hi folks ,
           my 4 year old boy has just been diagnosed with mild hip dysplasia ,i have started him on green lipped muscle ,but read somewhere about Glucosamine and Chondroitin could i give this as well as the glm .He is not in pain no stiffness when out walking ,just bunny hopping when he runs about on the leg that has the hp .Vet said it could be years before he needs any anti-inflammatory and painkilling drugs ,which im really happy about
But thought i would ask to see if anyone else could give me advice or anything else i could give him to help him

   thanks bbgirl

Hi bbgirl

Have you considered hydrotherapy for him?  If he likes water you'll find that swimming is a great non weight bearing exercise which will help  keep his muscle tone!

I'm not sure whether you can give green lipped muscle and glucosamine at the same time, but I think you could, I'm sure someone wil be along to confirm that!

Maria :)

hi maria ,
            yes i did think about hydrotherapy as he does like swimming ,i just need to find a pool thats near to where we stay ,or wait till it's nice weather so he can swim in the sea as he love's that

or wait till it's nice weather so he can swim in the sea as he love's that

Our dog swims in the sea every day of the year :)

My Golden Dandy (11 yrs old and quite a big dog at 38 kg) has a hip score of 96 and we've just been on an hour long walk today. :) Before I put him onto Glucosamine with Chondroitin he couldn't even get up if he'd been asleep, let alone walk. That was about 4 years ago now. He didn't show any symptoms at all until he was 6. He was on Rimadyl for a while but it stopped working, but the G&C has worked fine. Took about 6 weeks for it to have an effect. We buy the cheap human version rather than the expensive stuff from the vet (it was a huge difference, we normally pay £5 for a tub of 120 capsules, Synoquin from the vet was £54). We didn't know about his HD until just a short while before he started having problems so never did anything before then.

> £5 for a tub of 120 capsules

That's cheap - where do you get them ?? :)

Daisy

Yeah where????????
I get through loads with both Gemma and me taking them!!!!
Lea :)

Vitamins Direct have got them on offer  - 360 for £25 at the moment :) (That's the 500mg Glucosamine +400mg Chondroitin ) I try to watch for offers, but it's not worth buying too many at one go :) I don't really need any at the moment :)

Daisy

Yes it's Vitamins Direct but you need to watch out for the special offers in newspapers (as they give you a special phone number and special URL to get to the offer each time), they happen every few months and they tend to take out large ads when they do and then they charge a tenner for a tub and buy one get one free, no postage and £2 off if you spend at least £20 so we stock up for 6 months at a time. Their normal price is usually £25 for 3 so a bit dearer. http://www.vitaminsdirect.co.uk it's the Hi Strength G&C we use.

Marianne, are those the capsules that you can open so you can sprinkle the powder on their food?

Yes they are and that's what I do. :)

> Are they easy to open ?? I just hide the capsules in Bramble's meat and 19/20 he eats it with no problem :) Poking them into chicken wings/pilchards isn't so easy and sometimes the pill is left in his bowl. He is getting better at swallowing them when I pop them into the back of his throat, but I've never tried opening them (and I'm always in a rush in the mornings) :)

Daisy

Usually yes. You get the occasional tough one, then I just cut the end off with scissors. But that's perhaps one in every 50.

Has hew actually been scored for you to know how mild is mild.  This may help with a plan of action re supplements optimum exercise etc.

Hi bbgirl

Have a look at the new thread on OCD and BARF, the link that mygirl has put on there is very interesting reading and might be of help.

Marion

no i did not have him scored to be honest HD never crossed my mind .My vet had a look at him on monday and told me to take him back in on tuesday morning for the xray .he also got a shock when he looked at the xray as he never thought it was HD .
Wish i had done more research then i could have said what i thought it was and could have got him scored .
But dont want to put him through another general anesthetic ,or should i so i know just how mild it is ?
I had a look at the post  mygirl posted and found it very interesting

thanks for all the help  

bbgirl

While he was out did the Vet take a proper  x-ray that you could submit, then he wouldn't need putting out again.

Personally I would prefer to have him scored.  Is the Vet an orthopaedic specialist>  If not he may be wrong about mild HD.  After all I wouldn't expect a non specialist to recognise only mild HD, would expect one to recognise a severe case.

Even when X-raying for scoring GP Vets can be way wrong on the likely outcome.  Have had friends whose Vet thought the dogs hips poor and have come back good and vice versa.

Have also had a new owner enquire about OCD in my breed because their Vet was convinced their dog at 6 months had it.  I advised they ask for a referral, and there was no trace of this, the dog had Panosteitis (inflammation of the lining of the long bones), often called growing pains, which he grew out of.

teyha my fcr hit a tree at 4 months old.god the noise at the time i thought she was dying.long story in to it but for a month she couldnt walk and panosteitis set in a round the ball and socket of the hip joint,no broken hip or femur.

but when it came to have her hip score the damage side came back as 14 the good side 3. but if she didnt hit the tree the total score would be 6,where it 17.
but she move around the ring with drive.

I don't think Panosteitis can set in around and injury, don't you mean arthritis.  Pano is a self limiting problem of fast growing young dogs, more often male for some reason with some breeds like GSD affected more often than average.

I doubt that the vet would be about to submit the x-ray already taken - I am pretty sure that the x-ray plate has to have the dog's registration number put on it at the time.  I hope I am wrong in this case as it would be interesting to get the views of the scoring panel. 

I have to agree with what Barbara says about some vets getting in wrong when analysing the plates.  Years ago the vet thought one of mine would come back with a poor score - she scored 2:2.  And some later, another vet couldn't see any problems with another dog's plates - she scored 24:3 (I was expecting a poor score on one hip as she got knocked over as a puppy and took ages to recover - however, as an adult she was always sound, even winning CCs as a veteran, up to the age of nearly 11.  I kept her fit and trim and she never went lame.)

Yes ridgelover your right i spoke to my vet who said we would need to have it done again as they need his registration number at the top of the xray so my poor baby has to go though it all again on monday morning .Hopefully my vet might have gotten it wrong .Will i get his score right away as i forgot to ask vet or are they sent away 

thanks folks for all your replys and help
will keep you updated on how we get on

bbgirl

Hi bbgirl

The plates are sent away to the BVA (Brtish Veterinary Assoc - I think) to be scored by a panel of vets that sit every month or so (again I think)  So I'm afraid you will have to wait to get the score back.  The quickest I've got a score back is 6 days and the longest about 5 weeks, but it is just luck.

Good luck
Carina

Yes ridgelover your right i spoke to my vet who said we would need to have it done again as they need his registration number at the top of the xra

Is it possible to have a hip score from the BVA if you have a dog who has no papers due to being a rescue? He is a breed which can be prone to HD.

bbgirl, where abouts in the country do you live? i am about to get Storms hips scored and there is a lady who is very highly recommended who xrays only giving a local not putting the dogs right under

im in the north of scotland but would be very willing to travel if this lady does them with a local

Yes.  Here is a link to the procedure notes http://www.bva.co.uk/public/chs/HD_Proc.Notes_2007.pdf

You would probably need to register your dog with the Kennel Club on the Activities register so that he can be identified.  You won't need details of his parents just choose him an official name.

i am sure you can have a dog hipscored just using his/hers microchip as id no need to registure

Couldn't find anything to say that in the procedure notes,

"NB The veterinary surgeon should check that the breed, colour and sex of the dog correlate with those details
in the Owner's Declaration and on the KC Registration Certificate. The veterinary surgeon should also check
that the details on the KC Registration Certificate have been accurately and completely transposed by the
owner onto the HD certificate eg the Kennel Club registered name, number, breed, sex and date of birth." 

unless it is added at the end?

i frequent a certian lab cross chat room and no  said dogs have been hipscored just using microchip numbers

Then the procedure notes need updating or being made clearer.

Just a thought :)

Why bother having the Hips scored ? Should you not get a referal to a specialist who can determine how bad the hips are anyway if it was that bad ? Getting the hips scored with only give a number at the end of the day but all information about hips scores is good for breed statistics etc which is why we had Dudley our Lab scored but it was not for diagnostic purposes as we already knew that she had bad hips :)

Unless you are having the score done for the same reasons as we did I don't really see the need , just means an extra cost to you ?

Duds has extremely bad HD shown as clear on the first Xray we had done but so far this has been managed by diet, appropriate excercise and supplements, Synoquin.

If your dog is not in a any significant pain then HD is a condition with can be controlled with careful management :)

Lucy
xx

Well I wondered how the Vet was diagnosing mild HD, and how mild is mild.  I ahve know vets including one I have used look very glum when telling me my bitch had a Hip score of 15, a point higher than the breed mean, and well within the range of functionally normal.

I hve to admit if it was me I'd be interested in what mild HD is!

I guess technically speaking a score of 0/1 could be described as mild HD!

So long as the condition is diagnosed correctly, ie it IS HD, then the score is completely irrelevant. Some dogs with high scores show very little problem in terms of mobility/pain, and low scores the reverse. So I think that really, as long as the right condition has been diagnosed it really doesn't matter. Glucosamine and Chondroitin can be used regardless of the condition, can't do any harm.
kat

Ah but how many average non specialist vets can diagnose a clinical case of HD as mild?

Didn't mean diagnosed correctly as MILD HD Brainless, just HD, rather than another problem which may be addressed differently - sorry not clear
Kat

but it wouldn't functionally e HD and certainly not something the owner should be worrying about and changing the dogs life and supplements etc for. So that is why if it were me I would want the dog scored to put it into perspective.

Mild dysplasia under the American system would equate to our score of 26 to 35, and a C grade under the FCI system.

>i spoke to my vet who said we would need to have it done again as they need his registration number at the top of the xray so my poor baby has to go though it all again on monday morning

You shouldn't have to repeat the x-rays just for the reg number.  The BVA will score the plates without the registration number indented on the plate.  They will also score unreg dogs.  The vet, however, will be required to write the reg number or an identification name/number (if the dog doesn't have a reg number) on the plate and sign it. 

I had 1 plate done this way approx 10 months ago. 

However, the score doesn't necessarily correspond with the symptoms of HD.  A dog with a high score can be symptom free whereas another with a low score can be in pain and vice versa. 

My lass has a score of 96 and was symptom free for years.  She is now 11.   She is on Glu & Chron, fish body oil and has hydrotherapy every week; been swimming now for the past 2 and 1/2 years.  Just a bit of stiffness now and again, apart from that she's fine.

I'm just about to go through all this and i'm petrified. I have a 19.5month old and whilst she will happily run around, sprawl out, jump, stretch, stand on both back legs I've always though she looks a little stiff after exercise (everyone has said its me being paranoid).

We were at the vets today, as she had hurt herself last week. I asked him to look at her hips and see what he thinks. He diagnosed her as not having  full mobility in her left hip. He thinks it is mild HD. He said there was no crunching which is a good thing. She's booked in for an x-ray next Monday.

A wee question for all you dog gurus out there.  i was browsing the internet the other day and when looking at a specific breed there was a copy of a dogs BVA hip score on it.  The thing I noticed was that only the top 3 boxes were filled in the rest scored out.  When my boy got his hips done all the boxes were filled.  i did wonder at first if the scored out boxes were scored at 0 but then some of the filled in boxes had 0's in them.

Can any shed any light on this?  (or am I being completely stupid) Does it vary from breed to breed

Jill

If the two boxes above had zeros the scored out bits will have the same value.

I have had the scores back with zero's put in the lower boxes, or zig zag from tip to bottom.

With your average good scores you tend only to get numbers in the top three rows. numbers lower than that will be with higher scores showing other abnormalities in the joint and arthritic changes.

Thanks for that,

You dont ask you dont learn

Jill

Hi folks ,
            got my boys hip score back and im over the moon   :cool right hip is 5 left hip is 8 total 13 .Phoned my chum who said thats a very good score for our breed

  thanks for all your help and support

  bbgirl

That's a great hipscore and makes me even more annoyed that people think because a dog bunnyhops that it has HD!  Your dog is borderline absolutely no HD with 5 and extremely slight HD of 8, this in fact would mean that your dog should never ever have any problems and to be truthful you shouldn't need to give any supplements now or ever with that score!

My breed bunnyhop and also three of them lie with their back legs stuck out like a frog.  So many people said that this means that they have severe HD and they are all below the breed meanscore!!!

So pleased for you!

I'd disagree with your friends very strongly! Any dog can lie with frogs legs has, by their suppleness, got fantasticly good hips! Anyone, dog or human, that has hip disease, struggles to get them open AT ALL! Let alone for the froggy legs! LOL :D (and I know about hips cos I got 2 new ones! LOL :P)

Nearly all Elkhounds do the frogs legs.  Generally we have an  average of 13 or 14 with a range of 0 to 61 having been recorded.  We do have around 20% of all KC registered dogs hip scored (all breedign stock has to be done under club code of ethics) as being a numerically small breed, this gives a fauirly accurate picture of the breed as a whole.

I wonder what percentage of the 46 thousand Labradors bred each year are scored, and more importantly how many of their parents?

Any dog can lie with frogs legs has, by their suppleness, got fantasticly good hips! Anyone, dog or human, that has hip disease, struggles to get them open AT ALL!

I think you could be right with this newfiedreams!  My last dog had severe hip problems and he could never lie like a frog, but our 13 month old golden ALWAYS lies like a frog - he's done this since we brought him home at about 7 weeks! I always think it is because he is extremely supple - keeping fingers and everything crossed :P

I've known dogs with rubbish hips lie like this, and also dogs with fantastic hips do it. It's no sign whatsoever of hip status.

Wow and my bitch has the 2nd highest recorded in the breed and has perfect movement.  It wasn't untill hip-scores where done did we know anything was wrong.