Im interested in your views and/or experinces with hip scores. my young collie[obedience bred] has a high score;21+21=42. but comes from lines with good hips, going back generations,he was not over fed or overexercised as a puppy.
1.has anyone a dog with a score around 42? able to tell me if theyve had much trouble with lameness/stiffness?
2.i was advised ,when my vets saw the rays, not to bother sending them off.has anyone else heard of this? i was disgusted & if this is happening how will we ever under stand hip dysplacia? & get meaningful breed averages?

Any comments welcome!
out of interest he is totally sound & staight moving,has hydrotherpy once a week & is now back up to normal exercise with no negative consquences.

A friend put a 0/0 dog to her 0/1 bitch and had a 21 in the puppy's. So much could affect it both before during and after birth. Usually though, in the case of injury the scores of the two hips are uneven, the damaged hip being considerably higher score than the other. In a case like yours, with two very even hips then it points to an inherited problem.

Some people are only interested in scores in relation to breeding. They figure that a bad score is detrimental to their line so will not submit a poor looking plate. Really this is a short sighted approach. The more plates submitted the better the overall picture of the breed can be seen. To me, ALL dogs should be scores and that's where puppy buyers come in. If only puppy buyers insisted that they would only buy from tested dogs then we could really get a handle on hereditary problems.

Best wishes, John

Hi John!thanks for repling!
i think there should be some sort of subsidised system that would allow dogs not intended for breeding to be scored more cheaply,im sure the kennel club could afford to do something!,then alot more information would be known on the genetics of whats actually going on!

I think the k.c should also help the breeders that do score their dogs, give some incentive to do it. It is always harder for breeders who score, you are very lucky if do not get a high score at some point in your breeding programme. People who don't score pay exactly the same registration fees and sell the pups for the same price, sometimes even more. 
I know someone who had a GSD bitch with a score of 46:46 she was spayed and never bred from of course but she lived until the grand age of 12yrs. She also did agility but she also came from scored lines.
I had a bitch with a score of 1:1, put her to a dog with 6:6   both came from low scored lines. One of the pups was scored at 33:35
But this is why people stick their heads in the sand and don't do it :(

Be nice but I don't see it ever happening.

Out of interest, I know a Golden with a score of 56. It moved like a dream in the show ring and never had a day's trouble in his life. Died at 16 years old! Of course a lot depends on how the score is made up and that's the beauty of the UK scheme. A score is made up of 9 different features and if for example, a Labrador lost just one mark on each feature it would loose a total of 18, two over the breed mean score!! If it lost just 6 marks but all on just one feature it could be disastrous! As an example, according to the BVA's own criteria, 6 marks lost to "Subluxation" is rated as "Complete Pathological dislocation"!

Best wishes, John

i agree john! flynn had mainley 2s some 1s a 3 & a 4 ,evenly spread out over both hips. these 2s quickly add up!
its good to know that other dogs with high scores have had such active lifes!
we do obedience & though hes just a baby, 13months, has had some good places already & works like a dream with lovely style. more than that though he is a really lovely honest boy who is a joy to live with! i wouldnt swap him for anything,bad hips and all!!!

Generally obedience is not a big strain on the hips although tight turns do put a sideways load on the joints. At least there is no jumping as in agility. Be careful, short periods of training followed by "Free periods" to relax him. Distance control, down to stand is possibly the biggest strain. And remember, its all about having fun.

Enjoy your dog.

Best wishes, John

Most of the training is short anyway to keep up the motivation!
its funny because i never thought of collies of having a big problem with hips, still if vets are advising the bad ones not to be sent off for scoring then it is hard to tell.

In your case the vet was correct but in a lot of cases they are way off, agree that it would be good if all progeny were scored and to this end my sister offered £50 back when she received a copy of the hip score, it worked in about 90% of cases. This was about 6 to 10 years ago and I think the cash back more or less covered the outlay.

Hi all

I'm very interested in the agility aspect of this thread in relation to HD.
Two reasons, one - I would like to do agility (just for fun) with my GSD girl, and am getting her hip scored (she has done 'baby' agility up to now, learning the ropes, commands, poles on ground etc. Then I think to myself, how will this help me decide if it's OK to do it with her. My understanding of the scheme and HD (I have looked at the site that gives the breakdown of categories etc) and it seems to me that if you have anything other than 0-0 the dog has HD, it's just a matter of degree. So if the score is very very low I would think it was OK, but what if it wasn't. Say for example it came out near or above the breed average (19) - should that be a complete no-no? What scores determine mild, moderate and severe HD? Then I see that a dog with a high hip score did agility anyway. Could it be that the agility actually strengthened the muscles?

Two, I know someone who does agility with a shepherd who seems fine and is really fit, but he's never been scored, so how does she know it's OK to do it? Also I have heard of quite a few BC's with HD lately, and as we all know they are the prime candidates for agility, and I know a lot of people with BC's doing agility, again who have no idea what's going on with their hips.

Am I paranoid?? (my old GSD had severe HD, though never scored). My husband swears that I have been traumatised by past experience of hip problems, and I think he feels that unless she has a really low hip score that I will pull the plug on it all, and that I may be overreacting. So how do I decide what is an acceptable score for her to do fun agility?

Kat (worryguts)

hI,

So right you are John,My oldest bitch has a hipscore 7:36 she injured her left hip when  a friend threw a ball for herself up in the air and my bitch jumped high to catch and landed heavily and arkwardly on her left side at 6 month old she screamed and was lame for some time.
However after 13 weeks cage rest she came back sound amazingly and moves a dream in the ring but it did reflect on her hipscore.

Briony:-)

Hi Kat.
Agility is great fun for dogs. The running and jumping is a great way to let off steam! Please don't get paranoid about hips. We are what we are and to have too many restrictions placed on us could soon make our lives tedious and exactly the same applies to dogs!

When my Anna was a puppy she had an accident which left her hanging by a leg. Because I do gundog work which includes the need to jump I had her scored to see what if any damage had been done so that I could then make a decision on what to do for the best. In the event Anna proved to be undamaged at 2/2 so I had no decision to make.

You are right when you say that anything other than zero is to a degree displastic but the whole thing about hip scoring is that to an extent it is subjective. It is dependant on someone deciding on an x-ray exactly where the edge of the joint is and as such a score of one or two is really ignorable.

Agility is not a stamina thing having possibly more in common with a 100meters race rather than a marathon so further damage is not a bad risk. In gundog work a dog would start at around 10am and be working to a greater or lesser extent until around 3-30pm. very much more of the marathon event. For my part, for what it's worth, I'd say that anything up to the BMS should be no problem provided that marks are fairly evenly lost over all of the features. In fact I'd go so far as to say that you could possibly go into the low 20's without trouble providing you do not over do it.

Best wishes, John

Hi John
Thanks for a really positive and refreshing reply. I am so hoping that her score will be OK, especially after my last dog, but I know that won't necessarily be the case. The little she has done she loves, and is fantastic at it - thoroughly enjoying herself. I am paranoid about HD, I know it and I want to do what's right for her - whatever it may be. I also don't want to make her life a misery and stop all her fun (she's an express train though and I don't think I could slow her down even if I tried, the natural agility she expresses when running through the woods is a joy to watch). Perhaps the best approach is as you say, do it and enjoy it, but don't overdo it!
Thanks so much for your reply, I feel so much better. When I do get the results it will be like exam results - too frightened to look!
Kat

I must say, it is a worry Kat. I was scared stiff waiting for Anna's score to come through. I'll have my fingers crossed for you while you wait for yours.

Best wishes, John

Hi,

The main things I do without thinking with puppies careful the amount of exercise,no climbing of stairs till after 9 months,no rough play with older dogs,careful feeding,teaching the pups not to jump up.Once my dogs have been scored around 14 months for me ,they can take the greater exercise and jump go up and down stairs .Hips are now far more stable and finished growing.Although accidents do happen as proven with my bitch ,however now she loves to run and jump and will enjoy a good mad session with older dogs and is still sound, gets 11/2 - 2 hrs across the fields and some roadwork.

Not sure when would be the best age to start jumping for agility? for me not till I got them hipscored.however like to watch agility but prefer to show.

Briony:-)

Hi Kat! Basically i think ive decided that there no way of telling what will happen!! i know that swimming once a week has really helped flynn by strenghtening the muscles & therefore holding the hips securley!

Hi there.  Small world if you are the Michelle that my friend was telling me about in the car back from Manchester show today.

My freind is Bryony, and I am Barbara and we own Elkhounds, but she has the guts to do Obedience with hers :D :D

No help to your question though.

If you can keep him fit then he will fare better, and hopefully won't stiffen too much with age, but invariabley there will be some arthritic changes.

The highest score in our breed was 61, and that dogs breedrs said that it's movement got quite bad, and it did get arthritis, but lived a good long life.

I think a lot will depoend on breed weight and activity levels,a dn the individual.  Excersis for dogs like this shoudl be little and often to build up muscles, and keep them supple.

A HD vet that had an interest in working Gundogs had a bitch scoring in the 40s he said and she still did a full days work in the field, but he built her up over the preceding weeks.

Hi Barbara! Yes its me!!!! weve met a few times at crufts & at LKA02.

Yes it is a small world! i love Bryonys "little?" boy by the way! flynn is a very good friend of his!

hi guys...its crucial not only to have the parents clear but all dogs in at least a three generation pedigree,all need to have low scores,,,they have concluded the genes for hip dysplasia have an additive effect...so depth and breadth are crucial...as many relatives and their littermates as possible should be clear and low scoring....it has been proven hd can be reduced with selective breeding