A little item for debate:
I was talking to a lady last week who has recently had her flatcoat hip scored. I asked her the score...5/6 was the answer (or 6/5, cant remember!)  "Well done!" I said. "Thank you" she said, "but the vet recommended that we shouldnt breed as it is higher then the breed average of 9 (total score)."

Now this FC is a really nice example of the breed. I understand that she has a few Ch show awards (which is of no consequence to me!), and her training suggests that she is going to make a really nice working dog (and I really take some impressing where FCs are concerned from a working point of view! - Lab man though & through!) I would go as far as to say that I have seen very few dogs of any breed that I like more than this bitch!

Just interested to hear peoples views on breeding where the hip score is higher than average, particularly in a breed with a very "good" mean score. For what its worth, I would definitely breed this bitch! (providing she fulfills her potential over the next year)

I wouldn't have considered a score of 11 a problem..especially since its very even.
As long as care is taken to use a stud with a good score it wouldn't put me off buying a pup from this bitch.
Archer

The Flatcoat BMS is 9 (as of 1/1/03) and Flatcoat people are reluctant to breed from above this score but the thing to remember is that a dog is more than a pair of hips. Some time ago some of the Society were talking to Dr Malcolm Willis. His comments were that the society should not get fixated on single digit scores. That using a dog with a score of 4 or 5 above the BMS would be in no way detrimental PROVIDED the dog had something to offer in other respects. He also said something to the effect (And I believe I got it right) that few dogs would ever suffer problems with a score of up to 18.

The thing to remember is that two hips with identical scores are not necessarily the same! Imagine two dogs with a hip scores of 0/6 (total 6) Not a bad scores you might say. But. . . . . .

Dog A/:-
Norberg Angle                           0
Subluxation                              6
Cranial Acetabular edge              0
Dorsal Acetabular edge               0
Cranial Eff. Acetabular Rim           0
Acetabular Fossa                       0
Caudal Acetabular                      0
Femoral Head and Neck Exostosis  0
Femoral Head Recontouring          0

Dog B/:-
Norberg Angle                            0
Subluxation                               1
Cranial Acetabular edge               1
Cranial Eff. Acetabular Rim            1
Acetabular Fossa                        1
Caudal Acetabular                       1
Femoral Head and Neck Exostosis   1
Femoral Head Recontouring           0
                   
Dog A has one glaring fault and is or is likely to be a cripple whereas dog B has a collection of faults so minor in form that it is to all intents and purposes perfect! On the other hand, Dog A's fault is of such magnitude that when linked to the perfection of the rest of the joint could lead you to assume that it is the result of accidental damage rather than hereditary influences. But would you be right???????

Best wishes. John

                 

Some interesting points there John. In my view we are not particularly focussing on the right data. The breed average (where the average is below one that would actually affect the dog) is probably much less important than the level of incidence of dogs with dysplasia.

It wouldnt really matter if the breed average of flatcoats (for example) increased from (say) 9 to 12, as long as the number of dogs with dysplasia is reducing.  The real effort (imo) should be around eliminating those dogs from the breeding programme that disproportionately throw very high scores (whatever their own score).

However, you hit the nail on the head by saying "the thing to remember is that a dog is more than a pair of hips."

Agree you can't throw the baby out with the bath water, and when thinking of breeding it is not just the hip score of the particular dog or bitch it is a combination of that dogs ancestors and siblings. Unlike an eye condition where one would not breed from an affected dog the condition of a dogs hips has a much wider set of factors that control the score of an individual, inheritance/food/upbringing all having a part and it is thought that there is not one gene involved as there is in some inherited conditions.

So if the bitch is of quality and her ancestors and siblings have good scores I would not think twice about using her.

The problem with hips, as I have said on here so many times, is that only a percentage of bad hips are genetic. So much is outside influence with damage even happening in the womb! Whilst we cannot make bad hips better we most certainly can make good hips worse and this is the bit we really need to address. Most certainly dogs with genetically bad hips should be removed from the breeding program but without comprehensive publicly available data (Such as the OFFA website in the US) by and large we do not have the info available to know for certain what we are likely to inherit from a particular stud dog. Obviously we ask the question but in all probability the farthest back we can go is a couple of generations and that is just no good enough!

Then of course there is the question of just how good score do we need? I'll go out on a limb here from the point of view of starting a discussion and say that possibly a pet dog can get away with a poorer score that a show dog (Although I know a show Golden with a total score of 56 who moved like a train). A working gundog probably needs a score from the better end of the range in order to complete its working life without breaking down in later years.

Best wishes, John

to be honest, unless everydog is scored what use is a average? also i know vets tell people with bad looking plates not to bother sending them off,so therefore if only the better plates get sent off the average is totally up the creak anyway!!!!
my boy has bad hips,parents with good hips (&grand parents),siblings with good hips, he was never over exercised or over fed-& i can honestly say i would not do anything different next time! the sad thing is hes a fantastic dog,fantastic to live with & train & talented in the obedience ring & totally gobsmacking to look at (not just my opinion either!),so although i wont use him(ive already been asked) what a waste of a otherwise cracking obedience sire.

You are right Michelled but also wrong. We need some sort of a marker to guide us in our choice. Without a BMS what reference would we use? We would have nothing and every single breeder would be on their own with no guide. We can be pretty sure that the BMS is better rather than worse than the true figure so we are aiming at the right side. If we stick to BMS or better then long term we should reduce the average.

You say your dog with bad hips is from good ancestors and that his post birth life has done nothing to adversely affect the score. It is quite possible that damage was done either at or even before birth. As I said, so much can affect hips that in most cases we are never really sure what caused the problem.

In a perfect world, with every dog scored and all data freely available to breeders we could do so much more but this is not a perfect world so we do the best we can.

OK folks, so let's take that utopian world a step further and suppose for a minute all that info was available. You are now able to see all stud dogs with what is behind them and also what they throw. Who throws perfect hips, perfect eyes, great looks, fabulous brain, in short the perfect dog. And let's face it, I would hope a few dogs would get near that ideal. So would you use him? Of course you would! So would anyone use second best? Of course not! Do you see what I'm driving at? As a stroke the gene pool has reduced to just one dog! A disaster!!

Could just be that we are better without all this info. We do our own research, make our own individual choices. Yes, sometimes we get it wrong but at least we maintain a gene pool. Over the years some big winners in the show ring have caused trouble by carrying an undiagnosed genetic problem which has been passed on in no small numbers. I can think of a Flatcoat and a Golden who fit this! Just think what would happen if this utopian dog had a maggot in the woodwork! At a stroke the entire breed would be affected! Nothing clear, no way back!

A few things to think about.

Best wishes, John

Classic 'baby and bathwater' situation!
:)

Strange how much that 'saying' fits consideration of the genetic situation so well, and why we bang on about doing your research before breeding.

a idea? there could be some sort of average,say 12 for arguements sake,that would be effective across all breeds,& all breeding D/Bs should be around that score,or lower, as a "marker" if you like, it would make indivual bms redundtant <sp?> as they are not truley representative anyway,

do you think for instance if my boy was in the womb with his hind legs in a incorrect position(stuck behind another puppy for eg) for an amount of time,at a crucial point in development that this could cause a problem???

i think theres so far to go in understanding this...........

I really think that one day we are going to know too much about genetic problems in dogs! We'll probably find that most of our dogs are carrying something or other, and as John says we'll be left with very little.
I'd really prefer to see the focus move further towards breeding for the positive qualities rather than total risk avoidance. (Without being TOO reckless!). If a dog doesnt suffer from any ill effects, and neither does its offspring (when really physically tested) does it REALLY matter what number a panel of vets say its hip scores are? 

I do think it would be worth understanding more about how a high hip score actually affects the dog. I know they all have different pain thresholds and compensatory muscle build up but there must be some common ground. The figure John quotes as being 18 before any ill effects is interesting as its the first time I've seen something like that quoted.

good point!
my boy has a score of 42 (21-21) & with a few months of correct management, is totally sound & on normal exercise.

he was never actually lame,but at 8months i something was niggling me about his gait. the vets thought i was mad  & only xrayed him at my insistance,(i actually thought he had a back problem!!). obvisley then he was rested & had a plan to build up the correct sort of muscle gradually,at 12months he was xrayed again for scoring,by this time he was moving very straight & sound. after the scoring i started letting him do more & more (within reason) & hes never looked back. hes never done any of the classic bunny hopping or anything & its only because of my horsey background (years of looking at lame ponies!!!) that i noticed the problem.

When you look at BMS's for the different breeds I don't think a "Fits all" figure could apply. How, for example, would you limit Clumbers to 12 when their BMS is 42? You would restrict their gene pool far to much.

The score of 18, provided it is nearly even for both hips and provided it is made up of a number of minor discrepancies and not a couple of glaring faults should be perfectly satisfactory for the "Average dog". It could be that a dog spending long days in the field working, with fences to jump and heavy loads to carry COULD possibly suffer in the latter days of it's life. Remember, some dogs are expected to work rather harder than others.

It is easily possible for a puppy's hips to be damaged as you say Michelled. Also when actually in the process of being born. Again It is possible for a person to supply just a little too much help during the birth. I'm rather surprised that your dog has such even scores. Usually in the case of damage one hip would be quite a bit different to the other. I'm sorry to say but the score you have points to either a management problem, something which affected both hips, or to a genetic fault rather than an accident.

Well - wish us luck - Beau & Vinnie (Aussies) are going up o Cambridge omorrow for heir hip scoring!

Margo

Fingers crossed for you Margo. :)

Best wishes, John