We are looking for a black labrador bitch puppy and have seen a pup on the Kennel Club sales register whose mother (Chocolate) is 12:12, but the sire (black) is 0:0. We do not believe that we would breed our dog in the future, but want to ensure that she has an active pain-free life with us.

I am aware that the recommended score is below 20. Given that the mother is above the average and the father is a perfect score, does this mean that the puppy is likely to inherit a hip score which is the average of the 2 parents , or (as I suspect), is it possible that it could inherit a hip score at either end of the scale ? And is it more likely that (as the sire is black) that the black puppies wil inherit the characteristics of the sire, not the dam , or again is this irrelevant ?

All in all, I suppose, would the readers recommend that we buy a puppy from this breeder, or should we move on ?

Thanks

Charles

Hi Charles

I'm not a Labrador expert (as you can probably guess from my username) but I am pretty sure that the colour of the pup won't make any difference to its hip score.  I would guess the pups' hipscores could vary around the ranges of the parents' scores.

If the recommended score for breeding is below 20 in that breed, I would question why the breeder has decided to breed this bitch.  She may be so outstanding in her field, be it showing or working, that the breeder has decided that it is justified, but unless this is the case I can't see that there is a justification for using her in a breeding programme.

If I was in your position, I would only consider buying from this breeder if I wanted those particular bloodlines - but even then, I think I'd move on - but my breed has a lower average hip score.

This is a difficult question to answer. The Breed Mean Score for labradors is 15 with the Median being 10, so really the bitch's hipscore is too high, and she should only have been bred from if she was absolutely stunning in every other way, with a good show or working record. The sire's hipscore is excellent which in theory should improve the scores of the offspring. But to more sure of that you'd need to know the scores of all the grandparents and great-grandparents and ideally siblings of parents. The sire could be unusually good in a line of average scores, and the the bitch could be unexpectedly bad from a line of good scores.

The colour is totally irrelevant - hip formation isn't linked to the colour gene, and black is the dominant colour.

I have a male that has a bad hipscore, totally different breed, but his pups in Europe, America and now here in the UK all have fantastic scores for the breed.  All of his pups that have been scored here in the UK so far are well below the breed average, one has the second lowest score for the breed and the grandson has the lowest!

I would find out the scores of the mothers side if they are all low then I would take the risk, don't forget that you also have to do the right things with food, exercise etc. to try and minimise the risk als.

Personally I think that sometimes, too much emphasis is put on hip scores these days.  I have a Gordon with a high hip score but his movement in the show ring is great.  Some dogs you see in the ring have poor movement and often have high hip scores. 

I have also heard (I could be wrong so please dont all shout me down)  that there have been other problems developing in labs as a result of the hip scores getting better and that as a result of tighter hips there are now problems occuring in the hocks. 

I have also known dogs with high hip scores produce dogs with single figure scores.   The scores you are talking about of a total of 24 are not horrendous.

Jill

>The scores you are talking about of a total of 24 are not horrendous.

No, but in a breed with such a huge population and wide gene pool as the labrador, a score of double the usual breeding-tolerant score would have to be looked at askance.

Well I personally prefer to go down the route of good hip scores, however, I bought a bitch from a mother with a HS of 28 she had a RCC and was a JW winner. My bitch has a HS of 7:7 =14 and she produced a puppy with a HS of 3:3 =6 from a dog with an 8 HS. I also have a 13 year old bitch with a HS of 56 who has never had a day lame in her life, can still climb the stairs unaided and goes for her walk with the other 4 every day, albeit a lot slower than the others. I do believe that ensuring that a puppy is not overexercised and not overweight also can have an effect on hipscores. IMO.

Thing is the sire is 0,0 which is wonderful but is he a dog that produces low hip scores, his may just be a fluke - if he is a low score producer then that's possibly one reason why the bitch has been mated to him.  It's do your homework time I'm afraid, you need to find the scores of any littermates, dam, sire & their littermates etc.   if all are reasonably low then I'd say you're ok.

Like you Jill, I think TOO much emphasis is placed upon a dogs breeding protential based solely on it's hip score.  There's some poor looking specimens in my breed that have been bred from because their hips etc. are all good but to me their conformation & type leave an awful lot to be desired.

There's a dog in my breed who has a wonderful score but his pups in Europe, his daughter and grand-daughter here in the UK have a terrible score.  My boy who had an excellent score in Spain but a high score via the BVA is four times this dogs hipscore and the majority of dogs in Europe (more pups registered and scored there than the other dog) have a much better hipscore.  So as you can see although a good hipscoring dog has been used he has not thrown good ones.  Whereas my boy has thrown pups and his grand-children with very good hipscores.

My boy, I didn't realise I saw him when he must of been around 7 months old, this dog was scalinga wall about 7 foot to retrieve an article and then just jumping down to the ground from that height!  This will not of helped his score I'm sure.  I only realised about a year afterward he was imported when I was looking at some old photo's from Spain that it was him and when I thought about it I realised that he was still only a puppy and I haven't a clue how long he'd been doing it for then!

>There's some poor looking specimens in my breed that have been bred from because their hips etc. are all good but to me their conformation & type leave an awful lot to be desired.

Absolutely! As the saying goes, "There's more to a dog than a pair of hips". A good score doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the dog is any good, and vice versa - you can get a poor score in an otherwise outstanding dog. And neither necessarily means that the score will be passed on. It's still a fact, though, that if a breeder doesn't show that they've made the effore to minimise the risk of bad hips in the offspring (by using low-scoring dog and bitch) they leave themselves open to litigation if one of the pups later proves to be affected. It can be a minefield!

I have not got a clue on hip scores apart from thinking the lower the better.
Checked my docs for my Newfie and the Sire was 4/3 and the Dam16/20.
Not had my boys hips checked but I hope he will live long and continue to drool on my walls for many moons yet.

>Checked my docs for my Newfie and the Sire was 4/3 and the Dam16/20.

The BMS for Newfoundlands is 27 with a median (most common score) of 19. The KC recommends only breeding from animals with a score well below (their emphasis) the BMS. Your dog's sire's score's fine, but his dam, with a score of 36, is on the high side.

At that score for the bitch she would be rated Borderline under the OFA grading system http://www.offa.org/hipgrade.html, if the hips scores of her parents grandparents and litter mates are good I can see what the breeder is doing by breeding from her and using a low scoring dog.

I would ask the breeder what their reasoning was and what the other relatives scores are. A dog is more than a set of hips, and even excellent scoring lines will occasionally throw up a poor score, it is the overall pattern that is more important than any individual score (outside actual clinical Dysplasia).

Some useful reading on the subject here: http://www.workingdogs.com/doc0090.htm

Would I be right in saying some breeds will score better on hip scores like labs and retrievers where say Danes and larger heavy built dogs might have a higher score.
Is it also maybe a case that low hip scores are seen more on say labs due to the higher number breed in this country over the years say compared to Newfies who were in short supply after WWII.