Hi all,
how can you definatly tell if a dog has a problem with his hips. It is a friends dog but i can't  help her because i have never actually seen a dog with bad hips. I am not sure if she is being a little paranoid though, the dog can jump and jump and jump, but it does run a little odd. Would a dog with bad hips behable to jump very high?

You can't tell Claudia. I know a Golden in the show ring with a score of over 50 who moves like a dream. I also know a Flatcoat with a score on one side alone of well over 30. An open Working Test dog who clears five bar gates as if they are not there. I also know a Labrador with a score of 3/3 who has a terrible movement. Movement is a combination of a number of things, joints are one, geometry is another muscle is a third. I knew a lovely Flatcoat bitch, the very first dog I ever showed at CH level who had great hips but a terrible movement caused by over muscular shoulders! The only real way to tell is to x-ray.

Regards, John

Thanks lots John, will pass it on.

My late Brett a border collie had a hip score of 34:34=68, he ran & jumped & did everything a dog normally could do & never had a problem. He was always a very fit well muscled dog & he also moved soundly

This is the thing. More important than the actual score is the way the score is made up, how well muscled the dog, and of course how heavy it is. Imaging a dog with a hip score of 12/12, both hips loosing the maximum on just two features. The dog could well be a cripple! Yet another dog with a score of 18/18, loosing just 2 marks from each feature could quite possibly never have a problem in it's life!

Weight is a very real problem for a dog with poor hips. I know better than most, having a hip damaged in an accident very many years ago. Yes it gives me problems occasionally but keeping my weight down and in a reasonably fit state due to walking the fields with my dogs and I have no problems. At the time when most of my work was carried out in an office I had far more problems!

Bare numbers can give us an idea but are never the whole story.

Regards, John