Input for PennHIP article - Page 1

Folks,

I'm working on an article about the PennHIP method for the USA magazine.  I will interview one of the vets who has been trained in the method to understand more about the technique and analysis, and get the pros and cons. 

Since this board represents a variety of GSD enthusiasts... breeders, trainers, working line, show line, etc.... I'd like to get your input on what information that YOU would think helpful to know about PennHIP, so that I can ask the right questions in the interview.

Certainly it would be useful to get a OFA vs. PennHIP vs. a-stamp comparison if possible.  If any of you have had your dog's hips reviewed by two of these methods, I would like to know how they compared.  I do NOT need to know the identity of the dog or bloodlines.  Breed, age, gender, and ratings will suffice.  Ex.:  GSD Male, 26 months old at time of Xray, OFA Good, DI 0.31. 

If you don't want to respond on the thread just shoot me a PM or an email. 

Let me be clear that I am not on anyone's payroll to promote any particular Xray method.  I have my own opinions but my goal is a fact-finding mission.

Thanks for your input!

Yvette

Hey SchHBabe -

For Pennhip information I know I would LOVE to see some pictures showing a .1, a .3-.4, a .5 and a .7 in the distraction view - I didnt really know what to look for when I got my girls hips done...and the vet kind of gave me an estimation between .3 and .4 so I am hopeful, but at the same time, I would have liked to have a general idea for myself what good hips and bad hips looked like.

Another would be to go into how exactly the vet measures how much is out of hip, also at what hip rating is safe for breeding and at what hip rating they expect the dog to develop DJD or HD.  Another interesting thing would be to have a couple of diagrams showing a .1-.4 against a good or excellent hip and an a-stamp.

I dunno - for me almost the diagrams would mean more because I really cant find a whole lot of those on the internet.

~Cate

Cate,

Good ideas.  I'll have to search out some diagrams, such that are available.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Yvette

Why don't you call the breeder whose GSd's were used to develop the PennHip method. I will send some info on her if you want to know her name and kennel. She will talk for hours about breeding.

D'mann

D'mann, shoot me the info and I'll get right on it.

You may want to ask some of the following questions.

How is Penn Hip related to the Barden method of wedge xraying ( same technique as the "fulcrum" that PH uses) tried and disproven in the 60s( only after needless puppies and young dogs were put down because it had promised to be able to predict who would get CHD and who wouldn't)?

How many dogs and of what breeds and how many in each breed was used for the initial study before the program was taken commercial? ( I believe it was 67 dogs from multiple breeds and as you know HD is defined differently by breed -so the real question is how can you claim statistical relevance based onsuch asmall sample?)

What happened to the longitude studies we were promised? Supposedly early on Penn Hip was working w/ a number of breeders and possibly a guide dog school( not sure re the school) to do long term studies where an animal would be xrayed at 12 weeks, 6 months,. 1 year 2 yrs( w/ simultaneous submission to OFA) 6 years and at death to show the accuracy of the "prediction" that distraction index could predict HD and long term remodeling change and damage. If done - once again # of dogs, breeds, statistical relevance, oldest age confirmaing xray done, sibling or rlative studies done, improvement as a result of use of DI ( see last question). I suspect the reality is the humans change the animals life depending on the result so thus the promising puppy w/ a poor DI is sold as a pet and lost from the study , the study loses it's population, its promise and its veracity.

If DI is such a reliable predictor why has an "acceptable DI" for the breed been a moving target since day 1 of the program?( The desireable range has changed over time)

A quote from a 1997 penn hip published article "Heritability of DI is higher than that of the subjective hip score; thus, selection pressure based on DI should result in faster genetic change than selection pressure based on subjective hip scores". It's 10 years later - where is the proof of this?

Related to the longitudinal and heritability studies PH has undertaken - since participants are rquired to submit all test results good bad or indifferent - what is the true incidence of HD in the populations they have studied and will they ever publish info on this showing the DI and OFA status of origin stock and succeeding generations and the % screened vs. not , sibling depth , improvement (or not) over time etc.

The two most important questions I would like you to ask however are  these, - 1. what new methods IF ANY is Penn Hip researching or developing for the diagnoisis or prediction of CHD.  2. has PH looked into designing a test that measures muscle mass. In all the thousands of studies done on CHD since the 60s the one absolute proven correlation is good muscle mass = good hips, poor muscle mass generally = poor hips. For study purposes muscle mass(MM) was determined by killing thdogs and weighing the muscle - not an effective technique for breeders. For humans determination of MM was by pinning your nose shut and wieghing you in water - not wonderful either.  But today we have scales that can determine your percentage of MM, Lasers, ultrasounds.  Cattlemen use a method ( I think either lase or ultrasound to determine the % or lean meat a cow has - that is MM - lean muscle vs fat). Why not work on developing a method like this that is non invasive , would not require anthesia w/ the attending risks and might give us the best tool yet?

Whoops here's a third = have they looked at combing DI scores with a scheme like the SV ZW program?

dogmann,  would you please resend your PM?  I accidentally deleted it.    Quite embarassing since I spend most of my days in front of a PC at work.  D'oh!

TIG, thanks for sharing your points.  You've obviously put some thoughts into your post.  I'm going to write these down and see if I can't get some info. 

Yvette

Yvette,  Came across this article today by accident and thought it might be useful to you in framing some questions for your article. Some of what it talks about echos questions I've already posed but there is much more info here.  http://www.showdogsupersite.com/ofa.html        Please note  that I am not an unabashed fan of ofa either - they have many problems that need to be addressed.  This piece just seemed to pull together some of the concerns. It is interesting to find out that it is apparently still an open question re how a force created DI relates to a functional DI.  The whole force thing is one that has always bothered me despite all the claims they do not create damage - yet we are told not to jump young dogs because of creating damage and this uses much more force than you would get in a jump.

Looking forward to your article.

What I was trying to post above (but for some reason this site doesnt like my AOL posts now!).... as a breeder, I would like to know the stats/proof of how dogs with certain DI/percentages of hip ratings produce.  Is there any proof that a dog in the 10th percentile is less likely to produce HD then a dog in the 40th percentile?  If so, how did they come to that conclusion, how many dogs were used in the research?  IF this already is already available, I just havent seen it!

Also, I would be curious to see pictures of the different percentiles.  Maybe see what a dog in the top 10 percent looks like compared to a dog in the top 40 percent. 

TIG Had many good points/questions.  Look forward to reading the article Yvette.