Rox, I have a theory about hips, in that if they tend to be poor to start with, rather than degenerate, that dogs tend to build extra muscle and compensate for it...what do you think? ONLY when they are poor to start with though, I tend to think that those who develop severe disease and arthritis, tend to wither and lose muscle mass. Or maybe it's just my Giants that work like that?? All the best, Dawn X

I agree Dawn from my experience with Dudley :)

She is as my vet has said ( Score of 87) has wonderful muscle tone and looks in very good condition

We have made sure she has the right amount and type of excercise and is at the moment playing with Indigo with a ball, not bad as she is 5 and going very strong

Lucy
x

I think it can work all over the place! :D

My bitch was scored at 18-19 months and at that age she had signs of arthritis already, however she did also have muscle.  She's nearly 5 now and still moves like a dream, but from when the scores came back she went on G&C (We had the two elder's on it anyway)

We, nor vet think she will have a career in vetern at shows, but it hasn't botherd her yet :)

I have a theory about hips, in that if they tend to be poor to start with, rather than degenerate, that dogs tend to build extra muscle and compensate for it

I agree that if hips are poor to start with then dogs do build up extra muscle to compensate - but not muscle in their hips - our last golden developed quite a muscular chest, and we think this was because he had to pull himself up with his front legs as his back legs didn't really have much strength at all :(

Quite right. X-rays have shown that animals with minimal hip-joints (ie, so badly formed they femur is totally dislocated) can have excellent muscle formation and actually appear completely sound.

As previously posted under the US system a dog wouldn't be considered to have Mild HD until (assuming and evenish score) until it scored over 26.

Up to 18 is a Fair score (the non HD grades are Excellent, Good and Fair).

I bet you are glad and relieved that you got him scored rather than  just take the Vets opinion.

To put it in perspective for you My two champion bitches scores are 14 and 15.  The older one is 7 and is well known for her fab movement.  These are dogs that can take loads of exercise, and I would not expect any problems until the day they die (from the hips that is).

My 13 1/2 year old girl who has still going for 2 hour walks until her last months had a score of 13.  she never showed any stiffness, just got a bit slower at the end as had less muscle.

Brainless, How I would dream for 15 to be the score of my bitch, she scores at 75 :)

A novice owner had her bitch sored in my breed and was in tears as her bitch scored 14 (our mean vacillates between 13 and 14 so was 13 that year) as her Vet told her it was high and over the breed mean so she couldn't breed from her!  I have also heard of Vets telling people they should not breed if the score was over 8. 

In fact my Vets receptionist rang me with both of mine saying the scores were poor, at 14 and 15.  Our median score is 12, so as a breed we have few really low scores, but also very few high ones.

Of course in breeds where the mean is high you need to choose low scores to get improvemetn, but in breeds that average in the low teens just keeping the status quo is fine.

Of course I would prefer lower scores and do take them into account along with other traits when selecting a mate, and would not use a high scoring dog.  I am quite ahppy with generations of scores that stay steady at the 8 to 15 mark.