Anyone with any insider knowledge of when the BVA panel is sitting next. I had my young boy X-rayed yesterday and just wondered how long they are taking at present. Vet thinks that he should come back as a 2:2 and if I am unlucky then a 3:3. Elbows look okay too.

I think kayc spoke with them recently and they were sitting every Thursday. My girl had her X-rays on the 14th of May and I don't have the results back yet. You must be pleased with those scores. :)

Thanks for that. Yes very pleased. I have bred a bitch with a 3:3 before but this would be great if they come back as a 4.

Fingers crossed they are as low as that - well done.

One of mine done 25 April and not back yet, then 2 more on 7 May.

I had a dog done in mid March and nothing back until early May, when I spoke to them they told me they had a 4-6week backlog!

I had mine x-rayed on 9th April, and they were read on the 22nd of May after I phoned them on Monday 12th May, as my bitch was in season and was waiting on the dogs score, and the plates were brought to the top of the pile, so without a call I would probably still be waiting.  Had to have Vet call on the day for the result, as bitch waiting to be mated.

They are sitting often but seem to have a huge backlog.

It was earlier this year, but my latest were x-rayed 22nd of January and I got the results 8th of March.

When i got mine done at the beg on May i was told that the wait is about 6-8 weeks to get the results back.
If any longer then a call to the BVA will be happening, just to make sure nothing has gone astray

Can somebody tell me please, exactly what is "hip-scoring"? And how is it different/better than the vet looking at the x-rays? Does it identify more problems?
I'm asking because my dog has an intermittent pain that seems to be in her hip - every now and again she gives a yelp, sometimes when she is just lying down. I've got a dodgy hip myself, which sometimes shifts in the socket as if it's going to slip out of the joint; and I wondered whether the dog could have something similar? And anyway, what could be done about it?
Thankyou for any help/advice.

Hi
Just like you have noticed with yourself, some dogs are born with a hip ball that doesn't fit properly into the socket. The hip is split into several different parts, and each part is given a maximum score. The points are given for how ABNORMAL each part is, so a perfect part scores a zero. When all the scores are added together each hip can score a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 53 in total. The two sides are then added together, so that the highest maximum is a score of 106. Needless to say, a hip score of 106 is a seriously deformed hip.  Most breeds you'd expect an average hip score to be around 15 in total for, but it does vary from breed to breed.

A normal vet isn't qualified to do this scoring, they can only look at the x-rays and make an educated guess. If the hips are very bad or very good, a normal vet can tell this quite easily, but you can't really expect them to be able to tell more minor differences -and people will tell you stories of vets that claimed a dog had moderately bad hips only for the scores to come back very good, and vice versa. The KC in association with the British Veterinary Association has a committee that meet up and look at all x-rays of hips together, and they together decide on the scores. It is vital for breeding to know exact scores, and yes, it will be much more precise. However, if a hip is bad, yes a normal vet can tell from an x-ray.

Hip dysplasia can be operated on, that would involve an actual hip replacement like in humans, but it isn't done all that frequently (extremely expensive) and not all dogs are suitable candidates. For others, medication is the answer. I have a dog with severe hip dysplasia myself, his score is 48 on each side so a whopping 96 in total. He showed no symptoms at all until 6 years of age when we x-rayed him. He is today 12, and he is doing really well. For a year or two he was on painkillers/anti-inflammatories from the vet, but for the past several years he has just been on Glucosamine & Chondroitin capsules added to his food each day and it has made a huge difference. Before we started on them, he could hardly walk at all and was in alot of pain, now he is a normal dog and really well for his age.

HD would have to be very bad for it to cause the dog to cry out when laying, it would be lame when walking and there would be obvious deviation from the norm for any vet to know there was a problem in the leg somewhere although it may not be the hip could be knee or even the back.  I think I would want my vet to come up with an answer, dogs are known to be stoic so pain that causes them to squeal must be investigated.

HD would have to be very bad for it to cause the dog to cry out when laying, it would be lame when walking

That hasn't been my experience at all, with a dog with a score of 96. For 6 years he showed no symptoms at all, then he stared finding it difficult to get up and eventually could not get up without help, his hindlegs just dragged behind him. However, once he WAS up and got going, after a couple of minutes he was fine, and indeed I even showed him a few times and got comments on nice movement. And he's a big heavy dog of around 38 kgs. It's only now he's 12 you can tell from his movement that something is wrong as he bunnyhops.

Don't disagree with what you are saying, what I meant was if a dogs hips were so bad that it cried out when resting, it would be evident to any vet worth their salt that the dog had a problem. Perhaps did not explain my thoughts too well.

See what you mean. :)

Thankyou so much for those replies. She has had an occasional limp on one back leg, but like the yelp of pain, it's really very occasional - say once or twice a month at most, and when out on walks she races and turns at full speed, so it's obviously not painful all the time. I've examined her her as best I can, and one back leg would lift up, out and back, no problem; the other lifted up, but when I gently encouraged her to take it back, she barked with pain. There doesn't seem to be any pain on the surface when I touch her, it's only when she moves the leg herself.
How would a vet tell if this was arthritis, rheumatism, or a deeper joint problem? She's 3 btw.

Just to add: now that I think about it, the limp has been on the OPPOSITE leg to the one that hurt when I lifted it.  I don't know if that tells us anything? I remember reading something that said in Chinese medicine, if your left leg hurts they work on the right one!

Think you may be looking at the wrong joint. It may well be soft tissue damage that would be more likely to cause pain when the dog was at rest as the dog may well flex a muscle and cause pain although the joint has not been moved. Holding the leg up may be more likely caused by a problem at the knee or in the food, I am assuming as you were talking hip you are talking rear legs.

Thankyou very much for that Nova. When she was a puppy she injured the "sheath" of her tendon; it hasn't seemed to trouble her since, do you think it might be that?

You may wonder why I'm still posting instead of going straight to the vet; well, it's because she absolutely hates being handled; she has to be double-muzzled and just goes completely rigid, so I think she would have to be either sedated or have a general anaesthetic in order to be properly examined; so if she has to have x-rays, I want to get it all done at the same time.
Thankyou again for your help.

Think you are going to have to bite the bullet and get her looked at, it is unusual for the dog to cry out unless the pain if quite bad or the dog is a wimp, only you will know which yours is.

Could be that a short course of anti-inflammatory drugs will cure the problem but a vet is bound to examine before they will proscribe any medication.

Sorry I can't really tell you what is wrong only that something is, dogs do not cry out or become lame for effect only people do that. :-)

Yes, thankyou v much Nova. She is a big wimp, but nevertheless I know that something hurts, even though it's only occasional. I will take her to the vet of course, now that I feel better informed. Thankyou.

Hi. Can you tell me if a hip score is 6-23 is it possible that the bad side is due to an injury. As surely if a dog has bad hips you have bad hips on both sides & score high on both sides. Surely not just one side good and one side not good it must have to be down to an injury.

6 - 23 is possible and I have heard of worse and it is unlikely to be due to an accident. If your dog is that different it is best to double the worse score and consider that is the dogs score. In the case of a dog with a 6 - 23 score you would not be likely to be breeding anyway but if you had a dog with an uneven score it is best to double the worst to decide if breeding is advisable.

Don't think I have answered your question, yes, it is possible for a dog or a human to have a very poorly made hip on one side and a good on the other but the dog is still carring the gene for badly formed hips.

One of my Beardies had a score of 24(4:20)his mother did stand on him @ three days old & he was in severe pain & had to have a visit by the vet. It was the opinion of the Vet I use for hip x rays that the difference between the two hips was more than likely due to to this than anything else. However she knew I would not breed from him & also that his parents both scored under 8 with no more than  a point different & his sibling all had more even hips.

I would never breed from a dog with such an uneven score even if he/she was the most perfect dog in everyway. Until they find the inheritable components of HD this will always be my decision.

I'm really interested to read these comments.

One of my bitches - an extremely successful bitch in the ring, with an outstanding temperament, got a score of 24:3.  Now, I was pretty sure that she would have a high score on one side as she had a very nasty knock at about 8 months, which rendered her lame for quite some time.  However, she did recover and became an extremely sound mover (She won her title and later she won a ticket at nearly nine, with BOB at Crufts, and another at nearly 11 at Crufts - she was exceptional!) I was in a real quandary (sp?) as to whether to breed from her or not and talked to many people.  I have to say that no potential stud dog owner turned her down.  In the end I did breed from her once and the only one of her progeny to be shown and scored got a score under average.  Her sister was way below average, as was her father. 

It's really interesting that some people are more concerned by uneven scores than high even scores.  Having said that - if I hadn't witnessed my girl's accident and her subsequent lameness, then I'm sure that I would have felt differently.

I had a perfectly sound BC who had a score of 68(34:34)I never bred off him either despite being pestered by people.

My sister who bred Newfoundlands bred from dogs with the score dam 2/3 and sire 4/4 and in a litter of low scores there was one with a total of 69. So one can only keep trying as in a lot of cases there seems to be point in looking at the progeny scores rather than the parental to get a true picture of what the sire is throwing and the bitch is producing. A sire who's score is low but is producing a proportion of progeny with high scores should probable not be used but a sire that may have an above average score may well have progeny with overall low scored.

Responsible breeders can only do their best by researching as far back as they can and take as little risk as possible but you can't ignore an otherwise excellent dog because the hip score is above average, but if it is very high it is a big risk that may be in a couple generations the problem will re-emerge.

This is exactly the same with me. Her sister was bred from last year she had a total hip score of about 6. Her mother score was 5:7 and all through her pedigree much the same low even hip scores. Except one dog in her pedigree her Greart Grandfather on her mothers side who has a hip score of 2:28 & he is in red on the pdeigree as Sh Ch. They bred from him. I realy think that if you have got bad hips you would score bad on both sides not just one. I carnt see how if you have the bad gene that it would only make itself apparant in one hip. Anybody else have any experience in this matter I would love to hear from you.

Sorry but why would you double the worst score if it was that different?  One of my bitches that I sold has a hipscore of 10:3, the owner remembers her getting the higher scored leg stuck and having some problems with it at that time.  She has since been mated to a male with a high score, yes only one of her pups has been scored so far but it's almost half the breed averages and equal on both sides.

Just the way I think, if there is one hip that is that bad what is to stop the progeny having two hips that bad, or more likely the generation following.

Not getting at you but have you any proof of this?  Just interested!  Just seems a bit strange to think that the worst hip of over 20 points difference is the norm for that dog, if so then I would have thought that the good hip wouldn't be so low???

I've heard well-respected people say that with a very uneven hipscore that the better score is the genetic one and the worse one is due to other factors.

You may be correct JG, as I said it is just the way I feel and although I am no longer likely to breed, if I did I would be worried about a high score even if it was just on one side. There are other good dogs around to take the risk with one who has a high score. Having said that you do not throw the baby out etc. so if the animal is the end of line or the best available then you have to weigh all the factors a dog is not just a set of hips.

> I've heard well-respected people say that with a very uneven hipscore that the better score is the genetic one and the worse one is due to other factors.

I think I heard that as well. Maybe from Malcolm Willis? but I can't for the life of me find an article anywhere that discusses it. I'm not a breeder but before using any dog, no matter what their score, I would want to have their genetic history for a complete picture. You all tell me, if a dog had an uneven score and one hip was above average, but seemed unaffected, and had all of the other qualities needed to improve your line would you consider it if its siblings, parents and grandparents all had scores below average.

That's why I was asking, if an expert says the opposite and says that the better score is more than likely the correct one.  Been to a few talks on this now and the experts say that there are so many factors even down to the food dogs are fed!

I dont understand. She hasnt got two hips that are bad she has a score of 6:23. It's easy to say well her other hip should be that bad as well but it's medicaly proven by xrays that it isnt, it's 6. And like someone else has already reported that a young pup got stood on by it's mother and she witnesed this and it then went on to get a high hip score just on that side. I could have had the same thing happen to my dog before I got her at 8 weeks old. I think what I am trying to say is that people are so easy to be pessimistic or over cautious and not look at the bitch as a whole instead of just her hips. I still say if you have inherited a bad gene for your hips it's going to show in both by having a high score in both and if you are fortunate enouhg to not inherit the bad gene then you are going to get good scores in both hips. And I would say that you also need to look at the wider picture and see what her mother and father's hip scores were and any that have been scored out of the same litter and if they all point to good hip scores (which they do) Then I think it is more likely to point to an injury at some point.

FYI Alison, I just checked as I haven't heard anything and the plates were scored yesterday. The X-rays were done on 14 May so that's 6 weeks. I have to wait for the results to be posted to me now but thought you might be interested.

Can anyone tell me where I can find more info on hip scores? Considering we are all expected to score, I find it surprising that there is such limited info on the KC and BVA websites. We can easily find out what our breeds average is, but no explanations are given - just a "lower the better". I can find no reference as to whether trauma can play a part (which I, and others believe) - when the scores are uneven - everybody just seems to accept that a bad score automatically means a hereditary problem, even though generations before may have had good scores. I really think there should be more info readily available when we are paying out large amounts of money and basing breeding decisions on results that many people do not fully understand.

I don't accept that a bad score is always hereditary!

Nor me, but after doing plenty of research I can find nothing (at least on the net) to say otherwise, nor explanations on the 9 aspects covered on the scoring - we dont even get notes of explanation with the results, and I think that is bad service.

Like you good people I find the factors involved in HD or poor hip scores difficult to get my head round but unlike you I do not see how traumas could cause malformation of the joint unless that was a medical accident to the dam just prior to or whilst the bitch was in whelp.

George A Padgett says in his book Control of Canine Genetic Diseases "The environment can make hip dysplasia more or less detrimental to the phenotype, but a dog will not develop hip dysplasia if it does not have the complement of genes necessary to produce that trait." Now true he is talking about the development of actual HD symptoms but that in it's self is dependent on the construction of the hip joint and that is dependent on the set of hereditary blue prints handed down to an individual.

Now it is easy to pick a sentence from a well respected source and pretend that it is the answer but with problems caused by polygenic traits it is anything but simple and would suggest that anyone interested in this or genetics in general read this book and any other they can get their hands on. Not all totally agree with Malcolm Wills but his book is easy to read and not too difficult to digest.

Have always found that the BVA is always helpful if approached and an explanation would I am sure be forthcoming if it was requested, they always used to send out a leaflet explaining the procedure and I thought it was on the web site but perhaps it has been removed. There are also, each year, a number of seminars that could be attended and where questions could be asked.

Edit to say it would seem the information on the BVA site has been changed, of the info I was thinking of was on another site but there is this leaflett avaiable on there http://www.bva.co.uk/public/chs/chs_hip.pdf

I have seen that leaflet, but it does not explain the various scores - for instance why (certainly on all of mine) only the Norberg angle, Subluxation and Dorsal acetabular edge are scored and the rest not, and whether one measurement is more important than another. Couldnt a leg injury at the important growth stage affect the growth of the hip? We are told over excersing a puppy can also contribute and a badly positioned x-ray can throw a bad score - the BVA will do a score on all but the worst of plates. And where is it explained how one pup in a litter can have a very high score when siblings and past generations dont? 

> I have seen that leaflet, but it does not explain the various scores - for instance why (certainly on all of mine) only the Norberg angle, Subluxation and Dorsal acetabular edge are scored and the rest not, and whether one measurement is more important than another. Couldnt a leg injury at the important growth stage affect the growth of the hip? We are told over excersing a puppy can also contribute and a badly positioned x-ray can throw a bad score - the BVA will do a score on all but the worst of plates. And where is it explained how one pup in a litter can have a very high score when siblings and past generations dont? 

Did not suggest it did explain the scoring. I believe bad plates are not scored but returned unscored. The leaflet I pointed out to you does say that environment and feeding can have an effect if there is an ability for the hip to be effected because of inherited traits, I also said in my earlier post "The environment can make hip dysplasia more or less detrimental to the phenotype, but a dog will not develop HD if it does not have a complement of genes necessary to produce that trait"

The hips, like the rest of the body is constructed from the hereditary 'blue print' therefore like everything else the % in the litter effected will be in relation to the genes involved. As I said in my post if you wish to understand the genetic makeup of the dogs hips it would be best to study a few of the books on canine hereditary. For the test you would be best to contact the BVA or attend a seminar that is covering genetics.

In the mean time I will see if I still have information on the individual points looked at when hip scoring but with out the required instruments I don't think it will be of much help and may be why it is not readably available.

I always wonder why any health problems in dogs seems to be stated as hereditary but the exact same health problems in humans aren't. I know we are a different species but seems weird to me.

> I have seen that leaflet, but it does not explain the various scores - for instance why (certainly on all of mine) only the Norberg angle, Subluxation and Dorsal acetabular edge are scored and the rest not, and whether one measurement is more important than another. Couldnt a leg injury at the important growth stage affect the growth of the hip? We are told over excersing a puppy can also contribute and a badly positioned x-ray can throw a bad score - the BVA will do a score on all but the worst of plates. And where is it explained how one pup in a litter can have a very high score when siblings and past generations dont?

Who told you the BVA do noy score all the plates submitted to them ? There was a court case involving a GSD breeder(who did not & still does not hip score their dogs)who sold a puppy to a new owner who wanted a dog to do working trials with. The puppy was exceptionally lame when young & when hip scored had the highest score 53:53=106, so if the BVA don't score the hips why was this dog scored ??(breeder lost the court case BTW)

The BVA will not score bad X ray plates(ie wrong position too light/too dark etc), they are returned with the instruction to re X rays with the hips in the correct position etc etc. I know the vet I use for hip scoring X rays will only send in good quality X rays(the quality of the X ray not the hips)& has never had any plates sent back from the BVA unscored(& she has X rayed some dogs with very high scores.

Malcolm Willis used to always state that HD was not 100% genetic, however recently when he appeared for the plaintiff s in a case against a breeder(who has always scored his dogs & only bred from low scoring dogs)he stated that HD was totally genetic !!!!  Interestingly the plaintiffs lost their case against the breeder & the breeder was the first person ever to win a case regarding dogs & HD when Malcolm Willis was the plaintiff's expert witness!!). The plaintiffs had bought dogs from the breeder that had HD(from parents who were low scoring)& wanted to "take the breeder to the cleaners"for want of better wording

> I always wonder why any health problems in dogs seems to be stated as hereditary but the exact same health problems in humans aren't. I know we are a different species but seems weird to me.

HD in humans is reckoned to be hereditary but I am no expert I only know what I have read and was suggesting that those who are interested do the same thing. The people we learn from can only give their opinion, some times they will be right & sometimes not but that is the only way possible for us to learn and form opinions of our own based on learned and our own experience.

Sorry, Moonmaiden, when I said they would score all but the worst of plates, I did mean the quality of the x-ray, not the quality of the hips. It does seem unfair, though that (I think) they seem to score plates where they can see positioning is not good. I have seen, on various websites that the hips can look awful due to bad positioning and good when the same dog is positioned well - this must make a difference to the overall score.

Has anyone seen a score for any but the 3 mentioned in my post above, and does anyone know why they are not always scored? On mine, the results columns are just crossed through, not shown as 0

My BC who was scored 3:3=6 had all other the marks spaces were crossed through whereas our GSD whose score was 0 had 0's in all the mark spaces(they were scored by different scrutineers) I don't think it means the part hasn't been scored.

I have 4 by 3 different (first named) scrutineers and all are just crossed through.