Need advice on "surprise" genetic issues with our dog - Page 2

The breeder planned on using him for stud. She didn't like his hocks/cowhocks. So, she sold him and told you why. She wouldn't bother xraying him for breeding if she wasn't going to breed him and was putting him in a pet home (yours), so she would have no way of knowing what his hips look like. Is that correct? That kind of asymmetry sure makes me wonder about injury, not genetics. You can have unilateral dysplasia, but not typically to that degree. 

Unless I'm missing something, there's been no dishonesty whatsoever, and you just happened to xray and find out he has a bad hip? What/who are you looking to hold accountable for this admittedly disappointing news? Why bother sending that xray into OFA? You're getting a bit carried away talking about "spoiling their breeding business" at this point, imho. I fail to see what anyone has done "wrong." So what if his parents were hip certified? What else could the breeder do? Not every puppy in the world is going to have perfect joints, regardless of what its parents have. And, as I said and Melba mentioned, this is seriously suspect as far as injury vs. genes, so as a breeder who did "right" by not breeding this dog and placing him in a pet home, I would be incensed if someone set out to "spoil" my breeding program because of his joint/physical status. 

Please correct if I/we are misunderstanding something here. I'm trying to get a grasp on the facts before suggesting any possible ways to handle it. 

What are their registered names (his parents)? We can look them up in the SV records. 

Saca, unless your dog has other issues with his back & stifle that cause him great pain, you don't have to issue a death warrant on him due to the HD.  There is a surgery where they remove the ball of the femur making the hip joint a free floating hip that will end the HD pain.  It runs about $1000.00 so start saving up and get it done.  You'll be glad you did.  I know of what I speak...my girl had it done this year.
Deb

We know of no injury aside from the fall in June when Blitz tried to jump into a truck bed injuring his stifle.  If he were injured to the extent to cause HD, it happened either in the prior owner's care or before she acquired him from the original breeder.  In either case, that information wasn't passed along.  We were told he ran into a fence and got a scratch on his eye (does that make sense?).  I gather from posts here that it is quite unusual for this degree of unilateral HD to occur "naturally".  Although I see posts re: bad nutrition causing HD, that is hard to see in this case.  He has always appeared healthy... his coat is good, he filled out as expected as he matured; he is strong and no vet has mentioned anything of concern prior to this week.

I wasn't there to pick him up, but my son says the breeder told him he had been xrayed "clear".  She says not.  He might be remembering wrong however.  Its been 22 months since we got him.  Although he was sold as a "pet", he was sold intact at a high price ($1200).

There are a number of red flags emerging from my research, but it is possible for them to be resolved through this dialogue.  I appreciate the help here in trying to sort this all out, but I will do whatever I can to save someone else this heartache.  Obviously we don't plan on breeding Blitz... we had him neutered... but I don't understand why I wouldn't submit his xrays to OFA.  Wouldn't a situation in a progeny shed light on the breeding pair and their off-spring?

I have not mentioned the parents names because I don't want to impact the breeder's reputation unless she is truly culpable or if there is a higher purpose that trumps an accidental situation.  Please tell me what the SV records would reveal.  Isn't that the European registry?  I know the genealogy already.  That's what lead me to this forum. 

What I am trying to do now is to 1) verify her claim that the parents were clear and 2) understand what my ethical obligation is to future progeny from this lineage and the buyers .

Neither appears in OFA.  I'll try a search in a-stamp and the other one to see if I can find something.   But one of Blitz's litter mates xray was submitted to OFA.  Doesn't it seem strange that one out of 3 would be submitted to OFA and the others elsewhere?  The breeder still shows the other two on her web site along with a later progeny of the breeding pair. The latter is now 22 months old and his progeny are available next week so he was used as a stud approximately 4 months ago (I think). The latter has no OFA record either although her web site says "OFA prelims Good" and yet no record appears.  Wouldn't there be at least a "preliminary" record?

Here is what she wrote: "M[my abbreviation] is a German import with an a-normal (a1) and A[my abbreviation] was prelim ofa good 1 month before she was 2 years old."  M is the stud (now 7 years old) and A is the dam (now 5 1/2 years old).  A does not show any OFA record based on a number of different search approaches including her AKC DN #.

I hope this clears up any confusion.  This is not a subject I have much famiarity with so I'm stumbling along here.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

@Deb, thanks for your encouraging note.  The odd thing is that aside from slightly favoring the left leg (the one with the stifle injury), he shows no sign at all of being in pain.  Our property is filled with 2 to 3 foot stone walls (terraced) which he never hesitates to jump up and down from and a 3 step stairs inside that he has to go up and down.  He gets up to play or check the door with nary a whimper nor hesitation.

The vet made it sound like we should put him in a wheel chair immediately and declare his active life over or worse.  I wasn't at the appointment myself as Blitz is my son's dog, but I am truly aggravated that the vet even mentioned PTS.  I think it was very premature.  Possibly he was worried that we wouldn't take Blitz to the ortho doc if he didn't get dramatic.  My son was a basket case for a few days with grief and is still struggling with the whole situation.

Before I get a zillion posts about this, we are in process of limiting his movement (barracading the access to the terrace, etc.) and he is no longer taken around in the truck bed (by the way, with a cap and opening window into the cab).  We will also explore appropriate exercise once the ortho doc has been consulted and surgery performed.  I've read that swimming is good, but the water around here is very cold and I don't think the YMCA will welcome him... LOL  It's a tricky situation given that he needs exercise and yet the injuries need to heal.  Plus the Chihuahua is same age and eggs him on to play.  Sunny is like Cato in the Pink Panther movies... frequent sudden attacks out of nowhere.

First thing I thought when I saw the x-ray was injury. I'd bet that HD is more environmental than genetic IMO.

You can check SV data base here: http://www.schaeferhunde.de/site/index.php?id=688

Betting your ortho concludes injury. If so, it would have been a serious one.

If someone is breeding dogs not certified, then any resulting damage to their reputation is on them.

jmo,
Rik

Don't limit his movement. Treat him like a geriatric couch potato, and he may become one. Use it or lose it! :-)

This is really confusing to me. I don't understand the problem. You won't tell us the names, so I can't tell you if I can find it in the SV database. Rik linked you to it, but if you don't even know what the different A stamps are, the likelihood of you easily navigating a German website are not that great. Try it and see if you can find the parents.

It seems like you're looking for problems and misdeeds where there likely are none. Why are you doubting that they're A-stamped? What am I missing here that shows any negligence, ill intent, or dishonesty on the part of the seller? He's obviously a German bloodline dog, so I would hardly expect too many to be OFA'd. I see nothing at all odd that only one is OFA'd. They may be pets and not xrayed or may be A stamped. I fail to see the problem either way, or any evidence of any wrongdoing by either breeder.

You bought a dog as a pet, at pet price. $1200 is pet price for a dog of good bloodlines and basic obedience (housebroken, crate trained, etc.) You were told why the breeder wasn't using him for stud. She said she never xrayed him (not that odd for a dog she wasn't planning on using and was selling as a pet). It sounds likely that your son simply misunderstood when she said the parents were xrayed. Now, he turns out to have been injured at some point. Shit happens. I fail to see what is so devastating about any of this. I think you're way overreacting; he will likely have a wonderful life, bad hip or not, whether you choose to "fix" it or not. I keep reading and rereading about how well this dog gets around and how strong and athletic and what a wonderful dog he is and keep scratching my head wondering what the terrible travesty is in this story and who the villain is..........

I'd be happy to look up the parents if you send them privately, since you don't want to post. I don't see what the big deal is in posting the parents' names; I don't think many on here are going to say looking at those xrays that this is the evil deed of a bad breeder. 

Saca, Keep him active but limit his jumping.  Our dogs are stoic and experts at hiding pain.  Echo never showed any pain.  Jumped in and out of the pick-up all day long at training, loves to do the jump and the wall, runs full tilt all day long...then one day I noticed her struggling over the wall...just the odd way she used her shoulders to pull herself up instead of digging in with her back feet.  That evening, she moved around like an old woman, moving from one spot to another, never quite getting comfortable and I knew it was time to address her hips.  We already knew they were crap.  The vet could not believe she moved so well considering how bad her hips are.  We had the worse hip done and I can't say enough about our vet.  He opted to move muscles rather than cut them and Echo's recovery was nothing short of miraculous.  She needed help with a sling for 3 days and then she was on her own.  She tested that leg daily and was a klutz for awhile but now you can't tell which hip it was unless you know what to watch for.  We no longer use the ramp for the pick up but that is the only jumping she is allowed to do...except for getting up on her loveseat.  No jump, no wall and she cries when the other dogs are getting to do it but the vet says if she continues getting along this well we may not have to do the other hip so we are protecting it.  She will be 4 on Sept 30th.  She had the surgery this past St. Patrick'd Day weekend.  The picture of her in my avitar was taken this month. 
Deb

Deb, good to hear there is light at the end of the tunnel; and it sounds like poor Echo was worse off than this dog in the pain dept. (at least at this point. I think the OP is getting ahead of themselves with gloom and doom. I see a lot of hope for this dog. 

This is certainly an injury, I seriously doubt that this dog has genetic hip dysplacia at all. 
The entire right side of the dog's hip/pelvis area shows minute damage/changes different from the left side and beyond the scope of genetic hip dysplacia.  Given the degree of changes in the right side I think the injury is old.  It's very, very possible that no one saw the pup get injured or were aware he was hurt.  Or someone who was supposed to be watching after the pup did see him get hurt (hit by car, or something) but were too embarrassed/scared and didn't tell anyone. 
Heck, even a mother dog stepping on her newborn puppy can cause damage and dysplacia.  
Also, looking at the x-ray of the spine, the lower end of the x-ray, around the pelvis, looks like it shows some abnormalities, consistent with injury.  But other than this area, was your vet saying his whole spine has bone spurs?  The dog's spine looks fine to me, I don't see bone spurs up every vertebrae. 

The members of pedigreedatabase are not afraid of telling someone if their dog has hip dysplacia that appears to be genetic, nor are we afraid of lambasting a breeder who appears to be crooked.  
But if it is a situation that does not have enough proof of wrongdoing, then we don't go on witch hunts.    There is absolutely nothing here yet that has told us that a breeder has done something wrong.   
OFA prelim results are not released to the public.  Owners are given the choice of wether or not to allow OFA to post results online prior, very easy to mark a checkbox on the submission papers to tell OFA not to display information. 
Most German line dogs are going to have a-stamps, not OFA.  Because OFA is the most well know and understood term in the USA it is possible that a breeder may say "OFA"  when in fact a dog is a-stamp/PennHip/OVC/or one of the other certifications.  
Although all GSDs that are bred should be x-rayed first, very few progeny will ever be x-rayed, lucky if even 1 pup in a litter gets x-rayed. 
But, I do doubt that the breeder told your son that the pup you were buying was x-rayed, this was most likely a misunderstanding.  Easy thing to happen when one is not familiar with a certain world of terms. 

Your vet clearly over-reacted, sadly an all too common thing.  I agree, save up money for a hip surgery when your dog decides he needs it. 

Don't encourage him to do any jumping, don't let him pound about on a hard surface.  But it is best if he keeps his muscles strong, so he still needs exercize.