HIP XRAYS- opinions, please! - Page 3

jenny , first of all , my english is fine , only not in medical terms , and when I say "" if your breeding , the first person you got to be honest to is yourself""  I dont mean you ,jenny , but in general ,  maybe I should have wrote , one has to be.

for me hips are either good or bad , and I dont think these are good

finally , if you think that these will be better when the dog is not in heat , positoned differend , at summerday , or after swimming or whatever , I think your fooling yourself , as I have never in 25 year seen or heard evidence that these factors will improve or degrade hips , exept for positioning , but with all different positioning , I dont see were these would improve
I will see if I can find some hippics to compare and show what I mean , you say you dont see squares , I dont see good shaped ,round heads

not trying to be offensive , only replying to your question

blacktorn , Im talking about the first set
I wish I was a computer genius and could put arrows and numbers on a picture , sure would make it easyer to explain

OFA is just a tool to go by, you have no idea how bad or good a dogs hips are until an x-ray is taken.

If you think about it, OFA has 3 different vets giving 3 different opinions and coming into one consensus,

Why don't all the vets have the same answer, unless of course the hips are out of the sockets on both sides, then that's quite obvious, but all it takes is one out of three to say mild, the others could be saying fair,

Why not just one vet to view the x-rays, or why not 5 different vets looking at them, such a guessing game.

Why three?

You must also take into consideration what grades her littermates got, and how many good hips in the three to five generations behind her.

Thanks for clarifying that you weren't addressing ME. 

Again, what I'm saying is not that they WILL look better, but just pointing out variables/circumstances which CAN/DO influence hips. I have seen nothing short of miracles a time or two under different circumstances/different xrays and I don't think hips are as simple as "good" or "bad." If that were the case, we'd have solved HD already. 

No need to get more xrays; I have quite a few of my own, and as I said, this was posted to help people totally NEW to reading hip xrays see why opinions are what they are on these hips. I'm pretty decent at reading hip xrays. I don't see squares; I see heads that are not as round as, say, an "excellent" but I don't see squares. There is a lot in between circles and squares, which is why we have different ratings on a scale. 

I don't think this dog is going to be affected by this, particularly because at 3 she has no arthritis. The problem w/HD is not HD in and of itself; it's a poorly fitted joint causing improper wear and thus arthritis, which is where the pain comes in.

Again, thanks for replying. 

 Hey, wait a minute, everyone!

I'm getting confused now...............you all do know that the first post where there are 2 xrays posted is just some weird duplication, right? That is the IDENTICAL photo...it just popped up twice. 

The horrendous set I posted was kind of to tease Duke and Melba for what I thought was an overly-pessimistic outlook on the first ones, the ones we are discussing. 

All I can say is I am now very confused.

YR

 Good! Now I'm not lonely anymore!

Hi Jen,
I would have thought she would have gotten a "fair" rating.....
I don't see any obvious changes or arthritis either....so I would guess that she should not have severe problems in the future.

*The worst set of xrays that I have seen was from a Rottie female.
When we xrayed her...the vets could not believe that she had completely "flattened" heads.
This Rott was a very large female, SUBSTANTIAL bone, and weighed in at 98lbs. (not heavy/fat at all).
We almost considered buying her (co-own) until we saw the xrays.......all 3 vets were shocked at them.
No arthritic changes either.....because of how they were formed, and having no signs of changes...she obviously was born with a malformation of the joints...and it never bothered her in life.
This females xrays were taken at 3 yrs old, she was bought by a close friend.....and lived a wonderful "pet" life. She died at (I think) 9+ yrs old....and was never crippled.
Gorgeous female from Jeneck's Santor & Wotan bloodlines.  Litter-mates were all ok...as far as I remember.
*This was over 16 yrs ago.

 Uh-oh, Robin, you're making my wheels turn again about how we understand dysplasia. I have posted previously about the one older male (LARGE) with somewhat "flattened" heads, though they never changed throughout his life. It wasn't so much that the head wasn't rounded where it came in contact w/the socket; it was more like there was little to no distinction between head and neck. He was VERY heavy boned as well, guessed to be Rott or Mastiff when I posted the xrays. 

Anyway....OFA didn't like the conformation, but upon pressing for an explanation, they didn't have much to say besides "abnormal". No subluxation, no arthritis (a very minimal amount that they didn't deem noteworthy based on age), but "remodeling."

My question, and the big problem I have w/OFA's "one shape fits all" approach to hip opinions, is that if a dog is born a certain way, if it never creates a problem, if other dogs in this bloodline share a similar conformation of those joints, if there never is arthritis, if there is no subluxation, and the general conformation doesn't change in the span of 5+ years to a lifetime, why, then, is that dog not a candidate for breeding and labeled dysplastic?

Instances like this and the one you describe make me like SV better because I think they are more likely to get a more varied view for what the range of "normal" is in our breed. I bet if you took the number of European bloodline GSDs that OFA sees as compared to the total number of hips, and then considered that in contrast to what the SV sees....well.....I think I would take the SV's opinion over OFA. I don't like tha OFA rates by opinions based on a comparison of their "ideal." I don't think "different than what they're used to" is necessarily "dysplastic."