Question about HD - Page 1

What percentages would you assign to the factors contributing to hip displasia? The three variables I have heard were environment, genetics and trauma. So, what percentage of likelyhood would you rate each of these factors? Just something I have heard a lot of opinions abuot and wanted some input. Dawg

I still tghink its genetics. Because you can take 2 dogs with great hips and produce pups with HD.

Genetics, aggre with Janette,but can be trauma early age,food is part of it.Bigest role ramains genetics. I am interested in ELBOW problems!!!

Just two known contributing factors; heredity and environment (trauma comes under the 'environmental' umbrella). The hereditary component of HD is thought to be ~40%. There is a third factor which can influence phenotype that is neither environmental nor hereditary. A phenomenon known as 'developmental noise.' Not much known about this so far, so unknown if this contributes to HD.

It's genetic. If a dog is structually sound, environmental situations will not cause HD. If it is something environmental it is called an injury.

I would say 60% environment (Injuries & trauma included) & 40% Genetics.    Too many people over feed or feed an improper diet, run and jump their puppies and dogs at a young age causing damage to the bones, cartilage, & joints.  I have seen a few hip x-rays with unilateral HD, I am a firm believer that when one joint is good and the other joint is bad (unilateral HD) it is 90% - 98% environmental caused. I think the majority of environmental causes normally take place between the puppy stages of life to approximately 2 years of age. Once the dogs bones mature, rarely will the dog develop HD. or at least not until later on in life when old age catches up.  At times I have notice that dogs are right or left pawed (Handed) most seem to be right handed. I seen many dogs lay on the same side of their body each time they lay down, If the surface is hard like concrete, or wood, I can see how continual plops could do damage over time. Also dogs seem to push off with the same rear foot/limb each time when they take off running.   I also think that the dog “Indiana vom Wildsteiger Land” that was so popular on the PDB, well in my opinion it may not have been the breeders fault, and may have been just as much the owners fault, I seen and saved the pictures when the owner posted them. This dog clearly had unilateral HD along with visible lose bone fragments, clear evidence of an injury that happened at some point, the other hip was good/normal, this dog was obviously injured at some point in his life. It could have even been dropped as a puppy, who know?  Just my opinions.

 

There is quite a lot of bad info as well as bad guessing going on. Badpuppy has summarised correctly the most reliable info we have available, although even that comes into question when we study the issue in depth. While hip status has been estimated by population geneticists as being 40% heritable, it has been shown that correct nutrition can suppress HD in a population, indicating the possibility that environment has even greater influence. The estimates leading to 40% are relative to hip status of the parents. Since 2000 when SV implemented the ZW program, we have seen how very different the results can be from dogs of the same status. We have also seen dogs such as Jeck whose hips were NZ, yet who produced much better hips than did his half brother Zamb whose hips were Normal. Additionally, the inclusion of numbers of unilateral HD in the studies renders the results somewhat questionable. Do your best to breed low ZW litters, but do not bank on that protecting them. Use the best info you have to grow healthy joints with a safe environment, moderate exercise, a diet as close to that found in wild canids plus some extras that wild dogs live without such as a good balanced food source vitamin, and plenty of meat, tendon, bone, and organ meat to provide the type of nutrition to which a dog is best suited. Best Wishes, Jonah