Pre lims - Page 1

I would like your opinion on doing prelims on a 6 month old puppy. Thanks

for what reason would you want to do prelims at that age? is  it a male or female......?

Unless there is a medical problem, why waste your money on what can change very drastically over the next 16 months...Yoou have to do it over at 24 mos..and its like wanting to know when your pregnant,,,is it a boy or girl...some people do a sonagrahm, others wait...

Nothing is for sure until dog is 24 months old...

I've only ever done xrays on young pup like that, when she was having problems.  Ended up she was somewhat dysplastic.  She is 7 now and doing great.  Doesn't show any signs at all, even though we know that it is there.  I don't think I would waste the money right now on the ones I have until something comes up to where I need to.  Chaos though, will be getting either his pen hip, or the OFA done when he turns 2.

I had Gunner done before we purchased him during his trial period because we wanted to make sure he was healthy in all aspects.  He was only 3 months old but it was helpful to see the xray and have it explained.  Also they didn't have to drug him to do this because he was still a young pup.  I'm going to go the "a" stamp route rather than OFA.

No doubt the longer you wait to do a prelim on a puppy, the better. I never could stand to wait so I routinely xrayed every one of the Malamute puppies I kept when they were just 6 months.  When they were done for OFA, there was never any change.

A lot depends on the quality of the xray. Bottom line,  you must somehow learn what is a good GSD hip and what is not and how to tell if the xray is of good diagnostic quality. I am convinced that more than one dog owner has neutered a GSD because OFA or some vet said that dog was dysplastic due of lack of knowledge or a poor xray.

I'm just curious then, how many of you have (or know of someone who has) had a dog diagnosed displastic only to have them xrayed again and find they were not?

And, with that said, if the original rating was turned in to OFA, would they then accept the second as passing?

Howdy,

I always do prelimps at 6 month with the pups I intend to keep. I perfectly know, that this will not be the end of it, but if you can see a defective hipp or ellbow at this age, it might not be "worth" all the time spend. For instance : You see that your pup limps in the ellbow, you do the x-rays of BOTH ellbows and check it out. An experienced Vet can give you a pretty fair idear of how the outcome will be at the age of 12 month. If you allready see a calcification within the joint, that is bad, bad luck. If you spot that there is "only" a grow gap, chances are very good that nothing will happen, if you raise that pup acordingly.

To clarify, I mean the term "not worth" in terms of for me as a breeder to continue to raise this pup as a breeding prospect. If said pup has the chance to live a half way decent life without pain in a family surrounding, thats where I would try to put it. If the prognose would be, that there is plain simply no chance for this pup to life like a GSD should be able to life, I would PTS. Sounds hard, but my experience tought me : Rather a hard end, than suffering without an end.

Regards Ulli Dresbach