Breeding "Fast Normal" or OFA Fair Hips - Page 6

excellent posts, Preston - I found them very interesting. Blitzen, your post also was interesting in that I recently took two pups to get health-checked at my repro vet - a specialist I take my females to for ultrasound. I had never had puppies there before, and found it very interesting when he turned them on their backs and carefully manipulated their hips - I asked him what for - he said he could tell if they were going to have good hip conformation or not. I had never seen or heard of any vet checking 8 week old pups in that way! (he said both pups were "very good", now I guess I will wait and see if his prediction is correct or not when they are old enough to x-ray!) very interesting - thanks for your posts and Prestons. molly

Blitzen, I remember that study. Our vet (who shoots wonderful Xrays for OFA submissions) also tends to palpate young pups when we bring them in. Basically, he does it to make sure he doesn't feel anything funny in the joint that might be a precursor to serious hip problems. He does the same for the fronts as well...really works and manipulates the joints. A lot of the Lab breeders around here trust his call on hips for their breeding program...not everyone in the Bayou is up for submitting Xrays to OFA.

I knew a few breeders who relied soley on palpation, some even put down puppies if the vet said they had joint laxity and would developed HD. Dr. Riser, the hip guru at the vet school at the University of PA, also one of the founders of OFA, at that time was palpating puppies as young as 6 weeks of age and he was putting them under anesthesia to do it. A friend who had a litter done by Riser put down a few at the time they were palpated with severe joint laxity and took home the ones that seemed OK. When some of the "normal" puppies were xrayed, they were dysplastic. They've always wondered if they did the right thing by putting down those puppies that were palpated with joint laxity. At the time it seemed to not be the most reliable method and, or course, much of the success depended on the skill of the palpator. In all fairness to those who put down puppies, in the 70's we had a very, very high percentage of HD in our Alaskan Malamutes. We always expected that at least 1/3 of every litter would fail their hip xrays, usually the best puppies in the litter. We have greatly improved the odds by using only dogs with the best hips and those with strong family backgrounds for producing good hips. Now we might get a dysplastic puppy now and then, maybe 1 out of 25 whelped. We also get a lot of excellents which does seem to make a difference in the big picture.

The trouble with the Barden's method is that young pups are needlessly (IMO) anesthetized (including the use of gas anesthesia) prior to palpation. In those days, many breeders routinely euthanized pups which did not palpate normally. Fortunately, the single litter I had evaluated (because the sire was known to have produced dysplasia in a winning young dog), palpated normally. My first GSD was born in December 1963. His hips were x-rayed under anesthesia. His OFA number is GS-5. Since that time, I have always done OFA hip (AND elbows since 1987) x-rays on all of my breeding stock without anesthesia. My pups sold to people whose vets require general anesthesia still manage to OFA certify "good" or "excellent". Once, when I asked a board certified radiologist (who formerly read for the OFA and taught radiology to veterinary students) his opinion of x-rays with or without anesthesia, he replied that anesthesia could possibly make a good dog appear bad (due to poor positioning ) but never a bad set of hips appear good. Routine OFA hips x-rays at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at UC-Davis are generally performed with very light IV acepromazine tranquilization. Whenever I do (1) hip/elbow prelims on 6-month-old pups, (2) x-rays for the A stamp, and (3) OFA hip/elbow x-rays, I usually give my dogs an injection of acepromazine which takes effect during my drive to the vet. In my own breeding program, I have used only dogs with "normal" A stamps and/or with OFA "good" or "excellent" ratings. The males I presently offer at stud, Geronimo and Zeek vom Olympus (ZW scores 79 and 77, respecively), have "normal" A stamps and have OFA hips("good")/elbows and consistently produce good hips and elbows. They are grandsons of the late Alex vom Nord Rasen--"normal" A stamp and OFA hips("excellent")/elbows. Their dam, an Alex daughter (out of a Zamb daughter with a "fast normal" hips) is rated as "normal" and has a ZW score in the mid-80's. There--you have my positive but anecdotal x-ray experience from 1966 to the present. Louise

Blitzen makes a very good point. One breeder I know only uses OFA good or better hips for sire and dam. He believes in raising the puppies in big runs and letting them exercise at will. He then xrays both ends at six months and again at two years. He personally believe that the puppies should have no special or easy treatment to prevent HD since he wants to select out the stock which will reproduce problems from the stock which will not. With puppies I have had in the last 10 years (only a few litters) I have used A stamp (A1) or OFA good at a minimum and supplemented my puppies with 1000mg glucosamine and 1500 chondroitin chewables or liquid (I didn't care about the glucosamine but that's how the chondroitin typically comes. Because I planned to sell most of the puppies as non-breeding pets I wanted to do all I could to minimize any possible hip problems. With my last litter I did screening xrays at 12-14 weeks old which were very clean and then sold the puppies. I believe that the odds are high that these puppies will be able to have normal lives without noticeable HD symptoms when they get old. The OFA has listed their findings that early xrays at 12-16 weeks old are approx. 80% diagnostic. Many years ago I xrayed puppies at 4 weeks, 12 weeks, six months, and two years if I remember correctly and the early Xrays were almost always 100% diagnostic for weeding out disabling HD (that is, no hips ever progressed to even mild HD--the elbows were a different matter and more digfficult to DX before 6-9 months). I expect we can all agree on a few things: only breed GSDs with known good joints and if possible proven records for producing good joints and/or "pedigree depth" for good hips; breed only GSDs with good overall skeletal, ligament and muscular health (avoid those who appear weak in the rear, spine, or tail in any way); and never breed a GSD with low muscle mass in the rear. I would much rather have a GSD with good confirmation and extremely good agility, muscling, and ligamentation than one with perfect confirmation stacked or moving who does not have these things.

Can anyone tell me how i can obtain a description of the Hip and Elbows chart for the German version of it

As you know diffwerent countries use different symbols like HD etc and ED another conutry uses other symbols i want the German version but cannot find it

Thanks Steve

If I wanted to use a GSD for breeding I would never trust any "a" stamp rating on a hip Xray taken at 12 months old or shortly after.  Good diagnosis of hip status for breeding purposes requires an xray at 2 years old or older IMO.  And I want to look at a properly positioned Xray in didgital form, calculate the Norbery angle to be 105 degrees or greater, palpate the GSD's rear muscle mass, get an OFA reading and have an experienced Vet I trust (who has read 100's of GSD hip Xrays for the OFA) give me his own opinion, and have other experienced breeder friends of mine examine the Xrays.  If the OFA says the Xray is not a fair, I would probably never use the dog no matter what.  If read as a fair, maybe depending on how the Xray looked.  And maybe I would resubmit it if I had a question or thought is was actually a good (ie better than the reading).

Like it or not, I believe that Jantie is essentially correct on everything he has stated about HD for the GSD under the SV "a stamp" system.  This system IMO is clearly deficient and should require an initial 12 month initial screening Xray and a 24 month final evaluation.  In my view a breeding GSD should meet a much higher standard than a GSD which will not be used for breeding.  Many GSDs without superb and completely clean hips live out normal lives in the home, Sch competition and the showring with no disabling HD symptoms.  This alone should not be used as a criteria for acceptability for breeding.  It is now known that HD is approx 90% heritable, and environment only afffects those hips that are shallow (deficient confirmation), faulty ligamentation, poor rear leg muscle mass, abnormal cox2 arthritic inflammatory issues, etc. 

If a breeder uses only sire and dams that have clean hips on Xrays at 24 months old or older and any pups with disabling HD are produced, perhaps it is best to find the source, refrain from repeating that breeding or using the suspected line supplying the bad recessives.