warranties for hips - Page 1

It is said "25-30% is Genetic and 70-75% is enviroment" So since I can not be there to tell people "don't let your puppy jump in and out of the SUV, your puppy needs to be lean NOT a butter ball, no climbing staris and slick for a and so on and so on. How do I be fair but still protect myself? Thank you

It depends on what you believe!!! Many things are "said"!!! Here are some comments that I have heard from veterinarians when this has been discussed!!!! Think about them and draw your own conclusions!!! Does environment affect the ear set? Does it affect the shape of the eyes??? The angles and lengths of any other bone or joint? Are these genetic? Can you change the shoulder assembly by environment?? Environment can affect the **soundness** of a growing animal. It can cause weaknesses to be more apparent. Ligaments and tendons can be stretched, torn or otherwise harmed. The bone, pelvis, sockets are held together and surrounded by soft tissue - muscle, ligaments and tendons - which can affect the soundness of the animal. Do they change the shape of the pelvis, hip socket, head of the femur??? Laxity changes as animals mature and connective tissues can tighten. If it was that easy to fix or control via environment - we would not have HD.

OK I see your point to a degree. I do bleive that if you feed a poor dient, and be over wieght, and jumping something is going to give. I have had cases of HD there were two totally different looks one - the femar head and neck had changes in it (femar head kinda looked like a mushroom top) two - this one was more out of socket no changes in femar or neck. Socket looked good. All were taken in the 2-3 yr period. So would it be fair to say that the ones that had changes in the femar and neck be genetic and the others on how it was raised?

that is the problem with HD - no one can say absolutely for sure!!! A case can be made for either reason for BOTH those scenerios!! - that the one with changes was from adverse environmental factors - pounding up and down steps, constant pogo type jumping with immature soft tissue which then damaged and remodeled the bones, but how do you know ifs the shape of that bone was just genetic???? The other could be soft tissue damage or gentic make up....unless you x-ray every month and track exercise, nutrition etc, how can anyone really say which?? A case can be made for damage when it is one hip only, say hit by car, too much exercise etc...but there is only theory! And I keep thinking back to the arguement of changing ia environmental factors the shoulder angles, ear set, length of bone etc.

Good points everyone, but as was said above; who really knows? We all know the disease is polygenic, and both the S.V. and the O.F.A. agree on what constitutes a dysplastic hip. They do disagree on the root cause factors of dysplasia. I will offer my non-expert opinion after many years of reading about the cause/effect/future of HD. In my opinion, a dog with genetically "perfect" hips should be able to go his entire life and maintain sound hips. He should not be adversly affected by types of exercise or a less than perfect diet/body weight. I think the environment may become an issue for the dog who has less than "perfect" hips, because of the reduced load-carrying capability of the hip socket. For this type of dog certain types of exercise and excessive body mass (or accellerated growth) MAY be an issue. For these dogs one MIGHT say that environment can contribute 75%, 65%, 50%, or 0%. From that perspective it is easy to see from where the S.V. derives their theory. For what it is worth, my agreement for the hips does mention that overfeeding and excessive running/jumping during the first year of life is a serious no-no, and will void the warranty for the hips. Will this type of behaviour cause an "a" Normal to become "a" fast Normal. "a" fast Normal to become "a" noch Zugellassen? Who can say for sure? In my opinion, no one knows, as our experts are not 100% in agreement. If one examines how a dog would have to thrive in the wild, it would certainly never have too much to eat. Its diet would consist of what it could scavenge, not what it could catch and kill and it would certainly mature slowly. For this reason, I think one can place some belief in the theory of overfeeding. In the wild, the dog is not going to excessively run or jump-just enough to find food or escape danger. For this reason I think one can place some belief in the theory of excessive exercise. But, we also know that even wild dogs, wolves, coyotes, and foxes do also suffer from HD. Just not to the extent of certain breeds of the domesticated dog. In the end, the root cause is polygenic, possibly aggravated by body mass, growth rate, and excessive jumping. Possibly. Bob-O

I am pretty much with you Bob-O - I believe that the basic structure IS genetic - just like feet, eyes, ear set, shoulder, croup etc!!! BUT when the basic structure is not real great genetically, environmental and nutritional issues can affect the interaction/relationship between bone structure and soft tissues. I also think that this is why some dogs who are radiographically dysplastic do not show symptoms! These things can and do change, and what you have at one year can change a year later and muscle and ligamenture can affect the useability {?word??] of the joint... I think even if some indication of a genetic marker IS found, that the incidence of non acceptable hip joint conformation - ie, HD - is so widespread throughout our breed, in all bloodlines, that pulling all dogs with that "marker" from the genepool would so severely limit the number, if any!!, individuals left, that breeding would become a bottleneck nearly immediately. Few families are totally clear of producing HD - the same dog can produce Excellent and HD - I can think of three or four dogs that I know personally who have done so without any effort!

Having said all of this, How can you warranty/guarentee Hips!? You can only put the best to examples toigether and hope for the best. There are plenty of examples of OFA good and excellent pairings that have produced HD pups. Kyle

No one CAN "guarantee" hips!!! A breeder can, and most Americans demand, warrenties on hips. No one here breeds with the intention or expectations of producing HD, but accept that it can happen!! In Europe, many breeders do not warrenty hips [or anything for that matter!] - they accept that hips are only one factor in a breeding, and if the pups are dysplastic, they are put down. Puppies are relatively inexpensive in Europe compared to here. That is one factor in pricing I believe. I have 2 friends who have imported a puppy and paid a US type price - basically double the local Euro price! Both these people ended up with dysplastic dogs, and they both received a replacement puppy for cost of shipping. Two different breeders, two different countries!!! From the breeders standpoint, they had paid for 2 pups to begin with!! Another friend has a pup nearly a year old from Europe, and he has a hip warrenty as well.

Thanks Kougar. None of us can guarantee in writing the final quality of a puppy's hips. We can only guarantee what we will do if the puppy is determined to be dysplastic. That said, there can be no such thing as a true written hip guarantee. Even if one sells a young adult who has been examined and certified, adult hips can become dysplastic over the lifetime of the dog. In this case a young hip-certified dog is usually sold as-is-where-is without any type of guarantee. Kougar, your friend was lucky and obviously dealt with a couple of reputable breeders in Europe. Few people are that fortunate or willing to search for breeders of that calibre. Since the problem is polygenic, there may never be a single test that will isolate the gene combination for hip dysplasie. Look at us humans-many of us have a slight physical issue that is purely genetic and virtually untraceable to a certain ancestor. Bob-O

I can only say that from experience our feeding/raising regimen has always produced good results. So outside influence does play a role. If a pup grows too fast, it puts stress on the joints, so it is best to avoid that. If it carries too much weight for its body, it puts too much stress on the growing body. If the body is physically stressed/exerted, it can have an effect on the growing body. If something is lacking, it can have an effect, etc. If you want to protect yourself as a breeder you can do the following: Give an a-stamp guarantee at one year only (4-6 weeks to take x-rays after 1st birthday). Reason being is that people cannot be expect to have their dogs sit idle for two years. Most dogs start training in earnest after their first birthday. You can have a dog a-stamped from just about any country, same effort as OFA or similar outfit, difference is age. If you wait for two years til OFA you have one additional year in which the dog is still not fully matured but that young body is being worked and not necessarily sensibly. So you have one additional year of environmental impact on the body that you as a breeder have no influence over. If people are not working the dog in show or SchH they will start taking it jogging, mountain biking, fly-balling, frisbee playing etc. Protect yourself, request the a-stamp. Make it mandatory to feed proper food (we recommend Eagle Pack Original Adult after 12 weeks of age) and require that proof of purchase has to be presented in case of dispute. In other words, they have to keep the receipts. Make clear that treats are not fed excessively. Recommend what should be given, ie the occasional frozen carrot or banana, occasional rawhide chews. Emphazise "occasional". For chewing needs nylabones are better options for growing pups because the rawhide chews are pure protein. Pigsears are pure fat. Frozen fruits and veggies help during teething though. But man made chew toys can also be frozen. Owner can feed what they want after the pup has cleared the hips. Until then they better feed what works, not the Walmart special and doggy junk food treats all day long. If they want to feed raw, they can do so after the dog has had hips cleared. If it is a seasoned breeder who has been feeding raw for some time and has had no unusually high incidence of HD from their pups an exception might be considered. Newbies to the raw diet do not need to learn the diet on the new pup, they can experiment after the breeder is no longer responsible for that pup, after a-stamp. cont...