Best age to X-ray for sport, not breeding? - Page 1

I have a 13-month old male working-line GSD that I'm doing agility with.  Right now we're keeping the jumps pretty low because I haven't had his x-rays done yet.  I'm wondering what would be the best age to have them done, and if it's worth it to go ahead and got OFA's or pre-lims?  I'm wanting to do both hips and elbows.  

Best time still is 24 months...only then, your dog is fully matured, unless you have one of those monster sized dogs.
However, prelims can show if the hips are really bad. I wouldn't do prelims. If your dog has big problems with hips, you will notice before your dog is 24 months old.

He's 75lb and I can see his ribs when he runs, so not monster-sized.  

I was hoping to maybe do his x-rays and start competing before he turns 2, but I don't want him jumping 26" without x-rays.  If waiting until 24 months is the best thing I'd rather do that.  

If it's just for your information, x-ray at any time now that he's over 12 months. If he's having any problems at any point, xray then.

You could always start trialling him at "performance" level until he's over 2--isn't that 22"? By the way, if you're doing USDAA, if you see any of the Intro classes being offered, I highly recommend you entering them and getting your toes wet. :)

Christine

Those intro classes look good, thanks for the heads-up!  You're right, "performance" is 22".  I'm paranoid, though, so right now we're jumping 12".  Even though he makes it a point to leap over the couch at least once a day. :)  

Our club usually suggests hip and elbow xrays on GSD puppies before teaching them most of the agility exercises.

I always do h/e at twelve months before any serious training to make sure I'm working with a pup with sound h/e, then OFA at two. If you're working a youngster and they come up lame in front or rear, you don't have to second guess was there a problem to start with in the joint. Then if you have to re-exray for a lameness and there are changes in the joint, you know pretty much an injury probably has occurred and not a preexisting condition. That's my philosophy anyway. Also, as an aside, when you exray before training, you do not spend months on a pup that can't withstand the work in the the long term.

If you're planning to invest time and money in training a puppy can be prelimed before starting....
The results for Elbow prelims are similar......

http://offa.org/hd_prelims.html

"The OFA accepts preliminary consultation radiographs on puppies as young as 4 months of age for evaluation of hip conformation. If the dog is found to be dysplastic at an early age, the economic loss from the cost of training, handling, showing and so forth can be minimized and the emotional loss reduced. These preliminary radiographs are read by the OFA veterinary radiologists and are not sent to outside radiologists. The same hip grades are given to preliminary cases.

A recent publication* compared the reliability of the preliminary evaluation hip grade phenotype with the 2 year old evaluation in dogs and there was 100% reliability for a preliminary grade of excellent being normal at 2 years of age (excellent, good, or fair). There was 97.9% reliability for a preliminary grade of good being normal at 2 years of age, and 76.9% reliability for a preliminary grade of fair being normal at 2 years of age. Reliability of preliminary evaluations increased as age at the time of preliminary evaluation increased, regardless of whether dogs received a preliminary evaluation of normal hip conformation or HD. For normal hip conformations, the reliability was 89.6% at 3-6 months, 93.8% at 7-12 months, and 95.2% at 13-18 months. These results suggest that preliminary evaluations of hip joint status in dogs are generally reliable. However, dogs that receive a preliminary evaluation of fair or mild hip joint conformation should be reevaluated at an older age (24 months)."

I do lots of sports and x-ray at 6-7 months, I just have to know!

What about monster dogs...mine are all just at standards (not above) and are DDR/Czech W/G but one really looks the DDR dog type.  Would you wait longer than 24 months?  Since we are trying to title (he is one year now) I didn't think I could/should wait longer but since they are slow to mature I thought I ought to wait until 24 months (going to send to the SV not OFA).