Is it likely that 4 out of 5 litter mates would need hip replacements due to dysplasia before they were two years old if both parents had had good hip scores.
I just heard about a two year old retreiver has just had her second hip replacement, so her other hip was done awhile ago, fortunately she is insured, don't know about her litter mates though.
Just curious, as I thought it seemed to be a high number from one litter with problems, from supposedly healthy parents.

Robert

Hi Robert

If you can get hold of John, he's very knowledgable about HD, espescialy in labs (if they're your breed of retriever). Let me know how you get on.

liberty

4 out of 5!!! Wow! The OFFA People in America have been doing work on the statistics of hips and they have found that if you put excellent hips to excellent hips you will get on average 95% excellent hips from the puppies. Even when they compared matings where the hips were bad they still ended up with 75% good hips! (Of course this latter figure was from a relatively small sample)

With 4 out of 5 bad then I would be looking very carefully at the conditions the puppies were reared under. I was talking to a Lab breeder some time ago and she was saying that the hips of her dogs never seemed to turn out as good as she thought. Realising that something was going wrong somewhere she had a good think as she watched the latest litter and noticed that they were doing quite a bit of sliding about on the floor. For the next litter she made sure the whelping bed was slip free and that when the puppies started moving out of the bed that the floor they were walking on was slip free. At a stroke her hips improved to where she had expected them to be!

Just my thoughts, John

My first thought was that perhaps the hip scores of the parents were'nt quite as good as the breeder said they were, can you falsify hip scores? but the dog was well fed from the time they got her as a puppy, not to put to fine a point on it she was fat, then when she was about 14 months they took this in hand by sending her out road running with a a neighbour who jogs from the off she was doing ten miles a day on roads, which I thought was a bit much, so I suppose none of this helped matters much.
The dog is a Golden retreiver by the way.

Robert

It is not likely the scores were false, they are entered on the KC registration at that comes direct from the scoring panel, you would have to enter the plates of the wrong dogs and have the vet in your pocket because they verify that the dog x-rayed is the dog that the registration applies to.

You are correct that over feeding a puppy and then subjecting a still maturing dog to the sort of exercise you describe is asking for the sort of problems they have now got. The only blame you can put at the breeders door is if they did not give the owners details of how the dog should be fed and exercised.

Not difficult at all!
Unless the dog is tattooed or microchipped and the vet checks the same, there is no way that the vet will know which dog they are X-raying. Unless a Vet is very familiar with a particular dog they have no idea if the dog presented for X-Ray is the dog whose particulars are entered on the "Green Form". A breeder can take a dog or bitch with a good score and have it X-rayed several times pretending it is a different dog each time. I have have always insisted that the vet write the tattoo number (or more recently microchip number) in the appropriate box on the Green Form. When puppy buyers come I show them the bitch's ear tattoo and the green form as proof that the score actually belongs to that dog.

Until all dogs are permenantly identified before they leave the breeder we will never have any real confidence in hip scores or eye tests.

SB

SB I am shocked, do you mean your vet does not know your animals and would sign a form saying they do, I would like to think mine would be more honest but may be I live in cloud cuckoo land and not in the real dishonest world.

It really depends on whether you want to breed good dogs or just want people to think you do. We "Know" we occasionally get a ringer in eye testing but cannot prove it. The other side of that coin is that I would not have or recomend a dog from those people. What goes around has a knack of coming around.

Regards, John

That's not really the point though is it? Just saying that you don't recommend "iffy" breeders is hardly going to make the world of dogs a more honest place! Half a glance at the posts on here and experience indicates that there is a significant degree of dishonesty and/or lax breeding practice in the world of dogs. ID would provide the means to make health tests actually reliable, without it health certificates are only as good as the breeder's word.

If you KNOW that incorrect dogs are being submitted why don't do something about it, if there is reasonable cause to believe that dishonesty is being perpetrated report the matter to the KC. If you are just suspicious - that is a different matter.

SB

If we had proof then of course we would take action but knowing and proving are not the same thing at all! I have no desire to see my hard earned savings disappear by getting sued over something I cannot prove and I would furthermore suggest only a fool would! Not recommending is about the furthest anyone could go without proof

How do you prove a dog is not the dog whose paperwork has been submitted? I know a person who took his black Lab bitch to a working test. His friend remarked to him "I thought you had entered Rosie?" He answered that yes, he had, so his friend said how long has she had those bits between her back legs?"

How many vets could tell one black Lab from another? Or Yellow Lab? Golden Retriever? Westie? the list is endless. Without compulsory means of identification the best we can do is have strong suspicions.

John

Sorry to tell you - You live in cloud cookoo land!
How does your vet know which dog you have. I have owned may dogs over a lifetime in dogs, my vet sees some every month some only once a year. He sees hundreds - probably thousands of dogs a year (most for 10 minutes each). How on earth does he know Karl from Frank and Saffie from Sally - I take a dog to be scored he has to take my word for it. How does you vet know your dogs, you may think you are his only - best - favourite etc.. customer but you are not, he has cattle, horses, cats, rabbits and your one, two, three... ten or more dogs.
Does your vet demand DNA parentage proof ... does he check tattoos or Microchips if not he, like my vet assumes honesty on the owners part. In my case I am honest and I identify my dogs so I have proof too - but how does your vet KNOW which dogs you present for scoring?
Too many people are too naive where hip and eyes are concerned.

SB

Well my hip x raying vet puts my dogs tattoo numbers on the plates & does the same for my friends GSD's so there is no way their dogs are ringers.

When I had my dogs eyes tested they also put the tattoo numbers on the certificates, quite simple also means the eye panelist doesn't have to scan them to ID them

Moonmaiden,

I do the same, but how many others do? Without permanent identification there is no guarentee as to which dog has been submitted for testing. Without ID Vets can only take the owners word for which dog is which.

SB

I'm going to upset quite a few Golden people now I know but I'm going to say it anyway! Golden hips are by and large a disaster! I know there are plenty of good hips in Goldens but a breed mean score of 20 speaks for it's self! Even with the amount of very poor breeding in Labradors they still manage to get in at 16. With the size of the gene pool it should be possible to improve on this. I well remember the comments the then Breed Notes person in one of the dog papers trying to tell me that MRD in Goldens should be ignored because some top winning dogs had it!!

I still maintain that the number of poor puppies points to a nurture thing rather than Hereditary though in this case. Do you know if the other puppy's were fat? Could the bitch have been a bit careless! Maybe no roll bars on the whelping bed so not allowing the puppy's to be pushed out of the way?

Best wishes, John

<Golden hips are by and large a disaster! I know there are plenty of good hips in Goldens but a breed mean score of 20 speaks for it's self! Even with the amount of very poor breeding in Labradors they still manage to get in at 16. With the size of the gene pool it should be possible to improve on this.>

The Golden Retriever Breed mean Score is actually 18.84. This is the mean score of every dog scored since the inception of the scheme.

However, if the mean scores from the last few years are studied, for example 1997 - 11.9, 1998 - 9.6, 1999 - 10.3, 2000 -12.3, 2001 - 7.8, 2002 -14.3, it can be seen that the hip average is slowly improving in later years.

Perhaps they are not such a 'disaster' after all?

snomaes

Have the numbers scored gone up in line with the decrease ?

Unless I am being completely thick here,

If in 2001 for that year the average is 7.8 and then in 2002 it is 14.3 , in my calculation that is not an improvement. Also if the mean average is now a higher number than what it was after a few years of inital testing then that is another indicator of it not improving. Unless of course you are taking some other stats or information into consideration.

My understanding is the higher the number the worse the HD.

Just wondering how to read or see an improvement from these figures, not debating?

Pam

Hi,

Have to disagree with you John,

The average hip score for Goldens is 19.
There are plenty of low scoring show goldens .Until every golden or any breed for yhat matter is scored and ALL plates scores submitted we will never truly know the correct breed average,this is obviously impossible.I know of people who have labs with appalling scores
in and out of the show world.

Regards Briony :-)

Hi,

Just a thought here, is it more Goldens are supplying their scores no matter the result.
I submitted one of my bitches scores who came up high due to injury.Lots of other people
telling me don't send the xrays in ,advised from other breeds interesting?

Briony :-)

I will agree with your 19 Birony, this is the breed mean average listed on the BVA site.

I take it then Snomaes that you are happy with the FACT that Goldens are equal fourth worst out of 22 breeds in the BVA range or over 1000 dogs in the breed scored? The only worst breeds being Old English Sheepdog (20) ,Gordon Setters (25) and Newfoundland (28)

Incidentally The BVA site lists whether a breed is improving, getting worse or staying roughly the same and it lists goldens as staying roughly the same!

Regards, John

Okay, here are the latest published hips scoring facts as recorded in the 2003 Golden Retriever Club Yearbook, courtesy of Dr Malcolm Willis.

Up to 19th February 2003, there have been 25,409 Golden Retrievers scored out of a total of 162,000 dogs from over 160 breeds. This means that nearly 16% of ALL dogs ever scored in the scheme have been Golden Retrievers. This averages out at approximately 1,000 Golden’s scored per year since the inception of the scheme in 1978. In the period 1990 – 2001, 12,907 Golden’s were scored which is actually MORE than the overall average of 1,000 per year, so in this period it cannot be true that less dogs have passed through the scheme.

To answer one of your questions, the Golden Retriever has actually the 14th worst Breed Mean Score (BMS), not the fourth. This is a FACT according to Dr Willis and as he actually compiles the data, I doubt that this is an incorrect figure?

I am actually quite happy with the hip status of my dogs, they range from very good to poor BUT my dogs have never exhibited any signs of hip dysplasia and have all stayed active into old age, even those with the higher scores!

Obviously, it will take many thousands of dogs to be scored lower than the historic BMS (25,409) for the index to move even a few percentage points down and reflect the vast improvement in latter years.

To quote Dr Willis “It is clear that there has been some reduction in the BMS over the period of 12 years (1990-2002) dropping from around 21 to around 15, WHICH IS A DESIRABLE REDUCTION and very welcome. This is further emphasised by the increase in the percentage of dogs scoring 0-10 (good scores) and a decline in the percentage of dogs scoring over 30 (poor scores)…”

It can be deduced that a BMS of 15 in a range from 0 – 106 can hardly be considered as “Golden hips are by and large a disaster”!

I will end with another Dr Willis quote “However, do not breed dogs by numbers, but look at the whole dog when making selections”.

snomaes

John,

Where on earth did your figures come from - I don't know about GRs specifically but I can think of half a dozen breeds that are over 20 without even looking!

SB

Briony,

I don't know about Golden's but it is certainly true that across the board very poor plates are often not submitted so the BMS are distorted. Ideally all plates should be submitted as a condition of the scheme, that would at least give a better (if still very sketchy) idea of the real state of hips in each breed.

SB

Hi Snomaes,

Absolutely agree with you :-)

Dr Malcolm Willis is an expert in Hip dysplasia and scoring.The difference between a16 and 19 score is actually very little according to him.A score of 19 and 25 a bigger leap.
In the fields of Gold video he would be quite happy to use dogs in the 20's.He also goes
on to say it no good having perfect hips 0:0 or 1:2 at the cost of temperament etc
HOWEVER he does say obviously lower the score all the better there is no argument there.
All we can do is our best on the information we have.
Bernese mountain dogs,St Bernards also have a higher mean average score.

Golden Retriever scores are certainly no means of a disaster but it will take many years
to reduce the mean average score below 10 without spoilling temperament and conformation it cannot be achieved overnight.

I have a bitch with high higher score one side and low score on the other .I also know this bitch had an accident on the injured side although she came back sound in movement eventually it gave a higher hipscore.The bitch comes from low scoring parentage all the way down both lines.I still felt the xrays should be scored.I am not breeding from her and have brought a new bitch in again with excellent scores but there are no gurantees.

Briony :-)

Smeagol-Beagle, http://www.bva.co.uk/about/canine.html

You will of course have noted that I said “In the BVA range of over 1000 dogs tested” There are in fact only 22 breeds in that range! There is no point in comparing Goldens (23746 dogs scored in 2001, the latest figures on their site) and for example, Bulldogs who have a breed mean score of 41 but with only 16 dogs scored!16 dogs really are not enough to ford an average. I have used the grouping which the BVA gave used in their table. It is comparing as near as possible like with like.

Snomaes, Where on earth are you getting your scores from? 15??? Is that wishful thinking? I cannot imagine that it has improved so far in just one year!!!! I assume that as the scheme is the BVA/KC scheme then the BVA would know the correct score!!

John

<Snomaes, Where on earth are you getting your scores from? 15??? Is that wishful thinking? I cannot imagine that it has improved so far in just one year!!!! I assume that as the scheme is the BVA/KC scheme then the BVA would know the correct score!!>

If you read my post carefully, you will note that I list my source as 'The Golden Retriever Club handbook 2003'.

Again, on my post I state that the reduction from 21 to 15 took place during the years 1990 - 2002, not 1 year!

The genetic data for the BVA/KC scheme is collated by Dr Malcolm Willis, (see the following link for his CV:
http://www.gsdbreedcouncil.uk.com/MWillis.htm), if you contact him, he may be able to advise you where you can obtain a copy of his article published in the yearbook.

I have checked out the official BVA/KC website (where the Golden Retriever is actually recorded as being the 11th worst breed, so your earlier claim of 4th worst breed is confusing?) and the information is dated 10/10/01, so it is 2 years out of date compared with the February 2003 date for the GRC yearbook data.

I hope this answers your questions.

snomaes

BMS of Goldens at 1/1/03 was 19
Compared with the rest of the breeds in their group they are the 4th worst.
BVA as at the 1st of January 2003 and published by them earlier this year.

I really cannot see why you keep managing to not understand my posts. You have obviously been to the BVA site because you quoted the date so you will have seen where I arrived at the “4th worst breed” statement ,apart from the fact that I explained it to you in my post immediately before your last post! I can only thing you don’t want to believe the truth written on the BVA site!

As to the alleged 15: you say the improvement is over 12 years, (Between 1990 and 2002). I’d agree with the 21 in 1990, this is around what I remember. We both agree that the breed mean score was 19 on the 10/10/01, this was stated on the BVA web site Now you want to tell me that it has dropped from 19 to 15 IN TWO MONTHS!!!!!!! (You state <<Again, on my post I state that the reduction from 21 to 15 took place during the years 1990 - 2002, not 1 year!>> ) I rest my case!

As this topic has moved rather a long way from the original post by Robert K and as you do not seem to agree with my answer to Robert then perhaps you might like to give him your ideas on the reasons for the poor hips of these puppies?

John

I think that you also have a bad misunderstanding of my posts!

I am not disputing the 'official' BMS of ALL Golden Retrievers scored from the scheme inception to the present day, I was using the period of 1990 to 2002 as an example of how the BMS has improved in this period to an average of 15. This is a rolling average and the 'official' BMS does not reflect the present average.

For lower scores to have an effect on an average derived from 25,000+ dogs will take years and years just to move a few points down.

An example quoted by Dr Willis is as follows:

"If we have scored 10,000 animals with a BMS of 18.60 and the entries for 2003 were 600 dogs with a mean value of 10.50, then the new BMS would be (10,000 x 18.60) + (600 x 10.50) ÷ 10,600 which would be 18.14. This would represent the average of ALL dogs, but would not reflect the current 2003 status. Overall there would be a decline of only 0.46 points whereas the 2003 average has declined by 8.10 points. It would be a mammoth task to calculate the BMS of all breeds every year."

Does this make it clearer?

The only reason that I joined in this discussion was due to the erroneous statement that "Golden Retriever hips are a disaster", I could not let this comment pass without a challenge.

snomaes

Snomaes,

You were quite justified, to suggest that 18 or 19 (whichever) is a "disaster" and quite nonsensical. Look at it this way, if I am comparing two stud dogs and one has a hip score of 16 and one has a hip score of 19 there is so little difference as to make the matter academic. That would be a difference of 1.5 per hip - which any sensible or knowledgeable person would accept is negligable. I would make my choice based on other factors, the hips would be very similar in quality so nothing to pick from there.
It follows that if GR at 18 or 19 are a disaster so are Labs with a score of 16. If you apply the continental schemes both would be the same grade so you would see no difference.
Concocting stats. based on this group or that, is meaningless that fact is that many breeds have far worse BMS than 20.

The fact is that if 19 is a "disaster" 16 is so little different as to be a similar disaster.

SB

I'm sorry snomaes, I only deal with official hip scoring just as I only deal with official eye testing. Missing out bits you don’t like from the official scheme as the Golden's have with eye testing looks too much like massaging the figures to me. If you want to compare one breed with another then you can only compare like with like.

John

Snoames, statistics can tell you anything you want to hear. There's no point in missing out parts of it, if you want to see the full picture :)

liberty

These statistics are from the official scheme! They are compiled annualy by the official BVA/KC statistician from the hip scores assessed by the hip scoring panel, on behalf of the GRC to give a more in-depth picture of the current hip status of the breed. I thought this would have been obvious by detailing the source as Dr Malcolm Willis?

There is no "massaging of the figures", I thought that my last post made it crystal clear as to the reasoning behind analysis of the figures but I guess that you choose not to acknowledge this because it goes against your obvious prejudice.

I do not wish to compare one breed with another, I am only interested with the true current state of the hips within my chosen breed.

snomaes

The official scheme is the BVA/KC scheme, no altering of the figures in any way. Comparing the figures you quote with any other breeds BMS would be a nonsense! If you want to live in perfect isolation that is up to you but I notice you were arguing my ranking of your breed in order of worst hips! For someone who is not interested in other breeds I find that strange.

Anyway, I thank you for acknowledging the fact that my figures were right all along.

I'm still interested in any comment you have to make on about the original thread by the way?

John

Hi,

I think we have to get things into proportion here.

The average hip core of Goldens is 19.

It is not a disaster but it could be better.

What we should be remembering lots of things can affect scores.You can have excellent low hipscores down 5 generations on both sides of a pedigree I have my boy here with just that.However when I get him scored thats not to say he will not give a high score.
I have been very careful with exercise and nutrition .
However it is not good enough just to breed Goldens with the lowest scores and not look at the whole dog.Otherwise we could end ourselves up with more problems ie a golden that may hve perfect hips but temperament and conformation awful and cannot do the job it was bred to do.
The aim in my opinion is to use breed average dogs and even better below average that fits your dogs lines and produce dogs that are below average hips whilst still maintaing conformation etc .This cannot be achieved overnight and it maybe a case 2 steps forward one step back.
The difference between 16 and 19 score would not worry me iin the whole scheme of things .
But im sure we all agree obviously the lower the score the better ;-)
How we set out about achieving this is the hard part:-)If it was that simple of putting
super low scores together I would do it in an instant but we all know this can throw high scores also.

Briony :-)

Hi,

To answer the original post it is possible for a liiter of puppies if they were ALL hipscored
from low scoring parents to have 1 pup or 2 to throw high scores and the rest all really low and vice versa or even the whole litter to throw high scores.Hip scoring,genetics is
not an exact science and we cannot completely control mother nature :-)

Briony

You are talking a lot of sense Birony. The whole dog must be looked at not just bits. Compared with the Flatcoat’s BMS Golden hips are poor but there could well be reasons for this not the least being the size of the puppies at, and possibly more importantly shortly after birth. Compared with a Golden or Labrador a Flatcoat baby is quite lightly built so putting much less strain on the joints.

The differences within the Retriever breeds in the way of hereditary problems always astounds me when you consider that until recently they were not considered as breeds, only as Varieties! I remember the days when under certain circumstances you could inter breed between the varieties! In fact if you look at the ancestors of my Anna you will find a bitch “Fairgirth Bell” born in 1917 who’s dam was the Flatcoated Retriever, “Stoneleigh Quality”. This at that time was a perfectly normal happening! Also, at the end of the war years, because of the shortage of registered pedigree dogs it was possible to mate with an unregistered dog under the “Pink Form” agreement. If the puppies bred true to type then they could be registered as pedigree. Of course, this was open to interpretation on the part of some people and it is a well known fact that one dog was at some time used as a Labrador, a Golden and as a Flatcoat!

As to the difference between a Labs BMS of 16 and a Golden’s of 19, I think the difference would depend on at which end you stood. I cannot imagine many Labrador people being very happy to see their BMS drop to 19! :)

Best wishes, John

Hi,

I agree John many lab people would not be happy to see their bbreed average drop
from 16 to 19 as a Golden breeder would not like to see 19 to 21 say.

However it is possible in a few years to see that happen and then see the breed scores say drop to 12 and then settle at 15.Like I was saying 2 steps forward one step back.Obviously i'm not saying it would ,what i'm trying to say is nothing is impossible and so long as in years to come we reduce those breed average scores we are doing the best with the information we have (hip scoring).
What gets me so angered are people who cannot be bothered to research their breed dont
hipscore and put any say eg Goldens together and then ask why? And of course those people with higher hipscores ao both hips and breed regardless :-(

Hope that makes kind of sense-)

Briony :-)

hi john.........i agree with you .....goldens in this country are a disaster,[to get a chic number you must have hips elbows heart and eyes],,they only have 5percent excellent in dogs born post 1996,labs are at twenty percent ,goldens also have a high rate of dysplasia,almost 20 percent and a high rate of fair 27 percent [labs are 11percent fair]i think...plus it hard to get a golden with normal elbows too........its also important for people to remember we need depth and breadth all relatives in three generations at least should have numbers not just the parents....................its possible for a whole litter to be affected i imported a rather expensive bitch from germany that was purchased bred.. out of a litter of eight seven were severly dysplastic and one got an ofa good but we never bred because she had no breadth.......

Hi,

Have to disagree perfectly possible to get Goldens with normal elbows in this country if your
prepared to do some research.Heart testing is not essential however I am looking into this
and certainly prepared to get this done along with eye,hips ,elbows .There are plenty of Golden breeders work very hard to ensure well bred Goldens that are happy and healthy who do all the tests :-).We also have alot who don't and want to make money .I'm sure alots
of breeds also have some of these types of breeders :-(
I don't know of any decent Golden breeder that just looks at the parents on the pedigree
your backstreets yes.
I look carefully at the 5 generations of hips eyes and elbows,confirmation temperament,
not necessarily in that order they are all important.
Just my opinion:-)
Briony :-)

Firstly, I am not comparing the figures I quote with any other breed. As I have stated several times the official BMS for Golden Retrievers is 18.84 and the figure of 15 has been calculated from the period 1990-2002, for reference ONLY!
This does not alter the fact that the BMS is 18.84 but does show that in latter years hip scores are improving.

I would question how you know whether Labrador hips are improving or worsening, without analysis of the figures, the breed could actually be returning scores averaging in the mid-twenties without you becoming aware for several years if you are relying on the deteriation showing in the official BMS. Due to the sheer numbers of Labradors tested in the past, any additions to the data have a very small influence on the figure, as I tried to demonstrate on my earlier post.
If you could break down the figures to reflect the present breed status regarding hips, do you not consider that this could be beneficial to breeders if it was to show that hip scores are worsening?

I am not concerned with the status of the GR's hips concerned with other breeds, but I am concerned with the accuracy of the 'facts' that you quoted. On the BVA results (I have just checked again), Golden Retrievers are recorded 11th worst of the 22 breeds ranked and in fact Bull Mastiff's are 4th worst. If you are going to quote facts, at least check that they are correct.
Check here if you still dispute the evidence from the BVA/KC site:http://www.bva.co.uk/worddocs/chs_breed_mean_scores.xls
So you see, I am far from acknowledging that your figures are right all along, in fact I totally refute them!

I will make an input into the original question asked and my opinion is that it is perfectly feasible that 4 out of 5 puppies in one litter could have dysplasic hips, why should they not?

Hip dysplasia is multi-factorial and the genetic influence is only one of the factors involved. There are many differing opinions on this subject, but the most common figure for heritability is quoted as being around 22% genetic.
If this figure is correct, then 78% of the influence is due to other factors and these could be nutrition, environment, exercise, injury etc.

In the illustated case of 4 out of 5 puppies suffering from chronic dysplasia, there is a 78% chance that factors other than genetic inheritance are responsible for the condition. Therefore it could be as you mentioned earlier in this thread that the enviromental conditions were not condusive to good hips (slippery floors?), the nutrition at a critical phase of a puppies development was not adequate, the puppies were all overweight thus stressing the hips or any combination of possibilities.
In this instance, the parents could have excellent hip scores and it would make no difference to the puppies because the problem is not due to an inherited condition!

snomaes

Actually you will find that at no time have I said that I am happy with the Labrador's BMS of 16. To be happy is to be complacent. Compared with a Flatcoat's BMS of 9 it is not a good score.

As to Bull Mastiff's being the 4th worst ranked breed, with only 610 dogs scored they do not even appear in the group of over 1000 dogs scored which I have said on a nunber of occasions is the group I am quoting from!!!

John

Hi,

At the end of the day,we are all agreed that we should all be working towards lower hip scores no matter what the breed is ;-)
I don't believe Golden Retrievers are a disaster as I said earlier but it may take a while to get a mean breed score we are all happy with.
So long as we always act in the breeds best interests with as much information we can gather and use ,and accept there are good and bad breeders out there I don't think we will go to far wrong.

Briony :-)

hi briony...i am interested to know the rate of elbow and hip dysplasia in goldens..is that low over there.??..i didn't even realize they had been doing elbows there for years we are hard pressed to find a dog with three genrations of elbows as we have only done them since 90 ,91...what is the website for the goldens hip and elbow data????i'

As near as I can remember the Elbow scheme was launched by the BVA and KC at Crufts in around 1996/97 area. I think what Briony means is that she checks as far as she is able. Unfortunatly we do not have a site such as your OFFA site where individual dogs can be checked. Some breeds do publish the details, others don't so researching lines is rather patchy and to a large extent our only info is to ask the details from the breeder. The only other available source of info is the KC's Breed Record Suppliment in which the details are published quarterly.

Best wishes, John

Hi,

Thanks John,
Thats exactly it.I think more people are beginning to score.
I will admit I never really looked into heart testing for Goldens and I am interested in this.
Does anyone know how I go about this?

Regards Briony :-)

hi john...so no one knows the exact rate of dysplasia???.are the vets who are reading the x-rays board certified radiologist???..it seems like it would be hard to know if it was getting better...the other big problems goldens have here is atrocious cancer rates.they actually have a site[k-9 dataweb.i think] devoted to mating probailities of certain cancers because all the lines are plaged with it.alot of bone cancer ...if these english goldens are so genetically sound people need to start imoprting them because they are a mess over here......i think they also require thyriod for a chic number....amazing the ones over there are so sound,it must be totally different lines than we have

Hi,

What country are you from?I cannot say there is a big issue here with cancer and Goldens
that i'm aware of,however I could be wrong.

Regards Briony :-)

I

No, one of the worst for cancer in the UK are Flatcoats. Goldens actually are not a bad breed for that. It's interesting how the breed problems differ in other countries. A problem gets into the local gene pool and changes things in that country!

As to heart testing for Goldens Birony, I don't know what there is organised within the breed. I don't think there is any nation wide all breeds heart testing as there is with hips or elbows. I thing like hearing testing this is always a breed specific thing.

Best wishes, John

Hi,

Thanks John,

I know of a Golden kennel that has heart testing done ,and will ring them later.I am definately interested in getting my dogs done for this,I shall be particularly interested in
the results.I take it ,it a pass or fail thing and if they fail these dogs are not bred from?

Regards Briony :-)