My prospective puppy is a choc lab , and on it's KC reg it says sires hips are 3/4, and dams are 14/8.

What does this mean?

Hi Guest,

In labs (and numerous other breeds) there is a problem with hip dysplasia. To try and minimise this, responsible breeders get their dogs hips scored. The vet takes an x-ray of the dogs hips and sends the plates off to the BVA (British Veterinary Association) where the plates are examined and a score determined. This score can range from 0 to 106, the lower the score the better the hips are. If a dog had perfect hips then there score would be 0:0. However, there are very few dogs that actually have 0:0 hips. The breed average for labradors is 16 and this score is made up by adding the result of the two hips, so in the case of the sire their total hip score is 3:4 = 7 which is a good score, it is well below the breed average. The bitches hips add up to 22 which is a bit high (seeing as labradors average is 16 and breeders ideally dont use a dog with a higher score than that) but since the stud dogs score is a good one then the breeder may have used him to improve the hips in the bitches line. Also the bitch may have come from a long line of dogs with good hips.

I hope this helps :-)