Xray opinions on 3 young dogs, only 7 mo old. Any chance of tightening up? - Page 4

agree with crash, fair is no evidence of HD and nothing to freak out over.

Many times ratings are the result of positioning, technique or exposure. It's not unusual to see a dog that has been rated fair or mild receive an upgrade on  a different xray. Best to not get too hung up on OFA ratings - fair, good, excellent...... all normal. And, yes, that flat spot where the ligament attaches is normal. No GSD will be denied an OFA clearance beause of that alone. 

From the OFA website:

"The hip grades of Excellent, Good and Fair are within normal limits and are given OFA numbers. This information is accepted by AKC on dogs with permanent identification (tattoo, microchip) and is in the public domain. Radiographs of Borderline, Mild, Moderate and Severely dysplastic hip grades are reviewed by the OFA radiologist and a radiographic report is generated documenting the abnormal radiographic findings. Unless the owner has chosen the open database, dysplastic hip grades are not in the public domain."

Well, Blitzen, now you're just being silly.

Angelfire - how old? Was dog sedated? Best guess OFA good.

Well well, guess I will just have to lower my standards.  Thanks everyone for the education.  I did make it clear in my very first comment on this thread. I stated I was in no way an expert in reading xrays.    I just don't understand if OFA considers Excellent, Good and Fair all normal readings, why not just give a rating of normal or fast normal like the SV does.   What is the purpose of having xrays read and graded.  If its normal, who cares if its excellent, good or fair, as long as its normal.  A really good vet can say if its normal or not, than there would be no need for OFA and their grading scale or their opinion.  

You can always email OFA with your questions, Hutchins. They will answer. If you look at their site you will see that  when they issue the OFA number the rating is based on the majority concensus of 3 vets; sometimes the ratings vary from vet to vet.  As far as I know, the SV only has one reader evaluate each xray so there is no chance for differing ratings. Which is more accurate? An evaluation by 3 vets or 1? At one time OFA did issue "normals" and didn't indicate the rating in the number, only the dog's owner knew if the rating was fair, good or excellent. Now the rating is included in the number. I had 2 dogs failed by OFA as haviing "mild HD". Both were redone and received goods. The quality of the films made the difference. I've used 2 dogs with fair ratings, they both produced progeny with goods and excellent ratings, no fairs. On the other hand some goods and excellents have been known to produce moderate to severe HD, so it's as much about a production record as it is about ratings.

People have been breeding ratings instead of dogs for years. The really knowledgable breeders shy away from the OFA excellent if they know two or more siblings were dysplastic.......many BYB only need to see the hip results of the dogs being bred. So Good to Good is awesome....and these are people with big money dogs. I want to see that a dog has an OFA passing score....after that the other elements to consider are FAR more important than Ex, Gd, or Fr.

Ditto, Gustav. I neglected to say that sibiling and first and second degree relative evaluation should be a big part of a breeding decision. The worse hips I ever bred were from 3 generations of OFA goods. Came to find out that the sire had  a severely dysplastic sibling as did his sire and dam. He was a very nice dog, but I never used him again.

nah Hutchins, no need to lower your standards and you have the experience to make good choices. many people without that experience just toss off "fair" as must be bad. There is so much more to it than that. Was it a fair in which 80-90% of the litter passed OFA or a fair that is the only one in a litter to pass OFA. I would trust a fair from the good litter over an excellent from the bad.

@Nans gsd   I agree in a perfect world better socket depth would be ideal. However the pic I posted is an OFA rated Excellent female GSD of 24mos of age.  We as breeders or parents of GSD or other breeds, need to take a different look at the xrays of young dogs and not be so quick to write them off as "dysplastic" or inevitably useless.  These are young dogs, and while they are very much still growing- many changes take place while they grow and heal. The xrays posted by jbbrbx are clearly very poor pictures. The tech did a terrible job at positioning the dogs, and most would know that improper positioning can greatly influence the outcome of the results.(good or bad). I feel majority of these dogs are infact still well within the relm of being breedable by high standards. A second look should be given before throwing them away.  In a nutshell, I hope everyone would be a little less quick to assume- BOL Angel