I have a bitch that I had decided to have hip scored as soon as she has turned 1. Two reasons -one being practicality, with my husband working shifts and me not driving, I cannot get to the vet and back twice in a day unless my husband has a day off work, and right at the time this bitch turns 1 he does have a few days off. The other reason is that the bitch's sire AND her sire's parents have not been hip scored, so I am anxious to find out ASAP what her hips are like. Her mum has a score of 6 (all are pretty much average scores in her pedigree), and her dad is a working police dog, so very active, so it's unlikely the hips would be terrible, especially in a breed where the average is 9, but even so -I want to know for sure so I can plan the future. Already have people interested in pups from this bitch, and prepared to wait for them. (I would like to mate her in 2015.) However, I know some people say it isn't a good idea to hip score until the dog has finished growing and that therefore 12 months is not a good time. Is there anything to this? Would it be better to wait until she's a bit older? I can't see her adding to her height after 12 months, but she will still body up no doubt.

This is something I have wondered about as well - it is believed that all bone growth has stopped by the age of 18 months no matter what the breed so one would think it better to wait until nearer two. It is also said that it is best to avoid the period around the season but I can't really believe that something like a season could have any effect on mature joints. Will be interested in any answers you get.

Hi ,

We breed a gundog breed (think Andrex!) and always hip x ray at 12 or 13 months. We do this so we can then progress to more vigorous training such as jumping fences,long distance retrieves etc although are still careful to not overdo it until 18months.

We use Marilyn Baker at Southampton and she has told me we won't gain anything by waiting any longer. She also doesn't think that having a bitch x rayed whilst in season makes a difference to her scores either. By my own experience it hasn't, having had a bitch x rayed bang in the middle of her season and coming back marginally LOWER then our other bitches.

Only my own experiences,be interesting to hear other opinions

Ali

  

Very interesting bucksmum, thank you!

Done a male at 12 months who then had a growth spurt after his hipscore and had a rubbish hipscore, not awful but not the best, was over the breed average.  Did one of my girls 12 months to the day and she had a hipscore of 4/4.  If I keep her daughter I will also have her done at 12 months of age. 

Mine was done on his 1st birthday, my other 2 days after his first birthday.

As I understand it, pennHIP scoring is far more reliable that the typical type, and can be done reliably at only 16 weeks old.  I attended a lecture in 2011 and this was one of the subjects, the lecturer (whose name I forget) was a vet who has pioneered the use of this technique in the UK.  He is also able to give a reliable indication as to the likelihood of a dog developing osteoarthritis, even at that young age.

Mike Guillard?

Having had one of my bitches badly injured in an accident playing with her mother, I have mine done the day after they are 12 months, if I can. However, I ended up delaying scoring my youngest bitch, just busy, until she was over 2 and she has a score of 0:0 :)

Thanks everyone! I think I feel reassured enough to go ahead just after her birthday as planned. :)

12 mths is acceptable to BVA however the bone structure ( spesifically the pelvis) has not finished developing in medium large breeds until 18- 24 mths. Any score at 12 mths may mask the true score at maturity. For that reason I score at 18-  2 years , good hips will always be good, loose hips / poor hips will score better at 12 mths before signs of remodelling due to wear.
I Believe in the USA for OFA scores  the dog must be 2 years. Younger animal are assessed on Penn hip system as preliminaries. Penn measure laxity and thus indicates risk for HD

JMHO
K

You can do preliminary OFA scoring from 12 months, in fact you can score your dog any time and more than once.

thanks Barbara,  I knew scores under 24 mths were classes as preliminaries but wasnt sure they w done u der OFA? In my breed USA breeders seem to test at 2 years. Here is guidance from OFA site http://www.offa.org/hd_prelims.html. The stats suggest early X-rays showing good hips are reliable but questionable hips at early age would need re testing.

Well I'm off to get Peni (12 1/2 months) Hip X-rayed tomorrow, 50+ mile drive each way. 

It still works out cheaper than locally at £150 for hips plus fuel.  £300 for both hips and elbows

Locally they want £250 - £300.  I asked about Penn Hip as an additional if not too dear, as a local practise does it and was quoted £500 for BVA and Penn Hip!!  Needless to say I won't be bothering.

Out of interst why would you get both the BVA and penn hip tests done?

> Mike Guillard?

That's him, thanks :-)

>Out of interst why would you get both the BVA and penn hip tests done?

Just out of interest (to see if BVA god results were also good under Penn hip) as they use entirely different parameters.

The BVA scheme are looking at the various anatomical features and grading each against perfection.

Penn Hip appears to be entirely about fit/looseness (subluxation is the second item on the BVA features), and is done in simplistic terms by measuring the difference between the hips when pulled apart and pressed in.  X-rays are taken of the Compression view, Distraction, and the usual Extended leg view.  This is the local one to me: http://www.highcroftvet.co.uk/news/PennHIP_testing_hip_dysplasia_Joe_Fox.

Sorry, ressurecting an older thread ... and not replying to anyone in particular.

Just wondering, is there anyone out there who has done both BVA hip scoring AND the Penn Hip grading? (I maybe should start another thread, but ... this seems a good one to continue with as the subjects have already mentioned ;-) ) Asking purely out of interest rather than any intention :-)

A friend of mine has, because he had a bitch that on breeding should have had good hips, but they turned out to to cr@p. He had his next bitch Penn Hipped at 4 months & then hip scored at 12 months & the results were about the same, the Penn Hip was 0.45:0.45(better than the breed norm)& the hip score was 6:7-13 also better than the breed norm

Thanks for that Tommee :D Would be interesting to know if a high percentage of early grading matched later grading (barring accidents/injury). I should be concerning myself right now with more important things, other than just pandering to my curiosity ;)

A vet near us does it but I was quoted over £300 for it, so no way was I going to add that to the £300 I paid for hips and elbows.

Is that £300 including the BVA fee, Barbara? I recently had one of my Ridgie boys done (big lad, 47 kg) and the cost was £300 including the BVA fee. My lad is a fair bit bigger than one of your girls!

I had hips and elbows including BVA fee done for £300 under sedation, but the £300+ quote was for Penn hip which isn't a recognised scheme in UK, so I declined, though that was by a local vet not the one I use for hips.

>I recently had one of my Ridgie boys done (big lad, 47 kg) and the cost was £300 including the BVA fee

And Joe Public thinks that dog owning is a lucrative hobby!  Have to smile at the irony. 

I've imported 3 boys, Jean, from Finland, Slovakia and the Ukraine, I have them health tested and use them at stud in a very, very limited way. No way do I make money out of my dogs! It's not why I have them or do what I do :)

>It's not why I have them or do what I do

And be assured that I know that.  :-)

I know you do :) :)

Personally I'd leave it until nearer the time you want to mate her.   I know, plans, but isn't the norm for scoring 2 years?   Even if she scores well at 1 year, can you be sure she'll be the same by 2?   There has to be a reason why this is usually done later?

MamaBas was your reply in response to my original post? If so, this is an old resurrected post from June last year so a few months old now. I wanted this bitch scored early as almost the entire sire's side in her pedigree has unknown hips (sire a police dog and neither he nor his parents were hip scored). I had her x-rayed the day after her first birthday and the score came back as 5/6. Higher than I would have liked but who knows what the sire could be like and it is still a fully acceptable score as far as I am concerned. Dam is 3/3. It would have been inconvenient to wait until 2 as then we'd be just a few months away from mating her, and with several people already waiting for pups from this particular bitch, I needed to know ASAP that her hips were good enough to breed from.

> isn't the norm for scoring 2 years?  

I don't think so, unless that's breed specific advice.  I know someone who quotes a well respected vet and says it's best at 12 months.  I aim for around 15 months and certainly no later than 18 months for my HWV's

Time won't make a good score better but it can make a bad score worse.

In the USA OFA system which grades, not scores, where you can submit x-rays as often as you like, if the result isn't to your liking, the official results are at over two years of age. 

You can have preliminary results earlier, which is own reason there is quit3e a lot of pre-selection and hip result statistics probably look better than they really are, as the really bad ones don't get resubmitted.

I was in a similar(ish) position to you a year ago. I decided to have my bitch puppy (and hopefully one day my foundation bitch) scored at 12 months because although her parents both had good scores, 1 of the sire's litter sisters (he was a repeat mating, the sisters are from the older litter) had an uneven score of 26/5 and another with 36/37. The paternal grandmother had never been scored. I have my bitch's uncle and he had a good hip score, so I was hoping that she would do the same. Her score came back at 4/20, exactly what the vet thought from looking at the plates--you can see very clearly that one side is excellent and the other showing  a degree of dysplasia. Her BVA score shows that not all of the dysplaisa is genetic, some is down to wear and tear. Without those extras points her score would have been 4/13, which in this breed is still okay.

I was very careful with her exercise and stairs, so I'm not sure how much more I could have done. She did have one accident aged about 9 months with one of my dogs, who ran into her full pelt--she sat down very heavily and rightly or wrongly I think this incident was likely the cause of the additional damage. 

However, the early scoring gave me a heads up on her future care. She is on a daily dose of B plus E x 2, Flexadin x 1.5 (maintenance dose) and Ester C x 1 650mg. Her movement is fine and I plan to take her for hydrotherapy sessions this year to help build up the muscle. I will probably have her hips xrayed again in another year and monitor her throughout her life, but i think the real value of doing the plates early is that you can take appropriate action and maybe save her from pain in her old age.