German Sheperds Hip dsiplasia - Page 1

hi my name is nicolas and i am new in this forum.

i am trying to buy a puppy that is selected. it es very difficult to find one that both parents are Normal of hip.
i always find a mix beteween normal and almost normal, or normal and still allawable

what do you recomend? is it ok to get one that both parents are still alawable? or is that a HID?
tks

Nicolas, where are you located, what do you want to do with this puppy, have you found a breeder/s that you have looked at?
There are many variables when choosing a puppy, one being health/hips, but, I prefer to get a puppy out of parents that have produced good health and hips, even though with a puppy, its always a crap shoot, meaning that things will not always turn out the way that we want them to.

Nicolas welcome,

HD in dogs involves a multifactored multigene inheritance pattern that is also influenced by environmental factors. So no simple answers. While hip xrays help us see that dogs phenotype  (what you see) , they do not reveal the genotype  ( what the germ plasma carries and what will be produced which of course is also influenced by the partner chosen.)

Decades ago data collected by Malcolm Willis (geneticist and GSD breeder) showed that what a dog produced was not directly related to his phenotype.  Some dogs with "lesser" xrays produced better hips. Thus the German practice of allowing several "grades" of xrayed phenotypes to breed was shown to be practical and a way of not too strictly artificially narrowing the gene pool.

What we do know these many years later are some things that better your odds. If you breed from xrayed clear stock using whatever system is in place in your country or one you choose to participate in, it increases your odds of a good result. Note - not guarantees! I owned a male from a dam w/ a good hip pedigree and herself with good to excellent hips. She was bred to a dog again with a good hip pedigree and he had produced progeny with excellent hips. Their son unfortunately had hips so bad we would say they were not in the same zip code. But here is the blessing. Dogs don't read xrays. I suspect because they were equally bad so there was no imbalance, he did not suffer pain or disability and quite happily lived and herded stock until he was 14. 

The other thing that can greatly increase the odds is called sibling depth.  So for the sire how many of his full siblings were xrayed and cleared. Also his half siblings. Is strength or weakness coming more from one line or the other. You repeat that analysis for the dam. The greater #of cleared stock in the family increase your odds.

The Germans offer a system that produces a # called the ZW  which calculates in not only parental statistics but also factors in what that dog produces. I believe it may also factor parental sibling depth as well but I'm not totally sure on that. Generally speaking the lower the # the better. Working dogs tend to have lower averages ( 60s -80s) than show lines (70s -100s) for a variety of reasons including what stock they started with when the system was implemented. A 100 is considered to be the mean. A pup when born has a zw# which is an average of his parents'scores. It will change over his lifetime as more data is gathered. 

Finally, individual dogs can gain a reputation for being a good or bad hip producer. The former are often linebred on in an attempt to capture those genetics. The linbreeding on the latter will raise your risk but you always always have to evaluate what other traits that dog has which might be valuable to keep within the gene pool.

In the US we use a system that has 3 grades considered clear - Fair, good and excellent.  Often times folks will choose for a dog rate excellent hoping for better results  but once again the data, the statistics show that phenotype does not necessarily determine production. Exploring the OFA database you will find that excellents are often associated with families that produce more Fairs. In this case it makes more sense to select a dog that comes from a family of solid Goods. 

So as noted, complex subject no easy answers. What ever puppy you get, love it, keep it lean not fat, good exercise but do not overdo under a year -the joints & ligaments are still growing, also be careful of too much jumping and fast hard motion such as in agility. If you do not breed my recommendation is not to worry about the hips & don't bother xraying. Listen to & watch your dog -she will tell you what she can and can not do.

Good luck. Have fun and be blessed. 

 

Excellent advice as ever, TIG !

nicholas, just my opinion for your inquiry.

it is really not possible for anyone to predict the outcome of HD/ED at a very young age,

there are too many factors, genetic and environmental. but in my very unscientific opinion/experience, genetic is 90%. a lot of puppy sellers will dispute this.

if you are looking for advice, go for the most positive HD/ED results available to you in your country. taken further, purchase after 6+ mo. hd/ed evaluation.

jmo,
Rik