There is a possibility that our 7 month old puppy has HD,or at least some form of hip/joint problem. He will be x-rayed next week28/01/03 to find out more.My question to anyone who would care to answer is ;Are there experts in this field, or should one rely on the vet? I have no reason to suggest that the vet is not going to give best advice but if it was happening to me I'm fairly sure I would be demanding to see a specialist!Do they exist and how do we find them ?
All suggestions welcome-Nigel and Oscar(he's the dog)

Myself I would want to see a specialist as I know of someone told by vet dogs hips were very bad. They went for a second opinion and they weren't nearly as bad as they had been told
Anne

Definately see a Veterinary Orthopaedic speicalist. The average Vet, like your GP only can know so much, and in the arena of assessing hip status they can be wildly out.

I personally know of one person who had a bitch scored many years ago, that the vet said looked reasonable, and it turned out to be the worst score in the breed so far (61), another dog that was scored the owners were told not to bother sending it isn, as it was bad, but they did, and the total score was 7, half the breed average!!!

I have also known the local vet tell an owner based on x-rays that their puppy had OCD (in a breed where this is pretty well unknown), and when urged to ask for a specialist Opinion, it was found to have Panosteitis, which is a wandering lameness, caused by inflammation of the bone marrow in fast growing young dogs, which is self limiting and will be grown out of by about 18 months.

At 7 months it is next to impossible to tell how bad hips will be, as the pup is still growing.

What makes the Vet think that ? is the puppy limping or walking funny? either way a hip xray will answer your question.
Did you buy your pup from a breeder? if so were the parents hips scored?
Hip Dysplacia sadly is in Labradors but they can live ok without perfect hips you just arrange their lifestyle acccordingly.
Anyway the Xray should be your first course of action then if they are bad there are options open to you,I do hope your puppy is insured though its very expensive.
Good Luck and keep us informed.

Forgot to say we have a very good Vet here in the North West he xrays the hips without the full general anaesthetic just sedates the dog and he is an expert on hips.

I would be very worries about a vet that made pronouncements about a 7 month pup. or any dog without a least an x-ray and an expert opinion. Jackie

Sorry you have a problem with your dog, what is it that made you take him to the vet in the first place, was he lame?

At 7 months you will not get a good x-ray, the bone is beginning to harden but is still not going to give the definition you would get from x-raying an adult. An orthopaedic specialist might be able to give a rough guide but I doubt the ordinary vet would have seen enough plates from a puppy of this age to have the experience to tell exactly what he was looking at! This is the reason you cannot get a dog under a year old scored and why we always recommend waiting to 18 months to 2 years old to get it done.

Regards, John

John,

Is 18 months to 2 years better for a hip score because it seems Munster people rush out as soon as the dog is 12 months old and get X-rays. I was going to book Curtis in as his 1st birthday present ;) in April but if 18 months is better then I'll wait til October.

John is there also a list of vets that are better than others for good plates. I had Mia done by my vet practice and even I (Novice hip-looker) could see she was twisted on the plate...but no redress although I didn't send the plates for scoring. I was told there's a vet at Evesham who is very good at taking X-rays?

Your paying the bill so if you are not happy with the plates then I would have said you would be within your rights to tell them to do them again! The guidelines say that the image should be of

"Correct exposure and processing. . . . . . . . . . Incorrect exposure and processing can seriously interfere with the visiblity of detail and so affect the radiological assessment of the hips."

Certainly a "Thin" plate will loose you a good score by not showing the edge detail so appearing to show the hips looser than they would otherwise look. OK, so maybe they should allow for that but in reality they are only suppose to score it as the see it, not as they think it might be. A good deep contrasty plate will give you the best results.

Personally I reckon one year is too young and another six months is worth another point or two off of the score. Nothing if your score is well within the breed average but a mile if it is borderline.

Regards, John

I had my lab, Taz, scored at just over a eighteen months as his "services" were required. I was subsequently told that he had hips of 34:21.

A friend, who has had kennels for many years and who breeds labs and tollers was astounded and asked if they had used the right x-rays.

Therefore your comments on plate quality is interesting, they did show them too me in the vets and I thought them rather fuzzy - in comparison to a human plate say.

Taz works hard all winter as a gun dog and occasionally comes up lame, so it is possible that they there is a problem. I was using glucosamine capsules which helped a bit but not much - however in Ocotber I found a product called Synflex on the net, which is a glucosamine/chondroitin liquid with other herbal ingredients for arthritus etc. He has been on 3ml per day all winter and has not been lame once.

And no, I didn't breed from him.

I'm afraid I also had the same shocking news back in Late December for my then 8month black lab puppy George. I have suspected from around 4 months old that George's hips were not too good.

Having nursed an Arthritus ridden Lab for almost 6 years I really didn't want to do that again because it is truly heart breaking so much so I couldn't bear the thought of having another dog for 2 years. Once the decision had been taken to get another I was very consious to check out the breader, the parents and their hip scores and the puppies environments all of which appeared to be fine. The first time I met George and his brothers and sisters was at 12 days old, then again at 3 and 5 weeks and he joined our family at 6 weeks old.

George developed a clicky hip at the age of 4 months and would be playing happily in the garden and would sometimes yelp in tremendous pain but we unforunately always missed what had happed to cause such distress. He injured his back leg/hip at 6months and was given a course of antinflamity tables and was given complete rest. I then began to throughly research hip dysplacia of which George had most of the symptoms including a bunny hopping run.

At 8 months George injured his back hip again during a trip to the park and was in so much pain he practially passed out, I could not wake him up! Again the vet wanted to give him Antiinflamity tables but I insisted on an Xray the only sure way to diagnose Hip Dysplacia and the diagnosie was not good. George had what appeared to be severe dysplacia in both hips.

We were refered to a specialist 'Willows Referal Service - Solihull, West Midlands, after viewing his Xrays they are not prepared to even see George until 18months because he is not fully developed. I have been advised by a Hydrotherapist who has many of Willows Clients that they are one of the few practices that will not operate on a dog unless they can dramatically improve the dogs condition.

I have taken advice from many professionals and my course of action for the last 4 months has been a lot of controlled excersise ie: 40 minutes a day walking on the lead to build up the strength in his hips, I teaspoon of Cod Liver Oil and I x 75mg Asprin per day. I am pleased with George's progress and it appears that his condition has improved with this action and also with age.

I was talking to my trainer who has been working with dogs for over 40 years - a police dog trainer for 25 years and after retirement a trainer for the Military and police. He had had personal experience of working with 'Working Dogs' with this condition, years ago this was not really recognised as a huge problem. Dogs can lead a very normal life if you change their lifestyles.

Regarding the quality of x-rays,if you send them away via your vet for scoring under BVA scheme and the quality is poor the panel in London will
demand your vets to do them again.

Always get them sent off throgh this scheme never trust a local vet to comment on such x-rays unless ne an expert in analysing these plates.

Generally local vets are very quick to say a dog has hip dysplaysia sometimes puppies can go lame as the growth plates are growing,just for afew weeks then are fine.

Hip dysplacia means varying degrees slackness in the hip socket whilst it can be passed on to much exercise too soon and too much protein are just some of the other factors to bare in mind and also injuries can produce higher hipscores.

My bitch puppy at 5 m0nths jumped for a ball fell arkwardly and went lame
took her to the vets where I was told she had hip dysplasia I disagreed and took her home caged rested her for 11 weeks .graually building up exercise and cxareful feeding went on to do very well in the show ring not
at all lame.I had her hipscored and was expecting ahigh hipscore on left leg.I told my vets this with no response he looked at the x-rays and said I should not send them in.
I was furious as this would make a mockery of the whole scheme,he told me both hips were very bad.

The scores came back as right hip 7 and lefthip 36 possibly caused by trauma, my local vet said nothing,but then again he wasn't keen on pedigree dogs.
Needless to say changed vets.

Briony :-)

Unfortunately this is not always the case Briony. It is a matter of degree and I've seen some relatively poor plates which have been scores and yielded very poor scores. I would definitely not let my vet send any plate I'm not happy with. It is a one time only test and even on appeal only the plate which was originally submitted will be allowed for reassessment. It is best to take no chances with plate quality.

Regards, John

Are you saying don't send in poor quality plates suggesting plates may be poor
which I would agree with or poor quality plates if they suggest a poor hipscore.

Obviously if the quality of xrays taken by a local vet did come out to well, one hopes he would do them again or ask
a another practice whom has had alot more experience in taking the xrays would be suggested

I always ask for a senior vet to carry out such xray and also one who has had plenty
of practice.

Briony :-)

The problem is that the x-ray shows the joint in shades of grey and the edge of a bone, because of the fact that it is round does not have a hard edge on the plate. A contrasty plate will show bone which would be lost on a thin plate so the joint will always appear more open on a thin plate than on a plate which is a little more dense (If you follow what I mean)

So many practises seem to give the x-ray jobs to the juniors and some plates taken of friends dogs leave rather a lot to be desired. I figure we are the ones paying for the job so it should follow that we should see and be happy with what is being submitted for something as important as this.

Regards, John

Urrr,
Im all confused now.
Are some vets advising people whos dogs have what looks to be poor hip scores NOT to send them in to be scored? If that is the case, isnt that going to affect the breed averages? So that when one looks at the figures, it would appear that a breed doesnt have too many hip problems, but in fact does, but people arent sending the xrays in?

I have been reading up on this, and whilst it is thought that poor hips can be a hereditary thing, it is also a lot to do with nutrition and exercise.
So, if you think you have a pup with poor hips, or one that is more likely to develop hip problems (or any other skeletal/muscle problem) it is better to keep the pup lean, so he is carrying as little excess weight as possible, adn let him exercise with play, training, and swimming, rather than a lot of high impact exercise, or forcing him to keep going when he would normally have stopped.

Em

EM I,totally agree with you,

More than one gene is involved in hip dysplaysia which is why it so complicated

Also other enviromental factors such as too much exercise for young dogs and incorrect

feeding incorrectly.

The best we can do is like I say seek out the senior vet if you ring the
univirsity vet schools they will put you in touch with practices which are expe
rienced.
Until such time we have better method of xraying it is important that all hip scores are
submitted,otherwise like Em said why bother having them scored as the mean
scores will be useless.

My dogs plates were good enough as the left hip demonstrated the right hip
was not good and I expected a higher score and was right ,but I still insisted
the plates sent in.

Briony :-)