Penn Hip vs OFA - Page 1

I was doing some research and came across the Penn Hip info. Is the Penn Hip method better than the OFA method? It seems that the Penn Hip can be done younger with better accuracy? Or am I misinterpreting?

To me it is like comparing apples to oranges.  I do both tests on my breeding stock but prefer Pennhip as I feel it is less subjective.  However, there are good points and bad points to both tests.  This webpage gives a good discussion of both:

http://www.workingdogs.com/ofa_penn.htm

PennHips is said to be an accurate measure, while OFA is more subjective (different readings according to different vets, etc.--google for a wealth of info). PennHips measures joint laxity, which is the indicator for developing dysplasia. It can be done reliably on young pups, unlike OFA. What you get back is a form that shows how tight your dog's hips are in relation to other GS in the database. So your dog may be, for ex., better than 70% of the dogs measured & worse than 30%.

Lenore,  Both systems have their problems and I for one have found Penn Hip very good on the marketing and very bad in actually providing hard core information.  See this previous discusssion for some questions you should be asking and thinking about.  http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/bulletins_read/153870.html#154185  

For a comparison of numbers - PH has done less than 10,000 GSDs and OFA ahd done approximately 100,000.

Don't forget there is also the SV "a" stamp and ZW system which we can also use in this country.

LeNore, I wrote an article on PH vs OFA for SchH USA magazine. There is a lot of misinformation out on the internet about PennHIP, OFA, and even DJD in general.  PennHIP has some advantages over OFA, and also some limitations. 

If you're interested, send me a PM with your email address I'll send you the file.  It's a MS Word document, and a rather large file due to the many embedded photos and charts so if you're running dial-up it will take a looooong time to download.

Yvette