation of normal hip conformation or HD. For normal hip conformations, the reliability was 89.6% at 3-6 months, 93.8% at 7-12 months, and 95.2% at 13-18 months. These results suggest that preliminary evaluations of hip joint status in dogs are generally reliable. However, dogs that receive a preliminary evaluation of fair or mild hip joint conformation should be reevaluated at an older age (24 months)." Source: http://www.offa.org/hipprelim.html There is a lot of info on HD and the OFA process on their website at: http://www.offa.org/hipinfo.html I suggest you take some time and read through the information provided there. You can also get hip scores done by the PennHip method, also starting at 4 months of age, and by the OVC in Canada, which only awards a pass or fail. To stir up a bit more thought: If prelims taken as early as 3 months are reliable within a roughly 10% margin of error, would that not be a strong indication that changes to the hips after prelims are acquired, rather than genetic (inherited)? Maybe something for another topic...

Just to make a note, something DH missed with the PennHIP (Pennsylvania Hip Improvement Program) is that it is VERY reliable and also VERY expensive in comparison to OFA. It is a good idea, however, if you are going to be using the dog for breeding eventually, to have this as early as possible, so as not to waste a lot of time, effort and money on training, titling, showing, etc. This is NOT to say that training would be wasted on such a dog, but one would not want to pay $3000 (just throwing out a number) for Schutzhund training, only to find out that the dog is dysplastic. One more thing, PennHIP requires ALL films (x-rays), whether showing dysplastic hips or perfect hips, be sent in and entered into their database. These PennHIP records are confidential and are not released to the public without written consent from the owner. I would agree, DH....it indicates to me, personally, that changes in the hips could very well be due to environmental issues rather than just genetics! I've been a proponent of such for a long time.