If it is only 35-40%, there is MORE chance of HD being something else. So what's the point of hipscoring??? I do hipscore, but have just been thinking about this, and wondered what peoples thoughts were.

It till can't be denied that in general (i.e. with the odd exception), low scoring parents have low scoring pups and vice versa. My dogs have always been treated the same as regards early exercise etc. I had a Golden from a mother with a score of 60, his score was 96. My Malinois have never been higher than 12, most below 10 -like their parents. If heritability didn't play a big part you would not get different BMS.

If heritability didn't play a big part you would not get different BMS.

Yes, according to studies its only 35-40% though.........

Yes, according to studies its only 35-40% though.........

But how much of the rest is due to ignorant pet owners over exercising their pups I wonder? My mum told me the other day of how she'd been out in the woods, walking along a running track, when she came across a woman running with a Golden puppy approx. 12 weeks old, if that. Running a track that is miles long with no shortcuts to leave it sooner!!

It's worthy doing it to ensure that you don't use a whole line of high scoring dogs, thus never enabling the BMS to be low and also not ensuring that you improved on the breed. 

I have used a highish scoring male who in his country of origin had his hips done with a score of excellent.  I was lucky because I was able to see hipscores abroad of his pups and grand pups to see that he was producing low scoring dogs.  He has also produced low scoring dogs over here as well.  He's 12 today and it's only for the last year that he's been getting stiff so his hips didn't stop him leading a good healthy life in his first 10 years of life.

Even at that level it's got to be better.

If the genetic side is taken care of then hopefully the environmental factors will not have such a bad impact.

In other words a dog with genetically good hips may end up with a poor set from environmental factors, but they re going to be better than a dog who already had bad genetics and then environment to compound the problem.

In our breed we now have a genetic test for prcd-PRA a blinding condition.  In our breed symptoms are late onset and most dogs do not suffer any sight loss until old age.  all good breeders are DNA testing and breeding to ensure no affected pups are produced.

There are those who would argue that what is the point as the old dog may well go blind with old age cataracts before it would go blind with PRA?, and in fact that appears to be the attitude of many in the country of origin when the matter of DNA testing of breeding stock was raised.

Barbara, I sent you a PM. Did you receive it?

nope, try again  :)

Like most genetic linked health problems there is the heritable predisposition towards getting the problem and the added items that may include poor husbandry or environment can tip things from healthy to unsound, so why not aim for the best when testing is available.

my boy has hips 0-0 and has a pup we couldnt stop him jumping ,he still does for his ball , hes a very active boy always has been so im not sure ,but we didnt walk him alot just very short walks when he was a pup has he got other dogs here to play with.

Was interested to see two littermate scores in BRS - one at 3/4 and one at 33/30 - didn't know quite what to make of that!

M.

My bitch has 0:0 hips and 0 elbows, but if I ever get round to breeding, it is highly unlikely with my breed (Labradors) that any of the pups will have the same score as her, and some may have a higher score/grade than both parents combined.  Anyone not understanding how the hip scoring and elbow grading systems work, eg someone just reading the health test results off a website without really knowing what they mean, may think of that as a failure. 

As well as the condition being partly hereditary, partly environmental from exercise etc, I've been interested to read posts by experienced folk before about their conjections that some pups may receive damage to the joints depending on how they lie in the uterine horn, particularly with larger litters. 

Tau, btw, was a nightmare pup, jumped over/off everything she could get onto, and since she was jumping baby gates by the age of six months there was an awful lot she could get onto.  She ran round like a loony and still does!  Maybe I should think twice about a pup from her if it's going to be anything like going through that again, lol!

lol i was tinking the same thing about keeping a pup from his sired litter but i am LOL .and im hoping she will take after her mum and be very clam ,layed back and such a good girl LOL

LOL my 6 month old is the same and I die every time she dives off something.  Mum has hipscore a few points under the breed average and dad has the breed average score, fingers crossed that all her diving off things won't affect the score!

Now if I were health tested, or even more importantly, sanity tested, then I certainly would have something to worry about, lol!!!

Is it time for a glass of wine yet.......

LOL thats how i was ,every time he jumped up for his ball or jumped the dog gate or ran around the house like a loon ,it worried me sick ,when we took him to be scored i prayed for average and was so shocked at 0-0 but over the moon :)

LOL yes its friday go for it hehe!

"Now if I were health tested, or even more importantly, sanity tested, then I certainly would have something to worry about, lol!!!"

same here :-) x

I think if we were to be health tested before being bred from we wouldn't last another generation LOL!

I have often said that I am not breeding material and tell my hubby all the time he was terrible breeding material. Passing on bad eye sight, poor hips, you name it -it would never happen to a wellbred dog. :)

My poor kids don't stand a chance with all the problems my parents & my in-laws have!

As for the hips, my first champion had a high hip score, all her offspring were very low hipscores.  She had fabulous movement as well.

I tend to look at the offspring's hips of a stud dog rather than his own hips.  I have a bitch who has below average for breed hips but her dad's hips were not great, but I don't think he produced any hips as high as him.

I grew up believing that it was 60:40 ratio, but I still insist on seeing a dog hip scored before using it at stud.  Think it's about 40 years of hip scoring, can't say we've moved on much in my first breed (as a whole not a personal thing) to be honest, however carefully we have bred.

"As for the hips, my first champion had a high hip score, all her offspring were very low hipscores.  She had fabulous movement as well.
"
So what factors did you take into consideration when breeding from a bitch with a high score? Obviously she was a prime example of the breed with good movement, but weren't the bad hips a consideration? Weren't you worried? What was the point of hipscoring, if you bred from her with a high score anyway?

> What was the point of hipscoring, if you bred from her with a high score anyway?

couldnt agree more, in one of my breeds many are scored yet bred from regardless of the score, and i mean high scores not just slightly over the average, the highest i know being 93, with 3 litters!

Cant see the point of scoring and then breeding from a score like that myself

I do sometimes wonder how strongly inherited the hips really are.
Really bad hips are bad hips what ever e.g if dog has hardly any hip socket this is obviously how it was born but some of the changes that can cause dog to score high, I do think external factors can have a huge effect.

Few years ago, in my breed we had a breeder (not in UK) who constantly bred bad hips, I mean dogs they bred had bad results more often than not.
Now the interesting bit is most dogs they used were scored and had good hips themselves and were from several different lines but this breeder still managed to get bad hips.
Others breeding from same lines did not have the hip issues so it must have been external factors that influenced the results.
Was it the set up at the breeders? Feeding at the breeders? Advice given to puppy buyers e.g maybe no advice was given?

I do think scoring is important and should be taken in to account but maybe sometimes the bigger picture is more important than individual score...
For example again in my breed years ago, we had a profilic stud who had A hips, great!
All his siblings however had very very poor scores(very rare in my breed for a whole litter to score high).
I would rather pick a male that maybe did not have great hips if all siblings scored low instead of the situation other way round,which is why in my opinion there need to be more than few puppies in the litter scored to get true picture...
Saying this, the male mentioned above did not leave any more bad hips than any other male so maybe the results for the litter were affected by some external factor when the litter was young or even not even born?

Breeders really do have a difficult job and some decisions that may look like not the best ones(e.g. using high scoring dog) might be very well thought through and with the knowledge people have, only look "bad on the paper" so to speak.

noora i agree with everything you have just wrote! i know of a breeder within my breed her boy now 8 has produced all low hips offspring even when put to highish girls, apart from 1 in and thats my friends girl with 1 side being 30 and the other being 6! ,now i know not all have been hipscord but 80% that have had below averge and even scores, now if that isnt down to external fators i dont know what is. x

What was the point of hipscoring, if you bred from her with a high score anyway?

We're talking 25 years ago now, it was thought that it was partly how the dog was brought up & partly hereditary in those days (in our breed anyway).    I'm still a firm believer that upbringing & correct excercise in a young dog is important as far as hip are concerned.  Her hips were higher than the average, hip scoring wasn't a requirement, we were one of the few breeders doing it at the time.  The dog used on her had a low hip score.  As with any "hereditary" disease, if the bitch is clear from everything else & the gene pool is small, would you take a bitch with a higher than average hip score out of the gene pool.  Perhaps we were just lucky with all her offspring being low scorers. Would I do it today?  Probably not!

The answer is in the question...ie this breeder used different lines of dogs, ie outcrossed presumably?

HD is hereditary, no disputing it! We should only use low scoring dogs (its all relative and you have to include other factors ie not just their hips), however it is a complex issue, with 3 or more genes required to produce.  So, line bred dogs are less likely to show HD as in general the parents will be carrying similar genes, so they may have 1 or 2 of the required genes.  This means they carry HD but their progeny don't display it.  Now, you outcross these same dogs with other lines who may be carrying the other gene and, hey presto, you get HD in the progeny.  This means that whilst the parents may have low scores, the offspring display HD.

As for environment, yes owners can cause significant problems for their dogs.   I know of at least one agility dog whose hips were damaged through over exercise,  this can affect hip scores, but perhaps isn't technically HD. HD can be exacerbated by the environment - too little as well as too much exercise. I've also heard a breeder blame an owner for an extreme case, saying she allowed it to be bumped through doorways by adult dogs - this dog had fantastic sockets - just that the ball and socket never met, yet the breeder denied any blame.  The dog required a huge operation where the bones were broken in 3 places so the joints could be aligned correctly, with extensive post op physio by the dedicated owner.  She has now competed in agility and is now about 8 or 9 and no ill effects.

So, it's important to realise that HD is hereditary, but is very complex, which is why there isn't currently a DNA test for it. 

> The answer is in the question...ie this breeder used different lines of dogs, ie outcrossed presumably?
>

No, I did not mean outcrossed but different lines.
e.g. they bought in and imported dogs from different lines but still managed to keep breeding bad hips whereas others with those same lines did not.
I meant they did not have their "own line" going that had a problem with HD but seemed to be breeding HD with healthy dogs they bought in...

I agree, there is definately inherited part in it, you only have to look at the differences between the different breeds, lets say Leos and Newfies - Huge difference in average scores but similar size & shape of a dog.
But I do also believe upbringing has a massive effect in how the hips turn out when scored and even who scores&where they are scored.

To quote Noora - and even who scores&where they are scored.

Do you know I have always believed that the scoring was done in one place and checked by at least two people, seems I am wrong.

> To quote Noora - and even who scores&where they are scored.

Think Noora means who and where the xrays are done. Only the BVA  score them.

I took Noora's quote to be depending on who scores them as in which country.
I'm sure some people on here have made mention of having a dog scored in 2 different countries with very differing results.

Very confused I did not think we used the same system as other countries, if we don't then they are bound to be different.

You can compare hip schemes and those that score well in one country would be equivalent to whatever in another.

Copy of a chart at the bottom of this page: http://www.offa.org/hipgrade.html

Noora what do you mean by 'not outcrossed but different lines'?  as if it's different lines then it's outcrossed, if it's the same lines it's line breeding and any tighter than that it's in-breeding.  My point is that HD shows up less in line breeding than when you outcross (use different lines) as they may well have different HD genes which together give HD.  Many people who line breed think they have no HD in their line, but of course they probably do have at least one gene, just it never comes up against the other 2 required to produce HD

PennyGC, I'm not making myself clear am I :)
I'm not talking in relation of bitch&male and their relationship(e.g. linebreeding) but Different lines all together used.
Bitch A being bred - bad hips in offspring
Bitch B that is not related to bitch A bred - bad hips...and so on.
Can't be just bad luck genetically in a breed that has not got issues with hips in general so must be something in upbringing of the pups?

and yes, when I said where the hips are scored I meant countries :).
Different countries score differently, some come down harder and give more not so perfect hips...
In some countries it is just one person who scores so it is all an opinion of one person as whether the hips are A or B for example.

Penny I would like to learn so have you got more info regarding line bred dogs showing less HD (providing the HD genes are not there).
Surely even when line breeding you will have "new blood" coming in every generation (unless doing daughter-father etc. closeness) so you could be getting the different gene combination of genes without pure outcrossing?

What I meant Brainless you can't make a direct comparison because we have a rating between 0 and 106 and other countries only have a scale of 5 or 7. So although you can say that score would be equivalent to that you can't draw as direct comparison if for no other reason than the job is done by different people under different circumstances. I have no doubt that at either end of the scale all systems would coincide a 0-0 would be good in any system likewise a 53-53 would be poor or bad but in the middle there must be inaccuracy between one system and another. 

For example a dog getting a 19 in the UK may get a B 1 or B2 under FCI if they get a B1 the owner will be pleased thinking the score they got here was wrong or that the system is better where as some one with a score of 18 would be upset if scoring FCI they got a B2. I have always thought our system is so very much more precise as each hip is measured on a number of details and a score given for that hip in other systems the overall picture is given or at least if you see a dog in the FCI system  is B1 you do not know if that particular dog is equivalent to a BVA 11 acceptable in many breeds or 18 probably outside what most who consider suitable for breeding.

Perhaps I am wrong but I think other systems have too wide a band to be compared in any direct way with the BVA system, it may mean that those using the FCI systems are far more particular and would only breed from say an A but that does not help is a animal with a B score has other features that you wish to use in your lines with such a wide band you would not know how much of a chance you were taking.

Or perhaps I no not understand.

Ah Noora I see, you mean that the kennel is producing bad hips regardless of matings?  I would suggest there's a problem there with the breeder, perhaps doing a lot of outcrossing and perhaps not finding out enough about different lines.  This shows the problems of doing just this - you bring in so many genes that it's almost inevitable that you're going to get problems, depending on the breed.

Line bred dogs - there is no real new blood, that's the point of line breeding...you're always using closely related dogs...cousins to cousins etc. (the daughter-father lines would be inbred rather than linebred).   So they would all have the same genes, which outwardly if you do it right would mean less HD showing in the pups.  My point is that the dogs may still carry HD genes, just that they don't all come out in the litter.  Most show breeding is line bred because you 'fix' the bits you like and your pups will all come looking very similar.  It requires a lot of skill as you can easily fix bad things as well as good.

A case in point may be eg a problem called TNS in border collies.  At first thought to be an Australian problem - but a DNA test in Australia has shown it to be also present in the UK - inevitable since their dogs originated here.  They have a small gene pool and clearly had a dog or two carrying TNS, the more you line breed the more likely you are to get a problem.  Here where dogs for working are more outcrossed and a bigger gene pool you were always less likely to see it, although it's now believed there were a couple of litters with it a while ago, it was just not diagnosed.  Another illustration is that the rise of red border collies is attributed to the extensive use of one particular dog who was black and white, but who carried red.  Now red is very common because 98% of collies have this dog in their ancestry.  Now what if this dog carried HD as well as tri?  Apart from people deliberately breeding for red which they wouldn't do for HD, you would have a lot more HD in border collies.  This can also be shown if you replace HD for Tri colour (although fewer genes are involved).  You can mate two black and white collies and have tri coloured pups....as long as both carry the relevant gene. 

It shows up more in outcrossed dogs as you don't know what genes they're carrying.  If you constantly outcross you will always be getting 'pot luck' when it comes to the pups looks, temperament etc, so show breeders particularly don't like to do it, although occasionally they will - then usually line breed the progeny back to their lines, they use the one out cross to hopefully bring in some aspect from another line that they like.

Line bred dogs if they have high scores will of course produce high scoring offspring - ie the HD will be evident in the lines

oops, just seen I've said 'HD as well as tri' and of course it should read 'HD as well as red' sorry...and of course I've missed the chance to change :-(

Hi Noora

I know that in some FCI countries if one of the dogs is scored a B then that dog can only be mated to a dog that has been given an A score.

The question of who does the hip x-ray is also hugely relevant.  I have a bitch who, before I had a chance to hip score her, was hit by a car and dislocated her hip, which needed to be pinned to keep it in place while her muscles and tendons healed.  6 months later, my local vet was operating on her for another reason, and not wanting her to have too many GA I asked him to x-ray her hips while she was under, with the idea of sending them off for scoring.  He rang me and said he did his best but could not get her hips in a good position so hadn't annotated the x-ray with her KC number to send off, what did I want to do?  I 'could' have said just do it, but fortunately I didn't. 

X-ray in hand and a bit of research and many recommendations later I went to a vet that specialises in hip scoring, using sedative not GA.  He looked at the x-ray, went "Hmmm har this would score about 40, I'm not sure I can improve on it, we'll see".  Her x-ray was beautiful, her score came back 14, despite some damage from the luxation.

So I would only ever take my dogs to the best vet now for x-ray and scoring.  The potential difference in score is too big a risk, therefore I am cynical about some of the high scores in dogs where they have gone to their local pet vet to be x-rayed.

I was getting a bit miffed that my dogs were coming back a bit higher than I would have expected and compared to litter-mates, when using my local vet. For my first two I had used a vet who did lots of hip x-rays, and had better results, but they had retired. 

The last two I have taken to an orthopaedic vet and got scores a few points lower more in keeping with expectations based on the pedigrees.

Now none of them were bad, but the ones done locally were on or just over the breed mean, the ones done by knowledgeable vets have been below.